Happy New Year and Welcome to 2023!

As a student of English A: Language & Literature studying in the Northern Hemisphere, what can I be doing now to improve my chances of success? Read on for tips and advice:

IBDP Year 1 Student:

If you're in your first year of the course (which you will have started in August or September) you will still be finding your feet with the course concepts, the areas of exploration, and the different literary works and non-literary bodies of work. However, for many of you it'll already be time to be considering texts and works for the Individual Oral and / or the HL Essay, and perhaps you'll be finishing units of work in class (as my class does) with practices of mini-segments of the IO on works or bodies of work studied (and their connection to global issues) and making HL Essay proposals for topic, ideas and lines of inquiry. If this is the case, take a deep-dive into Individual Oral - Structure Ideas or Individual Oral - Preparation, and into HL Essay - Choosing a Topic and HL Essay - Gaining Level 7 to help you on your way.

IBDP Year 2 Student:

If you're in your second year of the course, you are very much moving into the buiness end of proceedings. Firstly, good luck. Secondly, there is plenty you can still do to guarantee progress and success.

Hopefully, your Individual Oral and HL Essay is done and out of the way. It might be that your school has a different schedule and it isn't finalised yet. If that's the case, again, don't worry. There's still time. However, for most of you it'll be about preparing for Paper 1 and Paper 2.

With this in mind, I have reorganised the site slightly to put all specific examination practice at the top level in P1 - Examination Questions and  P2 - Examination Questions. Here you'll find example questions, student responses and explanations of examiners' marking. This should be enormously supportive as you prepare how to respond in those examinations. And remember, the bulk of the marks for the course are still available in these assessments, so with good preparation success is still very much in your hands!