Your exams and how this blog works

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In your English lessons, you are studying for TWO GCSEs.

English
and English Literature.

English
60% exam (2 2-hour papers, Paper One and Paper Two)
20% speaking and listening coursework
20% written coursework (four essays: creative writing, transactional writing, Shakespeare, poems from other cultures)

English Literature
70% exam (one 2.5-hour paper consisting of three sections - one on a play, one on a novel, one on an unseen poem)
30% coursework (four essays: Shakespeare, poems from other cultures, pre-1914 poetry, pre-1914 prose)

The exam board is WJEC, the Welsh board.

This blog has been designed to help you understand and revise for all three papers. There is lots of information, tips, practice questions and links.If you look on the right, there is a list of labels. Click on these and it will direct you to all the information about that particular label. For example, click on An Inspector Calls and you will get four posts about the play, how to answer a question on it, key quotes, etc. Or, if you are worried about answering Section B type questions, click on that and you will get all the posts helping with that.

Saturday 9 May 2009

An Inspector Calls - Gerald Croft



Gerald is engaged to Sheila. He had an affair with Eva after she was sacked from the shop.
  • At the start, Gerald seems to agree with Mr Birling that there is no possible link between them and Eva. ‘After all, we’re respectable citizens, not criminals.’ (22)
  • When his story comes out, he does seem to have treated Eva better than the others, certainly better than Eric. Eva falls in love with him. ‘She told me that she’d been happier than she’d ever been before – but that she knew it couldn’t last.’ (39)
  • 'She became my mistress. She was young and pretty and warm hearted – and intensely grateful.’ (37)
  • Even then, he rejects any responsibility for Eva. ‘I hadn’t set eyes on the girl for at least six months. I don’t come into this suicide business.’ (26)
  • Later, he is the character who discovers the truth about the Inspector, but it is left unclear if he has been changed or not by the night’s events.