Exam Information

2 sections

2 hours

1 essay

1 close reading (like you just did….) - 1 poem/1 play

If you do play in first section, can’t write play in 2nd section (and vice versa)

Mainly for the essay

VIPERBAC

• VIPERBAC

  # Viperbarc

  V - values

  • what someone holds important

  V- voice

  • concept of how something is conveyed through a text in terms of who is speaking
  • author’s voice (thoughts/feelings) or character’s

  I - intention

  • purpose of this evidence

  P - perspective

  • what their viewpoint and why do they think that

  E - endorse

  • promoting an aspect of society (encourages/pro something)

  R - representation

  • how an aspect of society is presented
  • evaluate it based on its accuracy or how it is damaging

  B - belief

  • religion
  • something someone thinks is true

  A - attitude

  • how they think/feel about something

  R - Response

  • how do people react to a text
  • personal/reader response etc.

  C - challenge

  • how a text challenges an aspect of society or a value/attitude/belief

  C - context

  • what happened at the time to cause the author to write
  • personal context and author context

  Style

  • the way they write
  • author’s personal way of writing things (what makes him different from others)

  Structure

  • how a text is formed
  • poetry is stanzas
  • flashbacks and/or how the story follows the plot

  Reading practices

  • strategies that you interpret through
  • dominant is the one that most people agree on the reading is
  • resistant is the one that goes against the most people
  • alternate is a completely different reading

  Reading lens

  • interpret a text through a theory
  • e.g. feminist theory to guide how you see the text // e.g. focusing on female and males
  • use theory as a magnifying glass

  General Questions in English Exams

  Viperbarc is an acronym for remembering the different question types that they usually ask in exams. VIPERBARC is just a rough outline/theme of questions, so these are indefinite (you could be asked other questions in the exam as well)

V - values

• what someone holds important

V- voice

• concept of how something is conveyed through a text in terms of who is speaking
• author’s voice (thoughts/feelings) or character’s

I - intention

• purpose of this evidence

P - perspective

• what their viewpoint and why do they think that

E - endorse

• promoting an aspect of society (encourages/pro something)

R - representation

• how an aspect of society is presented
• evaluate it based on its accuracy or how it is damaging

B - belief

• religion
• something someone thinks is true

A - attitude

• how they think/feel about something

R - Response

• how do people react to a text
• personal/reader response etc.

C - challenge

• how a text challenges an aspect of society or a value/attitude/belief

C - context

• what happened at the time to cause the author to write
• personal context and author context

These are some other questions that they could ask?! Not as commonly seen as VIPERBARC tho

Style

• the way they write
• author’s personal way of writing things (what makes him different from others)

Structure

• how a text is formed
• poetry is stanzas
• flashbacks and/or how the story follows the plot

Reading practices

• strategies that you interpret through
• dominant is the one that most people agree on the reading is
• resistant is the one that goes against the most people
• alternate is a completely different reading

Reading lens

• interpret a text through a theory
• e.g. feminist theory to guide how you see the text // e.g. focusing on female and males
• use theory as a magnifying glass