Teachers have warned that GCSE English literature students could be disadvantaged by a “difficult” and “obscure” Shakespeare extract.
Some teachers say they have complained to exam board AQA about the extract from Romeo and Juliet that students were presented with last week.
The extract was from a scene in the play where Juliet waits for her nurse to return with news from Romeo. Students were asked to write about how Juliet’s difficulties are presented in the extract and the whole play.
There are concerns that an extract in the paper from Macbeth was easier to analyse for students who had studied that play, and that those who had studied Romeo and Juliet would therefore be in a worse position when papers are marked.
Melissa Wells, head of English at Stanchester Academy in Somerset, said: “I think the Macbeth extract is one that is commonly explored in depth in GCSE scenes, whereas the Romeo and Juliet one is not so much, and I think AQA could consider the parity of questions and extracts across all of the text in terms of challenge to make it fairer.
“Particularly if you are a weaker student, I think they will have found it more difficult to pick things up.”
GCSE English extract ‘disadvantaged’ students
While teachers “have a responsibility” to ensure that students understand the whole text, a difficult extract “can throw [students] and has an impact on their confidence more than anything else”, Ms Wells said.
The way that grade boundaries are worked out means that students with a more difficult text are “disadvantaged compared to others who may have had a slightly easier one”, she added.
A deputy head of English at a school in Dorset, who wishes to remain anonymous, told Tes they had filed a complaint to AQA.
The Macbeth extract included “widely considered ‘key’ quotations for Lady Macbeth” and was one that “all students” would know and have “lots of prepared analysis for”, unlike the Romeo and Juliet extract, they said.
“Students liked the question but many said they had to read the extract several times to find something to comment on,” they added.
Students ‘mortified’
The extract also generated debate on social media.
English teacher Grace Johnston posted on X that she had complained about the “lack of parity” between the extract and other texts in the paper, and said she believed students who had studied Romeo and Juliet could be “at a significant disadvantage”.
Have raised a complaint with AQA about the lack of parity between the R+J extract and all other texts on yesterday’s paper. I believe that students who study RJ could be at a significant disadvantage and examiners need to be trained around this to ensure equity #TeamEnglish
- Miss Johnston (@Miss_GJohnston) May 14, 2024
Another user posted that students were “mortified” because the extract is “obscure and of very little significance to the whole text”.
A spokesperson for AQA said its subject experts “think carefully when they write exam questions so that they are the same level of difficulty across all options”.
Examiners mark the paper using the same mark scheme, “which makes sure that the same demonstration of skills receives the same reward - regardless of which text a student has studied”, they added.
After students have sat an exam, their performance is analysed across different optional questions to make sure the level of difficulty in the questions was comparable, the spokesperson said.
“If we find that there was a difference in difficulty between two optional questions then we can take this into account before we issue results, making sure that exams are fair to all students, past and present.”
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