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For educators: ready-to-use lesson slides, revision notes for Extract questions versus whole-text questions (English Literature, Skills) — use them in your lesson, or run the topic as an interactive class activity your learners play as a live game.
Read the actual paper: an extract-only question, an extract-to-whole task and a whole-text essay are not identical. This lesson uses AQA extract-to-whole guidance for its specific advice about starting with; other boards may separate parts and marks.
Both close reading and knowledge of the work can support literary analysis. The question determines what material is required and how it should be selected.
Read the actual requirement
Extract-based questions
Read the stem and passage, identifying the focus. Use the extract as a resource for thinking and close analysis.
AQA does not require the essay to begin with the extract. You may organise by idea, development or another clear line of argument while addressing both passage and wider work.
Select relevant wider moments, earlier or later than the extract, and develop links through change, continuity or recurring methods. Beginning/middle/end is a useful revision prompt, not a compulsory structure.
There is no universal half-time or equal-word rule for AQA’s holistic task. Allow time for both requirements, and follow different instructions where another paper separates parts and marks.
Select a connection rather than a quota
Whole-text questions
Select a manageable range of moments that answer the question. No fixed three-to-five-point count applies. Understanding development is more useful than reciting an unrelated quotation bank.
Use accurate quotations or precise references and paraphrase. Explain the writer’s choices and connect context where relevant to the task.
A flexible final check
Common problems
Ignoring the extract's detail; retelling the plot; writing only about the extract; forgetting the whole-text part; poor timing.
Slides
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