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Compare those 43 essays to the £50 you would spend for an hour with a tutor. The value is mind bogglingly good.
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How ‘Lazy’ Students Can Get Grade 9
Ok, I’ve nearly finished writing a guide to essays at every grade for A Christmas Carol. One student has astounded me.
I’m going to give you their tactics before the essay. That way, you can see how this would apply to any and every text you study. The tactics are within my comments to the essay. I don’t normally give these away to free subscribers, but these are going to be so useful to you, so I’ve got to give them.
Free subscribers will get a taste of the essay after this. Paid subscribers get the whole essay, and the examiner comments.
My Comments
Thesis Statement
That thesis statement is disappointing – it has 3 parts, 3 things the essay is going to explain, which is what I recommend. But, it doesn’t link to Dickens’ ideas.
This is because the student wants to get stuck in to the extract (as the question tells you to). We have seen this as a limiting factor, especially as the extract comes from Stave 4, so writing a chronological essay will be impossible.
Always try to write chronologically.
Tactical Genius - The Beginning
This student does have another piece of tactical genius. They’ve said this to themselves:
‘Ok, I’m always going to start with the extract. But I also want to make sure I compare it to the beginning and the end of the novel. So, I’m going to find a chunk to remember from the beginning, that will give me quotes for any essay.’
Here it is:
“Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster. The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shrivelled his cheek, stiffened his gait; made his eyes red, his thin lips blue; and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice. A frosty rime was on his head, and on his eyebrows, and his wiry chin. He carried his own low temperature always about with him; he iced his office in the dog-days; and didn’t thaw it one degree at Christmas.”
The way this student has compared the way Scrooge walks is inspired – I would never have thought of it, as I would not have remembered this whole quote. But, this student has. I have full respect! Go through and see how many phrases or words from this quote are easy to apply to so many essays.
Tactical Genius - Prepare an Author’s Ideas Paragraph To Adapt to Any Extract
What else did the student prepare in advance? To gain marks, in paragraphs 2, 3 and 4, the student goes all in on linking several ways the extract reveals Dickens’ ideas. It hoovers up marks.
Tactical Genius - Prepare a Context Paragraph
Paragraph 5. That could be adapted to fit any essay title. My guess is that they memorised this word for word, packing it with context – those key words Poor Law, Malthusian/Malthus, Christian – which are bankers. And then they have linked each one to Dickens’ ideas.
Look how it is all centred around one quote – another banker for any essay – ‘decrease the surplus population’. This student is a mastermind! What brilliant tactics. What little effort! I’m so, so impressed.
Tactical Genius - Memorise a Long Quote That Fits Most Themes and Prepare a Paragraph
The next bit of preparation surprised me. Many top students have a deliberate strategy of learning quotes they know other students won’t use. That isn’t essential, you can use standard quotes, but it is a great tactic. You will stand out.
But, how do you stop yourself having to learn dozens of quotes? My guess is that this student has picked a section which is going to be relevant to any question. They pick on Fred and his support for Christmas. Christmas will always be relevant. So will Fred, because Scrooge is desperate to see him once he has transformed.
We can be pretty certain of this because Fred does not fit the topic of this question – fears – very easily at all. Did the student already plan that Fred taught Scrooge not to fear being compassionate? I doubt it. I think the student had memorised this paragraph to show that Fred teaches Scrooge to be compassionate, that he is a role model.
They knew that, whatever the key word was in the question, they would simply adapt it: so Fred is a role model who teaches Scrooge the value of ‘joy’, or Fred is a role model who teaches Scrooge that companionship is more important than ‘wealth’, or will make ‘poverty’ more bearable, or celebrates the ‘Christian’ message of the novel, etc. (The ‘key word’ in the question is emphasised with the quote marks here).
This is the section the student must have learned by heart. Fred speaks of Christmas:
“as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys … I am sorry, with all my heart, to find you so resolute. We have never had any quarrel, to which I have been a party. But I have made the trial in homage to Christmas, and I’ll keep my Christmas humour to the last. So A Merry Christmas, uncle!”
Again, this student is a mastermind! What brilliant tactics. What little effort! I’m so, so impressed.
(That said, I would not have bothered learning the part in italics – you can find everything you need in the first part).
There are two tactics the student has missed though.
1. Write a kick ass thesis statement, and memorise it to adapt to every essay.
2. Write a paragraph about the ending, linking various quotes to Dickens’ final ideas, so you can adapt it to every essay.
These two tactics would have guaranteed full marks.
Student Response 16 June 2018
27 marks (Grade 9)
Throughout the novella, Scrooge moves from being terrified to brave. His main fears are of the ghosts, the future they reveal, and his own fate.
The extract focuses on the Ghost of Christmas yet to come, as a “Phantom” which approaches “slowly, gravely, silently’”. This LIST OF ADVERBS implies that Scrooge’s fears arrive with the Phantom, and this encourages Dickens’ readers to experience the same fears. This list also suggests that fear is inescapable, not just for Scrooge, but us also. Dickens will show that we can be strengthened by such fears if we choose to be kind and good. Dickens wanted his Victorian readers to reject selfishness, and he dramatises this by portraying fearful consequences to Scrooge’s selfishness.
One antidote to fear is to celebrate the generosity of the Christmas spirit in our daily lives. Dickens used the novel as an ALLEGORICAL INSTRUCTION to his readers, because he saw the social consequences of individual selfishness, and wanted to ease the hardships faced by the poor.
The extract shows Scrooge’s fear of the future and of the ghost associated with it, showing his “legs trembled beneath him”. This illustrates how he has almost lost physical control and given in completely to his fear. Dickens also deliberately CONTRASTS this with the description of Scrooge’s legs at the beginning of the novel, where he walked with a “stiffened … gait”. Like stone, he was “cold” and unmoving. Yet here he can “hardly stand”. Dickens is making the connection between Scrooge’s past sins resulting in a fear of the future, implying our sins will work the same way.
(Did you work out what the italics are for? Every time the student writes an explanation. CAPITALS are methods).
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