QUIZ – DIAGNOSTIC ASSESSMENT MODEL ANSWER: Ozymandias and My Last Duchess

It is possible to score 100% in GCSE English Language and Literature.

Scoring 100% in GCSE English Language and Literature depends on thorough practice.

In order to score 100% in GCSE English Language and Literature, you need to have a good understanding of the examiner’s requirements (the mark scheme).

Match the words to the examiner’s requirements for 100%: PART 1

Match the words to the examiner’s requirements for 100%: PART 2.

Sort the parts of a strong essay into the correct order.

Read the following paragraph and choose 3 true statements.

Shelley’s ‘Ozymandias’ begins as a metastory about a non-specific time and place, ‘an antique land’, which paints the poem not as being based on personal experience but as a story within a story, possibly reflecting Shelley’s recounts of books he read about ‘antique lands’ such as Egypt; the framed story or metastory creates a sense of distance and obscurity about Ozymandias because we are thrown into a ‘vast’ and abstract space which makes it difficult for the reader to envision what this ‘antique land’ actually looked like. This sense of obscurity appears to reflect the obscurity of the title, ‘Ozymandias’ – the Greek name for Rameses II, which Shelley had possibly chosen because it may not have been well-known to the general public of his time, but only to those who studied Greek. Consequently, the multi-layered story and obscure Greek title appear to erase the grandiosity of the Ramases kingdom, thus driving home the emptiness of Ramases’ boasts and the idea that in the grand scheme of time and nature, tyrannical power only lasts for a fleeting moment.

Read the following paragraph and choose 3 true statements.

In contrast, Browning’s ‘My Last Duchess’ creates surprise and drama by beginning in media res, forcing us to catch up with the speaker; the reader ‘stumbles’ upon a crucial moment where the Duke begins to reveal his troubling sense of reality. The Duke’s first line, ‘That’s my last duchess on the wall’, exudes an unsettling sense of objectification; the possessive pronoun, ‘my’, is also repeated in various forms throughout the poem and becomes a revealing trait of the Duke’s controlling nature as well as an expression of his inherent obsession with power; additionally, his second line, ‘looking as if she were alive.’, introduces the subjunctive mood, indicating he takes pleasure in imagining her alive, yet, ironically, suggesting she is dead, which is echoed by the ironic terminal caesura after ‘alive’; his power is expressed in the pleasure he gains by controlling her through death and the representation of that control through his fresco painting of her.

Complete the conclusion by choosing the correct words from the list.