GCSE Macbeth 9-1 study guide including 6 exemplar essays

Welcome to this TopMark GCSE English Literature revision guide to Macbeth for the Grade 9-1 course.
TopMark GCSE e-books are designed for you if you feel you recap your knowledge on the text and convert that knowledge into consistently delivering great essays answers to exam questions.

The book is written for the AQA examination board and the style of the AQA exam is to ask the student to consider:

1. A big theme of the play;
2. How this theme is explored in an extract from Shakespeare’s play- the student is given this extract;
3. This theme and how it is explored throughout the play.
   An example of a past AQA question is as follows for illustrative purposes (AQA material is produced by permission of AQA© AQA 2019), with the extract taken from Lady Macbeth’s soliloquy at Act 1 Scene 5:
   Starting with this speech, explain how far you think Shakespeare presents Lady Macbeth as a powerful woman.
   Write about:
   •How Shakespeare presents Lady Macbeth in this speech •How Shakespeare presents Lady Macbeth in the play as a
   whole.”
   An exemplar essay to this question is given at Chapter 4, Section 2 of this book and this is a good illustrative example of the kind of question you will get.
   To focus clearly on preparing you the best we can for the exam, the TopMark study guide is structured as follows:

• Chapter 1: This chapter summarises the learning objectives of the exam and this is also a user guide to this book;
• Chapter 2: The chapter gives you a chronological summary of the play, with quotes by scene and by theme;
• Chapter 3: The chapter highlights how to write about structure, form and language, three key areas that need to be addressed to hit the marking scheme assessment objectives (see below for full summary);
• Chapter 4: The chapter assesses the key themes of the play, offer you a summary on how to hit the context marks for each of these themes and also gives you a series of exemplar essays.
This is all designed to help you hit the mark scheme and to give you the best possible chance of achieving the TopMark GCSE you can.
A review of the AQA scheme of assessment
Here at TopMark, we recommend that- if you have not already done so- you should spend time reading your exam board GCSE English Literature specifications. Understanding how the exam is going to be assessed is paramount.