r/ALevelEnglishLit

I got a total of 2A* 4As and B in First Lang English, I'm giving a retake but should I give First lang English or Second lang English?? (I've 1 month)

Are there any major pattern differences between them and is it doable in a month? I'm not the best at English but I do believe I can pull an A/A* as it's more abt techniques and practice.

Anyone who got good grades in any of these pls lemme know 😭😭

Hi

I have to write a reflection essay on a book teaching how to read literature like a professor for my AP Lit class. I started writing the intro but I'm having trouble with the thesis. I usually am good at theses but I don't think I've written this type of paper before.

Should the thesis be about how the book changed me, or a couple of things I learned from the book that I will later write a body paragraph on each?

Usually, I say something like: "This is not true because of X, Y, and Z."
Then a paragraph about X, Y, and Z, and a conclusion.

Any tips?

I don’t really know how to put this, but I’ve been trying my best to become really good at English, and every time I think I get it, I’m always wrong. My grades aren’t BAD bad, but they aren’t GOOD good either. I like English, I want to understand it and be good at it, but whenever I’m writing a test, I always get this feeling. I don’t know how to explain it, but it feels really overwhelming. Before I start, I feel like I’m gonna fail, my points aren’t good enough, and I don’t know HOW to get my ideas to one long paragraph. It’s very complicated. I just wish I could write normally, but I always mess up.
I’m going to Year 13, and I really want to understand it. I try to do past papers, but again, it’s that same feeling. But I really like the subject, and now I’m really scared because my Year 13 tutor went from an A to a C in her final A-level English, and that has really ruined my confidence in my skills. (Again once I think I get it, I’m always proven wrong)

Does anyone know anything that could help, or have any advice? I do English Edexcel, btw.

how on earth do i write this , it genuinely is so difficult I dont know where to start

I’m really struggling with everything about poetry, please share any tips that helped you

So the provisional answer keys are finally out, and naturally, I went straight to check English Literature.

And then I saw the notice saying that a committee will be constituted for English Literature and a separate circular will be issued regarding its answer key.

😭😭😭

At this point, I don't even know whether to be relieved that the answer key process has started or frustrated that English Literature has somehow been given its own special waiting period.

We've already spent days waiting for the answer key. Now there's another committee, another circular, and another round of waiting.

Meanwhile, candidates are just sitting here trying to remember every question and reconstruct their responses from memory. 💀

NTA, we understand that disputed/complex questions may require expert review. But why couldn't this process have been completed before releasing the other subjects' answer keys?

If English Literature needs a separate committee, fine. But at least give candidates a clear timeline.

Because right now the situation is basically:

NTA: Answer key released ✅

English Literature candidates: 👁️👄👁️

English Literature answer key: “Coming soon™”

Anyone else from English Literature in the same boat?

What do you guys think — why is English Literature being treated separately?

#UGCNET #UGCNET2026 #EnglishLiterature #NTA #NTAAnswerKey #NETJRF

so I got a D in my year 12 mock, but I would’ve gotten a C/B had I not had a panic attack through the first paper (didn’t end up finishing the paper at all)

This summer has been so jumbled, my personal statement, history coursework (still a lot of this to do) , sociology homework (decided to set 3 big packs??), history revision, and English coursework preparation (my books arrive TOMORROW 💀).

I need to really revise for my texts which I haven’t touched since the start of the summer. Have I already destroyed my a levels. I might sound dramatic and this is a bit of a vent, but I feel hopeless.

I did do well in my last unseen prose test tho I got level 5 I think? I’m so slumped.

We studied all of exam texts in year 12, so year 13 is just unseen practice and coursework for both of the components.

am I dead already

Hello! I just got my exam scripts for May 2026 and I’m happy to say that I got 100/100 on my A2 components for literature. The texts I studied were Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Songs of Innocence and of Experience, A Handful of Dust, The Underground Railroad for AS and Hamlet, Shakespeare’s Sonnets, Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, Long Day’s Journey Into Night, Pride and Prejudice and Beloved for A2, alongside some basic literary theory. I know these are more than the syllabus requires but our teacher wanted to allow us “choice” in our exam questions.

Anyways for a syllabus that is soooo underrepresented in the international A-Level pool, it would seem so alienating at times to study for 9695 literature with absolutely no resources online or on YT. Couple it with the serious academic demands of this syllabus, it can be quite difficult.

I’m currently preparing for my BSc Biology at Imperial College London!

Prospective and current 9695 students, AMA!

Hey, I'm really lost on what book to compare with the text my school has set for coursework. We're doing oryx and crake, which I loved and enjoyed, but I don't want to be the 1000th person who compares it to 1984, Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451, etc. I was initially thinking Cat's Cradle (Vonnegut) or the Road (Cormac McCarthy) but I felt that cradle lacked the literary intricacies, and I heard that quite a few people do the Road. I need an original text to do that isn't too much of a stretch. I was considering Paradise Lost (Milton) or East of Eden (Steinbeck) based on what I've read about them but haven't read them yet. Are they too much of a stretch and does anyone have any 'nicher' recommendations for my pairing?

I have no idea how to revise or improve my english lit grade, I use the edexcel exam board, and i've been stuck on a C the whole of year 12, everything I do doesn't improve my grade, my current predicted grades are A*A*B. I put SO much effort into my grades, my other two subjects are geo and politics, but I can't seem to improve English Lit. Any real advice on how to get off of an C grade and move towards an A would be SO appreciated, I was just looking for some advice on how to revise and improve my grades, it's more my essay writing than content understanding that's the problem, and i'd love to be able to find away to improve by 1 or 2 grades over the long term before my final exams, thank you!

don’t have anyone to share this with, just proud of myself, especially because i thought i messed up the othello q !!

i am applying for english literarure for uni, and i'm currently writing my personal statement. i want to discuss my love for feminist literature / literature exploring female identity, so far I have these books to mention / talk about in depth;

- The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (read for my NEA) (1800s)

- A Doll's House (read for my NEA) (1800s)

- The Virgin Suicides (1990s)

- The Vegetarian (contemporary)

- Breasts And Eggs (contemporary)

I feel like I'm missing a text chronologically, does anyone have any recommmendations for a (short preferrably) book I could read to fill in the gap? maybe from the early 1900s, i want something I've read outside school to be more classical because so far it's all pretty modern.

Omg I’m so happy I GOT A B!!!
how did everyone else do???

I got near perfect marks on papers 1 and 3 but completely missed the mark for paper 2. I’ve got a terrible grade because of it I am so heartbroken. I really thought if I just tried my best and my best would be enough but it wasn’t. I’m so heartbroken I can’t believe I’ve got a C, this is the lowest grade in English I’ve ever gotten. I’m just in so much pain I don’t know how to move forward from this.

I’m thinking of taking history, law and English lit for my a level courses. I enjoyed English lit in secondary - got an 8 on my mocks still waiting for my results but I was wondering if it’s a good subject in a level? I’m taking OCR. I’m thinking about going into law since my humanities subjects are very strong same with English. Would it aid my career or uni choices in the future?

I got a B which is obviously by no means a bad grade but I really wanted an A and had been working above that before exams. I do AQA and got 75/75 on my coursework and 120 on P1. But on my P2 I only got 66 (scaled marking so 33 in raw marks) That would mean that I roughly only got 11 marks on each essay (even less if those marks weren’t evenly split).

I was actually more confident about my second paper and I just can’t understand how my marks quite literally halved for Paper Two. I have never gotten below 14 marks in an essay and that was at the beginning of Year Twelve. My lowest mark for Paper Two has only even been 17/25 and that was because I never revised for that text when we did the mock.

Im just so crushed knowing that everything was in place to get even an A* as if I had gotten the same for Paper One as Paper Two I would have done and I just don’t know how I fumbled the bag so much. Anyone else in a similar position. I would be less devastated if I had done roughly the same on both exams but to get nearly an A* in one paper and a D in the other is just so heartbreaking.

I do edexcel and I am 10 marks away from a B, and usually across my essays I was getting Bs, some close to an A grade

hi guys, I was on straight Cs and Bs in year 12 and 13, ended up with an A, 1 mark off an A star and I didn’t even finish 1 of my questions. Always hope

Hi, I'm 19F doing English literature for my AL's next year, ( I know my exam year is 26, but I skipped it because I work part-time online to a foreign company and was busy with some of the international exams) To be honest, in English literature I have been covered the sylab almost more than 90%, I only have 5 poems left, and 1 drama left. The thing that I followed was joining 25AL batch classes and 26 Batch classes. So it helped to finish the entire syllabus soon. Also, in scoring , I've been taking a good role, for contexts, I usually score 5/8 , 6/8. For essay type questions I score roughly to 12-13 marks out of 17. Language paper is too easy for me. The fact that I wanna know from the guys who did LIT for AL's, how did y'all study the extracts of each poem, short stories..... I need help, wanna know the exact way to memories the quotes