Extract or Discursive?

One question, two ways in

The 19th-century prose section is worth **40 marks**, and it is unusual: **you are offered two question types and you choose one.** - **Extract-based**: a passage from your novel is printed. You analyse it closely and link it outward to the rest of the book. - **Discursive**: no passage. A question about the whole novel, answered entirely from your own knowledge. They are worth exactly the same. Neither is the harder option in general, and **the examiner has no preference.** What matters is that they reward **different revision**, so the honest answer to "which should I do?" is decided in the weeks before the exam and only confirmed in the first minute of it. This module is about knowing which you are.

Extract or whole novel

What each one actually asks of you.

Which one suits you?

You revise by annotating passages in detail and you analyse language confidently, but you struggle to recall quotations from parts of the novel you have not looked at recently. Which question type suits you, and why?

• Extract-based, because the text you most need is printed for you, leaving your effort for the analysis you are already good at
• Discursive, because it is more impressive to work without an extract
• Either; the choice makes no real difference
• Whichever question looks easier on the day

The section where spelling counts

You may have been told that spelling and punctuation do not carry marks in English Literature. **In this section they do.** **AO4, technical accuracy, is assessed in only two places in the whole qualification**: this one, and the Shakespeare question. Nowhere else. What that means in practice: - **Write in accurate, complete sentences**, and punctuate them properly - **Spell the author's and characters' names correctly.** A protagonist misspelled in every paragraph is an error repeated a dozen times, and it is entirely avoidable - **Leave two or three minutes at the end to read it back.** Most of what you would lose here is findable in a single careful pass **None of this replaces the analysis.** AO1 and AO2 still carry most of the marks. But accuracy is free marks you have already earned by knowing the material, and losing them is the cheapest kind of loss there is.

What AO4 rewards

Select the TWO things that genuinely improve your AO4 marks here.

• Writing in controlled, correctly punctuated sentences throughout, rather than in long unbroken runs
• Spelling the author's name, the characters' names and key literary terms correctly
• Writing as much as possible, since length shows effort
• Using the longest vocabulary you can, whether or not you are sure of the meaning

Match each student to the better choice

The first two minutes

Put these steps into the order that gets you to a decision quickly and keeps you there.

• Read BOTH questions before deciding anything
• Read the printed extract as well, since a passage you know well can make the extract option much stronger than its question first suggested
• Check the choice against the one you had already decided you were, and only override it for a clear reason
• Commit, and write the chosen question number down
• Spend the next few minutes planning that answer, and do not reopen the decision

Context that earns its place

AO3 is frequently central to the strongest answers here. These four strands run across OCR's six novels, and all six are out of copyright, so you can read any of them in full for free.

Choosing and committing

The 19th-century prose question offers a choice between an _____ question and a _____ one, and both are worth the same. This is one of only _____ sections in the qualification assessed for _____, so spelling and sentence control carry marks here. The decision should be made _____ the exam and confirmed in the first minute, because the most expensive mistake available is _____.

Find the link outward

Part of an extract-based answer. Tap the TWO places where the student moves from the extract to the rest of the novel, which is what an extract question requires.

• In this passage the narrator describes the room in short, clipped sentences that refuse to settle.
• The same restlessness appeared much earlier in the novel, when the narrator first arrived, so the writer is returning to a pattern rather than introducing one
• The vocabulary is drawn almost entirely from cold and enclosure.
• It also prepares for the ending, where the same imagery returns at the moment the situation is finally resolved
• The paragraph closes without a full resolution.

Two openings, compared

The same novel, the same 40 marks, two completely different first paragraphs. **Extract-based opening:** "This passage is built on a contrast the novel returns to repeatedly. The narrator's short sentences here refuse the resolution the scene seems to promise, and the same refusal appeared when the situation was first introduced. Reading the extract against that earlier moment shows the writer withholding something deliberately." **Discursive opening:** "The novel treats this question in three distinct phases, and its answer changes between them. Early on it is presented as a matter of circumstance; by the middle it has become a matter of choice; and by the ending the two have been deliberately confused. Tracing that shift is the most revealing way into the question." **Look at what each one commits to in its first sentence.** The extract answer commits to a feature of THIS passage and promises to link outward. The discursive answer commits to a shape across the WHOLE novel and promises to trace it. **Both are arguments, not descriptions.** Neither opens by saying what happens in the book, and that is the single most important thing they have in common.

Write a linking sentence

Build the sentence that takes an extract answer out of the extract, which is where those answers most often fall short.

Making the choice on the day

You open the paper at the 19th-century prose section. Work through the next few minutes.

• You had decided in advance that you are a discursive candidate. The discursive question is on a theme you find difficult. What do you do?
• Fifteen minutes into the extract answer you realise the discursive question would have suited you better. What now?
• You finish with four minutes left. What is the best use of them?

Your turn: choose and justify

Decide which question type suits you for your own novel, and plan the opening of that answer.

• Name your novel and state which question type you would choose, giving a reason drawn from how you actually revise
• Name one weakness of that choice for you, and one thing you will do to guard against it
• Write the opening sentence of that answer, committing to an argument rather than describing the plot
• Name one AO3 context strand relevant to your novel, and say how you would use it without bolting it on