These notes relate to last years conferences 2006/2007. New material will be posted before the 2007/2008 events.

Chief Examiner’s answers
A lot of students have asked questions about comments that Peter Buckroyd and Tony Childs make in their examiner sessions at the Poetry Live conferences. Peter and Tony have compiled these answers for us.

Do you really lose a third of your marks if you forget to compare the poems you write about?

Yes. In addition to answering the question, you need to remember to write about three things: how you respond to the poems, why you think the poets have written them in the ways they have, and what you think about the poems when you compare them. These three things are equally weighted, so if you forget to do one of them, you lose a third of the marks.

You said that you weren’t interested in what our teachers thought. Does that mean we shouldn’t take any notice of our teachers?

No! Your teachers will help you to acquire the skills you need for the exams, and will help you to explore the poems. The point in saying that ‘we’re not interested in what your teachers have to say’ is that examiners want to know what you think about the poems, and how they are written. When you’re writing in the exam, responding to a question which (obviously) you didn’t know beforehand, you should think about and write about what you think about them – don’t just try to remember anything the teacher might have said. Anyway, you might think of something new in the exam – which is fine!

When you were talking about Gillian Clarke’s poem Cold Knap Lake, you said that we needed to think about the connections she makes at the end of the poem, and why she ends it the way she does. What did you mean?

Well, it’s what you think that matters! But here are some ideas. The poem ends:

All lost things lie under closing water
In that lake with the poor man’s daughter.

You can see that the last two lines rhyme. It’s the only full rhyme in the poem, too. Why do you think the poet connects ‘water’ and ‘daughter’ at the end? How else does she (Gillian Clarke) tie things together in these lines? (Look for repetitions of sounds) What ‘lost things’ are under the water, apart from the daughter? The rhythm of the penultimate line means that the word ‘lie’ is stressed. What does ‘lie’ mean apart from lying down? What else in the poem might be ‘lying’ in this sense? Why is the water ‘closing’ over things – ‘all lost things’, not just the daughter?

Lots of questions! – but they might help you to explore the end of the poem.

You said that candidates who did well took the time to write a lot about one little bit, rather than trying to write about everything. But aren’t you supposed to tell the examiner what you know?

By the time you do the exam, you’ll know more than you can write down about 4 poems in Literature or the two poems in English Paper 2. You have to select from what you know to answer the question. Part of that selection should be thinking which details of some of the poems you might be able to write quite a lot about, given the question. A good example is the answer above – if the exam question had been something like ‘How do the poems present memory?’ you could probably write quite a lot about the last two lines of Cold Knap Lake, and showing that skill would earn you marks.

In English Literature, don’t you have to write equally about all four poems?

No, not at all. You do have to write about four poems, and you have to show that you can compare some of them, but the marks are for the skills you show overall, not a quarter of the marks for each poem. That’s why you can afford the space and time to write quite a lot about one little bit, which means you might end up writing more about one poem than the others – you don’t have to do that with every poem.

In Vineeta’s exam answer that you went through on the day, you said that it was really good that she gave lots of examples. Our teacher said so too, and that we should always follow the PEE rule. Do you think that’s a good idea?

Well, up to a point. ‘Point – Example – Explain’ is what Vineeta does, but she does more than that. Generally, PEE helps to get you to a C band answer, explaining how the writer achieves an effect, for example. To do better, however, you have to go on from there. Vineeta certainly started to explore the ideas she had, and started to analyse a little too, though she could have done this a little more successfully, as we tried to show. Certainly she develops some of her ideas – just PEE might lead you to stopping short of that.

How much time should I spend on planning in the exam? What should be in the plan?

The two exams with poetry in are different. In English Paper 2, you have to write about 2 poems in 45 minutes, and in English Literature you have an hour to write about 4 poems. For English Literature, you might need as much as 10 minutes to think before you start to write – you need to think about the question, choose the poems you’re going to use, and then think how you’re going to respond. English probably needs a little less time, but still some – you really do need to think before you start. All candidates, no matter how ‘good’ they are, need to think first.

There aren’t any hard and fast rules about what should be in your plan. The important thing is that it helps you to write appropriately about the poems – what you think they’re about, why you think they are written in the ways that they are, and how you are going to compare them. Plan to compare from the beginning. Your plan might be sequential, that is to say an outline of the things you’re going to say in the order you’re going to say them, or it might be some details that you’re going to use for this question. It’s the thinking that matters.

What are the questions for next Summer?

Wouldn’t you like to know!