Anyone else's kid not expecting a Lady Macbeth question in todays English lit exam

[Jennywren8]

He revised kingship mainly as thought that would come up, arrrghh

DD had heard a rumour that it might be kingship but thought it was unlikely as that would be quite a difficult question. As there's no choice on this paper it needs to be a theme that is accessible for the weaker students. She was happy with Lady Macbeth!

Ds had no problems with Lady Macbeth as a topic, he did think the J&H passage they used was a weak one for the question but got lots in.
Paper 2 is his preferred one, they’ve done Never Let Me Go which he really enjoyed- he at least read the whole thing unlike yesterday’s texts 🙄

Never listen to nonsense predictions online. They have never seen the paper. They don't know what the question is. It's bullshit.

It wasn't! Some idiots on social media said it would definitely be and some students believed them. It was nonsense.

No. No paper leak. People have been saying it will definitely be Kingship for the past 3 years.
The R and J question has been Juliet focused 3 years running. It's just the boards running out of questions that everyone can access.

Yes my DS loved the Macbeth but thought the Christmas Carol extract was ' boring'. He said he wrote more on the general themes of the book.

I live Never let me go but it's the last year its being used as a set text.

@DramaLlamaBangBang he’s genuinely enjoyed it, some of his class have found it a challenge though. Is it being dropped or moved to A Level?

Shakespeare's work has been around rather a long time and isn't showing any signs of going out of fashion. Examiners of various kinds have been asking questions about Lady Macbeth for well over 200 years and I suspect will continue to do so for at least a few decades to come.

@65skelmersdalelane

I think you may have misunderstood me. I appreciate that revising all themes should be obvious.

Your tone is a bit rude to me. Saying it's more nuanced and you can't bring in loads of random stuff! I'm aware of that. Ds1 never did Macbeth, and I think it's quite a hard Shakespeare, that ds2 will be sitting next year. I'm just trying to be supportive and discuss with him that whatever the question, if at all possible you squeeze into your answer all the major themes: good versus evil, the dangers of ambition, the influence of supernatural forces, the contrast between appearance and reality, loyalty and guilt, etc.

Did your child expect Juliet to come up in the exam yesterday? My sister is doing her GCSEs and wasn’t impressed when she saw Juliet! Apparently, the teachers assumed it wouldn’t come up as the paper has been on Juliet for the past 3 years😆

Good luck to all DCs who have exams

You can't make predictions based on what they've done before. Also ignore anyone who says the board have said they'll not set Tissue for poetry. This also is NOT true.

My DS said he was going to learn Tissue because o one knows what it's about so you can just make up any old thing! Not sure how true that is! Its probably best if e leartns the most obscure n.I dont know Ive never heard of Tissue!

Oh I don't know. When I was looking up the criteria for DS it just said ' examined until 2024' It could be being moved to A Level.

You can't make predictions based on what they've done before

Absolutely - bit obscure but London Board A level Greek unseen translation paper had a passage from the same play several years in a row in the 1980s. (Very pleased it was one I'd read!)

It's not moving to A Level. They dropped the 3 least popular texts to replace with more diverse texts leaving all the ones written by dead white Anglo-Saxon men on the spec still. So no real change in diversity.

It's a VERY long time since I did my GCSEs (30 years to be precise 🫣), but I distinctly remember our teacher saying, you need to know the text well because past papers from the last few years cannot be relied on to predict what will come up this year! Therefore, you need to be prepared.

We did Macbeth, and I'm pretty sure ours was a Lady M question!

Yes if you want a more diverse texts, dropping Ishiguro seems counter productive surely? But I suppose if schools aren't choosing it as a set text they cant really do anything about that. A shame, its a beautiful book. I did The Color Purple for GCSE 30 years ago. is that still in?

@GrammarTeacher that’s a real shame - it’s such a thought-provoking text.

Yup. It's stupid. They should have cut An Inspector Calls but won't for business reasons. The play is nearly 100 years old but still on a Modern texts list!

Kingship is very unlikely ever to come up in exactly those terms. English is untiered and it would make the task inaccessible to the students working at the lower end of the grades. If it did ever come up it would be a much more broadly phrased question, and it would be up to the highest-performing students to apply kingship as a concept.

The TikTok GCSE influencers have a lot to answer for. I have squashed more urban legends parroted by year 11 this year than in any previous year. Above all else, it is deeply foolish to gamble on a topic coming up based on previous years - Juliet has now been the focus of the AQA Shakespeare question for four years running.

@MyOtherCarisAVauxhallZafira I mean, the play was written in 1606. What drastic new angle for questions were you expecting to appear in the past 24 years….?

@PosyPrettyToes 😂 i don't know, I think I just feel for the poor English teachers, teaching the same thing for thirty years!

The play is 70 years old and DD1 loves it. She wasn't happy with her Lady Macbeth answer and was annoyed at herself because she thought it was an easy question that lots of people would do well in.

My Shakeseare play at GCSE was The Winters Tale which is just the stupidest play going! At least Macbeth is exciting!