Notes from the marking centre for last year's question

Section III – Module C: Representation and Text
General Comments
In the stronger responses, candidates demonstrated a skilful analysis and evaluation of the prescribed texts and judiciously selected related texts and how these shaped, supported and developed the line of argument articulated in the thesis. The stronger responses presented a sustained conceptual understanding of conflicting perspectives and history and memory with well-integrated, structured responses, demonstrating skilful control of language.

Weaker responses generally presented a limited and/or superficial understanding of the relationship between representation and meaning. These responses were descriptive rather than analytical and were limited by the treatment of the prescribed text and the selection of the text of the candidate’s own choosing. The chosen related text was not useful for furthering the analysis. The control of language was variable in the weaker responses and the development of a line of argument was not articulated, sustained or supported by reference to the texts studied.

Stronger responses integrated the analysis of the texts in order to demonstrate skilfully the relationship between representation and meaning. The related text of own choosing was chosen wisely and used judiciously to develop the thesis.

Question 10 – Conflicting Perspectives
In the case of the most popular prescribed text, Julius Caesar, some candidates considered the provocative insights generated by Shakespeare’s representation of the personality of a leader, and how a leader can be adversely affected by power; or they analysed the representation of a situation such as when an aspiring leader can deliberately provoke a coup d’état. The related text of own choosing was used to develop and challenge this aspect of representation, and further explore the diverse and provocative insights of their thesis.

Weaker responses superficially referred to aspects of conflict within texts rather than conflicting perspectives. They described the plot of their texts and superficially employed related texts that did not further the response.