Exam Technique & Key Quotations
Exam Technique & Key Quotations
This lesson brings together the key quotations you should memorise from across the “Worlds and Lives” cluster and provides revision strategies for the anthology comparison essay. Strong quotation knowledge combined with confident comparison skills will give you the tools to tackle any question.
Key Quotations — Nature, Place & Belonging
Wordsworth (“Lines Written in Early Spring”): “what man has made of man” — the refrain that captures humanity’s moral failure against nature’s harmony. Also: “Have I not reason to lament / What man has made of man?” — the rhetorical question inviting shared grief.
Brontë (“Shall earth no more inspire thee”): “I’ve watched thee every hour” — Earth insisting on a long, patient bond. The title itself is a key quotation: Earth’s urgent question about whether it has lost its power to inspire.
Liz Berry (“Homing”): “you kept your accent / in a box beneath the bed” and “vowels ferrous as nails” convey the yearning for a place you can hear in a voice. The title “Homing” itself — suggesting instinct, return, and the pull of where you are from.
You only need 2–3 short quotations per poem for the exam. Choose quotations that are versatile — ones you can use for multiple themes. “What man has made of man” works for nature, power, protest, and humanity’s failings.
Key Quotations — Identity & Heritage
Mundair (“Name Journeys”): “infertile English soil” and “a stumble / that filled English mouths” show what England did to her first language. A name as a journey is the core idea.
Seneviratne (“A Wider View”): “He craved the comfort of a wider view” — a mill worker’s horizon, and a long view back through a family.
Nichols (“Like an Heiress”): The title simile frames a Guyanese childhood as wealth; “a lone / wave of rubbish” then spoils it.
Key Quotations — Migration & Displacement
Berry (“On an Afternoon Train…”): The title’s documentary precision (exact route, date) is itself a key quotation. Focus on “startled me”, “racial brotherhood” and “Where are you from?”.
Robinson (“A Portable Paradise”): The title is the poem’s central concept — paradise as something internal and transportable. Focus on “white sands, green hills and fresh fish”.
Dharker (“A Century Later”): “the school-bell is a call to battle” and “You cannot kill a book / or the buzzing in it”. The title marks the centenary of the First World War.
Parker (“The Jewellery Maker”): “sits straight-backed”, tools “neat as soldiers”, a wife’s jewellery “worn thin”. Craft and money worries held side by side.
Femi (“Thirteen”): Focus on “cornered”, “powerless – plump”, and the officer’s “little stars” and “supernovas” that turn out to be “dying stars”.
Antrobus (“With Birds You’re Never Lonely”): The title is an inherited phrase, learned by a young Maori woman from her grandfather. Focus on “a silence that was not an absence”.
Shelley (“England in 1819”): “graves, from which a glorious Phantom may / Burst” — revolution rising from corruption. The entire poem is a single sentence of accumulated rage.
Eliot (“In a London Drawingroom”): “The world seems one huge prison-house & court” — the city as a place of judgement. The window as barrier between observer and world.
shamshad khan (“pot”): “you’re not really one of us”, and the wish to “shatter” the display glass. The pot as looted object and as migrant.
Revision Strategies for the Anthology
1. Quotation cards: Create a card for each poem with 2–3 short quotations, the poet’s name, and key themes. Test yourself by pulling a theme and recalling relevant quotations from multiple poems.
2. Comparison grids: Draw a grid with poems across the top and themes down the side. Fill in each cell with a brief note on how that poem relates to that theme. This reveals unexpected connections.
3. Practice under timed conditions: The comparison essay has a recommended time of 45 minutes. Practice planning (5 minutes), writing (35 minutes), and checking (5 minutes). Speed comes from knowing your quotations — you should not need to think about what to quote, only how to use it.
The exam will name ONE poem and ask you to compare it with another of your choice. Prepare 3–4 flexible pairings in advance so that whatever poem is named, you have a strong comparison ready. Each pairing should share a theme but differ in approach.
The Day of the Exam
Read the question carefully: Identify the theme or idea it asks about. Identify which poem is named. Choose your comparison poem based on which pairing gives you the richest argument for this specific question.
Plan before writing: 5 minutes planning saves time overall. Note 3 comparative points, each with quotations from both poems. Decide your evaluative conclusion — which poem is more effective and why?
Write with confidence: Use the integrated structure (both poems in every paragraph). Embed quotations into your sentences. Link analysis to context. Evaluate throughout — don’t save your opinion for the end.