Year 12 Literature

Sample exam questions organised by question-type

Socio-cultural context

  1. How can knowledge of the context of a text’s production help readers to make meanings from it? Respond with reference to at least one text you have studied.
  2. Literature - its language, its forms, its preoccupations - is a record of its time and place. Discuss with reference to one or more texts.
  3. All texts uncritically accept the cultural myths of their period (e.g. the ethnic and racial stereotypes, the class divisions, the gender constructions). To what extent do you agree? Discuss this statement in relation to one or more texts.
  4. Texts are able to provide a sense of time and place, and to comment on the values of a particular period. Discuss.
  5. A text can be confrontational, challenging and disturbing to the values of an audience. Discuss with reference to one or more texts.
  6. Literature may be read as a form of social and/or cultural history. Discuss, referring to one or more literary texts you have studied.
  7. How might literary works help us to recognize ourselves as Australians? Discuss with reference to one or more texts you have studied.
  8. How do literary works mediate or contribute to readers’ understandings of history and/or culture? Discuss with reference to one or more works you have studied.
  9. How do works of literature challenge or naturalise ideas about Australia? Discuss with reference to one or more works you have studied.

Ideology

  1. Literature is writing by the powerful, for the powerful. Discuss with reference to one or more literary texts you have studied.
  2. Consider the ways in which at least one text embodies the conflicting ideologies of a particular time and place.

Genre and intertextuality

  1. Texts sometimes draw on one or more generic traditions. Discuss how this is done and the effects of this in one or more texts.
  2. Analyse one or more literary characters and/or personas as products of generic conventions. Refer to at least one novel, play or poem you have studied.
  3. Discuss the significance of interactions between different genres in any one or more texts you have studied.
  4. Writers often use established genres and generic conventions to comment on their social, cultural and/or historical conditions. Discuss with reference to one or more texts you have studied.
  5. No work of literature is absolutely unique. Discuss with reference to at least one text you have studied.
  6. Our understanding of a text can be influenced by the connections we make between the text and other texts. Discuss, referring to one or more literary texts you have studied.
  7. Show how the meanings you make from at least one literary text are dependent upon your knowledge of other texts.
  8. Discuss how literary works reflect, reinforce or challenge ideas, beliefs and attitudes in other works. Refer to one or more texts you have studied.
  9. How do intertextual readings contribute to the circulation or construction of value systems in a society? Discuss with reference to one or more works you have studied.
  10. How do readers’ knowledge and expectations of generic conventions influence their responses to works of literature? Discuss with reference to one or more works you have studied.

Language and discourse

  1. The language of literature is richly suggestive. This allows for a wide range of interpretations. Discuss with reference to one or more texts.
  2. Consider the evocative power of language (for example, the power of particular kinds of language to promote feelings, to bring to mind ideas or to motivate action) in at least one text.
  3. Discuss how one or more writers you have studied used language imaginatively or experimentally to communicate or challenge a world-view.
  4. Discuss how different views of the world are presented through the use of different discourses (ways of thinking and speaking) in any text or texts you have studied.
  5. How do textual representations position readers to respond to social groups and ideas? Discuss with reference to one or more works you have studied.
  6. In what ways do writers shape language and text forms for ideological and/or aesthetic purposes? Discuss with reference to one or more works you have studied.

Literary devices

  1. Writers use literary techniques and devices such as point of view, tone, diction, imagery and figurative language to convey particular social meanings. Referring to at least one technique or device, analyse how it contributed to meaning in any text or texts you have studied.
  2. In what ways do literary techniques and devices create shades of meaning? Discuss with reference to one or more works you have studies.

Symbolism and figurative language

  1. Figurative language is a key element in the shaping of a reader’s attitudes to situations, settings, events, characters and/or experiences in texts. Discuss with close reference to at least one text you have studied.
  2. Discuss conflicting and complex imagery as an important feature in your reading of one or more texts.
  3. ‘A repeated image, object, musical motif, or similar element can acquire symbolic meaning over the course of a text.’ Discuss the development and significance of such an element in one more texts.

Structure

  1. Discuss the ways in which a text’s structure is a factor in the production of meaning.
  2. How a text gets from beginning to end is more than a question of plot. Discuss the influence of structure in your reading of one text you have studied.

Narrator/Persona

  1. Comment on the ways in which a narrator or persona may be used to position the reader and contribute to meaning in at least one text you have studied.

Characters

  1. In many texts characters are constructed as a means of suggesting and evaluating a particular view of the world. Discuss with reference to one or more texts.
  2. Power relationships and conflicts within a text often reflect conflicting ideas about class, race, gender or ethnicity. Discuss with reference to one or more texts.
  3. Texts often examine the way individuals struggle to dominate and/or manipulate each other. Discuss with reference to one or more texts.
  4. Underlying the construction of particular characters in texts are broader ideas about social groups. Discuss with reference to one or more texts.
  5. When ideas of ‘normality’ are constructed, particular groups or individuals are marginalised. Discuss with reference to one or more texts.
  6. Marginalised groups in society are often forced to collude with the dominant culture’s practices and beliefs in order to survive in a world of unequal power relationships. To what extent is this reflected in a text you have studied?
  7. Characters in literature can be categorised as those who grow – intellectually, emotionally, morally – and those who do not. Identify characters in one or more texts that do or do not grow, analysing how they are portrayed.
  8. The attitudes which a text encourages towards a character may not always be clear or consistent. Discuss the way in which one or more texts present inconsistent or conflicting attitudes towards one or more characters.
  9. Literary characters are more profitably read as complex intersections of social forces than as real people. Discuss with reference to at least one text you have studied.

Setting

  1. ‘Place - that is the social/moral/physical environment in which characters have their being - is central to the meanings of any text.’ Discuss the function of place in one or more texts.
  2. Discuss the role of contrasting settings in any one or more texts you have studied.

Reader context and reading practices

  1. The values of an audience and the reading practices it adopts play a large part in determining the meanings it makes of a text. Discuss with reference to one or more texts.
  2. Do literary texts confront or simply confirm our habitual ways of understanding the world? Answers with reference to one or more texts.
  3. How has your own context as a reader affected the way you have read/made meanings from a text studied this semester?
  4. Critical reading is a social practice. Discuss with reference to one or more texts you have studied.
  5. Meaning is not written but read. Make reference in your response to at least one text you have studied.
  6. While a work of literature is the product of a particular time and place, it can have much to say to readers of other times and places. Discuss with reference to at least one text you have studied.
  7. No reading of a literary work is innocent. All readings are socially and politically implicated. Discuss with reference to one or more literary texts you have studied.
  8. Explain how a particular reading practice has allowed you to construct a reading of a text. Make reference in your response to at least one text you have studied.
  9. With reference to at least one text, explore reading as a process influenced by the reader’s context.
  10. How do different reading strategies lead to different ways of thinking about a text and different ways of thinking about the world? Refer to at least one text you have studied.
  11. The historical context of an audience can have an important effect on the meanings it makes of a literary text. Discuss with reference to one or more plays.
  12. Different reading practices or strategies can deepen our appreciation of a text. Discuss with reference to one or more works you have studied.