Shakespeare as an Exam Problem

This is Unit Fifteen of Analyzing and Interpreting Literature, part two of two. Part one matched his four difficulties to four earlier units. This part says what the exam will not ask, and closes the craft units. Part one's governing idea was that nothing about Shakespeare is a new technique. This part pays it off at the close of the craft units: ten units have covered poetry, prose and drama, and every question type in the board's sample set is now answerable by a procedure rather than by recall. First, what you will not be asked: no title, no date, no plot, because the passage must be self-sufficient, which permits a candidate to skip what earns nothing and practise on one sonnet a day. Then editions and apparatus: exam texts are modernised, an editor's direction is an editor's, numbers and note marks are navigation, and a study guide's reading is the guide's. Then five traps, the first of them recognition itself. Then working under time, with order mattering more than speed and three fallbacks for a passage that resists, and the three bands one passage answers. Last, what this course has deliberately not asked anyone to memorise, and why orientation comes after procedure. By the end you will be able to skip what earns nothing. To mark apparatus as apparatus. To defeat five traps. To work him under time. And to state what is complete, what was never memorised, and what remains.

Three entries to start: what no question asks, what that permits a candidate to skip, and a practice habit of one sonnet a day.

No titles, no dates, no plot.

AIL 1426 What You Will Not Be Asked

No question asks which play a passage comes from, when it was written, or what happens elsewhere in it. The board states the exam requires no familiarity with specific works, so a passage must be self-sufficient and outside knowledge is never the answer; the passage is self-sufficient.

Skip the plots; keep the procedures.

AIL 1427 What That Permits You to Skip

Memorising plots, dates and character lists earns nothing. The preparation that pays is the syntax procedure, the shifted senses, and the theatrical conventions. That is a much smaller body of work than reading the complete plays, and it is the work this course has done; a smaller body of work than it seems.

One sonnet, four measurements, daily.

AIL 1428 How to Practise

Take one sonnet a day and run unit nine's four measurements and unit two's parse. Fourteen lines is a few minutes, and the habit transfers directly to the speeches. Reading whole plays is pleasant and is not what the paper rewards; the habit is what transfers.

Five entries on editions and apparatus: why editions differ and exams modernise, a direction an editor added, why apparatus must be marked, numbers and note marks as navigation, and the study guides attributed.

Editions differ; exams modernise.

AIL 1429 Editions Differ

Spelling, punctuation and stage directions vary between editions of his work, because the early printings do too. An exam passage will be modernised. Unit one's obligation holds: quote the source and expect the printed text to be tidied, unit one's obligation once again.

That direction is an editor's.

AIL 1430 A Direction the Editor Added

The anchor's Twelfth Night prints a direction telling Viola to include the audience as she says she is not what she is. That instruction is an editor's reading, not Shakespeare's text, and amendment V-9 forbids making a teaching point of apparatus. The line works without it.

One scholar's reading, on the page.

AIL 1431 Why Apparatus Must Be Marked

A reader who takes an editorial direction as authorial is taking one scholar's interpretation as evidence. The distinction is the same one decision D6 makes about readings generally, applied to the page rather than to a commentary; decision D6, applied to apparatus.

Navigation, not text.

AIL 1432 Numbers, Brackets and Footnote Marks

The anchor's play texts carry line numbers and bracketed note markers inside the verse, which unit thirteen noted. Those marks are navigation for a reader, they are not Shakespeare's text, and an exam passage will usually print line numbers and nothing else; exams print line numbers only.

A guide's reading is the guide's.

AIL 1433 The Anchor's Shakespeare Guides

The anchor supplies study guides for both plays, offering readings and questions. Under decision D6 a guide's reading is attributed to the guide. They are useful for finding what a scene is usually thought to be about and are not evidence about an exam passage; direction, not evidence.

Five entries on the traps: the remembered meaning, the assumed volta, the modern sense, the character read as the author, and the Renaissance band treated as biography.

Recognition raises the risk.

AIL 1434 Trap: The Remembered Meaning

Two of this unit's famous lines mean something other than their reputation, and unit fourteen found a third. Where a candidate recognises a quotation, the risk of answering from memory rather than from the page is at its highest; three famous lines, three distortions.

The convention has exceptions.

AIL 1435 Trap: Assuming a Volta

Not every sonnet turns at line nine, and Sonnet seventy-three does not turn at all. An option describing a turn that is not there will attract a candidate who has learned the convention without learning its exceptions, and Sonnet seventy-three is the case to remember.

The wrong sense still reads.

AIL 1436 Trap: The Modern Sense

His vocabulary is where unit three's trap is densest. Want, still, conceit, wit, brave, rude and fond all appear in his lines carrying senses that have since moved. The modern reading of any of them usually leaves a readable sentence, which is what makes it expensive; readable errors are the costly ones.

A good line is not an endorsement.

AIL 1437 Trap: Reading a Character as the Author

Unit five's rule holds with full force. Claudius says true things about prayer and is a murderer; Orsino says memorable things about love and is being mocked for them. A line's quality is no evidence that the play endorses it, and Orsino is being mocked.

Period orders expectations only.

AIL 1438 Trap: The Renaissance Band as Biography

Knowing he wrote in the fifteen nineties and sixteen hundreds orders your expectations about syntax and word sense, which is useful. It answers no question directly, because no question asks for a date. Period knowledge is a reading aid, not an answer; no question asks for a date.

Five entries on time and the bands: the order that matters more than speed, three fallbacks for a passage that will not open, the three bands one passage answers, the Renaissance beyond him, and what to carry.

Measure or read directions, first.

AIL 1439 Working Him Under Time Pressure

On a sonnet, measure and parse before reading for sense. On a speech, read the directions and establish who hears. Both take under a minute and both prevent the errors that cost most. The order matters more than the speed, and order is what to guard.

Verb, subject, then the last two lines.

AIL 1440 When a Passage Will Not Open

Find the main verb. If that fails, find the subject and work outward. If that fails, read the last two lines, which in his verse usually restate or resolve the rest. Three fallbacks, in that order, and one of them almost always works.

One passage, three bands at once.

AIL 1441 Which Bands He Answers

A Shakespeare item counts toward poetry or drama, toward British writing, and toward the Renaissance and seventeenth century. One passage, three bands, which is why the weightings overlap rather than add, as unit one established; the bands overlap and do not add.

The writer here, the age in unit seventeen.

AIL 1442 The Renaissance Beyond Him

The band also carries Donne, Milton and Marlowe, all met in earlier units. Unit seventeen takes the period properly, with its habits of thought and its characteristic forms. This unit has covered the writer; that one covers the age, and Donne, Milton and Marlowe are already met.

Three shapes, four difficulties, three fallbacks.

AIL 1443 What to Carry Forward

The three shapes he arrives in, the four difficulties with their matching units, the three fallbacks for a passage that resists, and the warning that his famous lines are misremembered. Nothing on that list requires reading a play, and no play need be read entire.

Seven entries to close: the craft units complete, what the course has not asked you to memorise, what orientation is for, why it comes last, how much is enough, the shape of what remains, and the handoff to the smallest band.

Ten craft units, all three genres.

AIL 1444 The Craft Units Complete

Ten units have covered poetry, prose and drama, and this one has consolidated the writer who spans them. Every question type in the board's sample set is now answerable by a procedure rather than by recall; here the governing idea pays off, procedure and not recall.

No plots, dates or biographies.

AIL 1445 What This Course Has Not Asked You to Memorise

No plot summaries, no dates, no author biographies, no lists of works. The design decision in the unit map was that the exam supplies its passage and asks what the words do, and every unit so far has honoured it; the design decision, honoured throughout.

Expectation, held lightly.

AIL 1446 What Orientation Units Are For

Units sixteen to twenty supply period expectation: what to expect of a passage from a given age. That is a reading aid of the kind the last trap in this lecture described, held lightly, and it is the last thing this course adds before the capstone; a reading aid, not an answer.

Procedures first, periods after.

AIL 1447 Why Orientation Comes Last

Period knowledge is only useful once the procedures exist to apply it to. A candidate who learns centuries before learning to parse a sentence has facts with nothing to do. The order of this course is deliberate and this is the entry that states it; facts need something to attach to.

Enough to set expectations, no more.

AIL 1448 How Much Period Knowledge Is Enough

Enough to expect a sonnet sequence from the fifteen nineties, heroic couplets from the seventeen hundreds, and free verse from the nineteen twenties. That is orientation. Anything finer is scholarship, and the exam does not ask for it; finer than that is scholarship.

Five orientations, then the capstone.

AIL 1449 The Shape of What Remains

Five orientation units and a capstone. Classical and pre-Renaissance, the Renaissance, the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the twentieth and twenty-first, and the tradition bands. Then the whole procedure run cold on the board's own sample questions, and the capstone runs it cold.

Next: the smallest band.

AIL 1450 What the Next Unit Does

The next unit takes the classical and pre-Renaissance band, worth three to seven percent and the smallest on the paper. Homer, Sophocles, Beowulf and Chaucer carry it, along with the works-in-translation question that band raises and unit twenty settles properly; three to seven percent.

That is what the exam will not ask, editions and apparatus, five traps, working under time, and the craft units complete, with the governing idea paid off in procedure over recall. You can say no question asks title, date or plot, skip what earns nothing, and practise on one sonnet a day. You can expect an exam text to be modernised, mark an editor's direction as an editor's, treat numbers and note marks as navigation, and attribute a guide's reading to the guide. You can refuse the remembered meaning, the assumed volta, the modern sense that still reads, the character taken for the author, and the period taken for an answer. You can measure or read directions first, fall back to verb, subject, then the last two lines, and count one passage toward three overlapping bands with the age left to unit seventeen. And you can state that ten craft units are complete, that no plots, dates or biographies were ever memorised, that orientation is expectation held lightly and comes after procedure, and that five orientation units and a capstone remain. Unit sixteen takes the smallest band.