How do I revise for English Literature?

English Literature must be one of the hardest subjects to revise. Some subjects such as the Sciences have certain answers in black and white on a mark scheme, so it is easy to revise by yourself, doing and marking your own papers. English is not so easy, however, it is not impossible and there are one or two specific ways of revising for the exam which are sure to put you in the best possible place to tackle the essays.

First of all, look to the mark scheme for guidance, and then plan your revsion around it. At the end of the day you will do well in the exam if you can tick all of the boxes which the examiner is looking for. This is important and often neglegted as students write good essays but ignore certain requirements and so limit themselves to low marks.

Second, learn some quotations from the books. Go through the set texts and select some quotations to use, then learn them. You must be ruthless in your selection as unless you have a photographic memory you will not be able to remember all the useful quotations in the books, however, if you learn as many quoatations as you can by heart then you will save yourself time in the exam where otherwise you will find yourself fumbling through the book hopelessly looking for relevant sections to back up your points. You may even plan your essays around your quotations.

Do essay plans. Essay plans needn't take an inordinate amount of time, especially considering that you should be doing them in five minutes of so in the actual exam. I would suggest spending 5/10 minutes scribbling down rough plans for all the past essay questions without reference to notes or texts, and then going through the plan with someone else and with notes to see what you have missed out. Keep going until you aren't missing anything.

Finally, spend a few hours doing some full questions, put yourself in exam conditions and do the paper. The primary aim of this exercise is to get to grips with timing, however it also serves other functions as it prepares you for your exams and reaffirms the knowledge of what you have written. What is more, many people think quickest whilst they write and are under pressure, so it may help you come up with new arguments and opinions on the text.