1. The trouble with poetry Or How to cover all four poems and get the most marks with the least amount of effort

2. Answer the Questions (“You were only supposed to blow the bloody doors off”) You MUST answer the question precisely. They are worded in different but specific ways. You will most likely have to choose TWO poems from the pre-1914 batch, ONE by Simon Armitage and ONE by Carol Ann Duffy. Think COUNTDOWN. "Two from the top row; one from the middle row; one from the bottom row."

3. In other words: You want to think highly trained safecracker As opposed to a semtex wielding nutcase. Blow the doors off the questions. Do not just create a mess.

4. Tips (How to make the most of what you’ve got) Opening paragraph should link all four poems: the red region, the bull's eye. (Although the blue regions look important, revealing overlaps between three of the four poems, we advise for practical reasons to omit them.) Your essay will gain a lot of marks for COMPARISON, so use the GREEN sectors to focus on comparisons between pairs of poems. The clever ones amongst you will realise that the green sectors therefore must subsume and include the blue sectors! Keep your eye on the bull's eye; bring back each comparison, however far you've gone, to the key red overlap.

5. Or more precisely: You do not have to write the same amount on each poem. You MUST write something on each poem; the most marks are reserved for COMPARISON. A more accurate Venn diagram might therefore look something like this. The clever ones amongst you might notice that although the basic circles here - mainly yellow- vary according to the poems chosen, the green areas - the key comparisons - remain broadly equal. Interesting.

6. What examiners look for: When the examiners refer to 'comparison', they are also including 'contrast'. Think of comparisons and contrasts. In comparing between 'old' and 'modern' poems, it is permissible to draw attention to the differences evident as a result of the period in which they were composed. The more you compare, the better your answer. Think of different responses and interpretations. You might want to compare and contrast the way readers might be expected to respond to each of the different poems. Integrate comparisons within paragraphs. Use concise quotations to support your argument.

7. Answer model Use the MAGIC TRIANGLE to make sure you are making the right sort of points.

8. Or you can just FLIRT F – Form L – Language I – Imagery R – Rhythm T – Tone At least as a starting point but don’t forget to think about the impact on the reader

9. Example Question Here is a sample question to consider: In Hitcher, Simon Armitage writes about a deviant or disturbed character. Compare Hitcher with one poem by Duffy and two pre-1914 poems that present deviant or disturbed personalities.

10. Start of an answer What is most interesting about Hitcher, and about several of the other poems we have studied, is the way in which the poet has told the story through the voice of a deviant and violent personality. This is unsettling to the reader who at the same time may be horrified at the mentality of the character and puzzled by questions concerning the honesty of the 'confession'. That all these characters feel the need to confess their crimes seems in itself bewildering and disturbing. In My Last Duchess, Browning's aristocrat confesses his crime - "I gave commands/ And all smiles stopped together" but his confession is cautious and necessarily vague. He does not specify what commands he gave - though we can guess - and he does not state explicitly that he has had his wife murdered. Not only that, but his listener, a servant, might feel unable to report the confession to any authority figure, such as his own master, through fear of intimidation and bullying. Similarly, in Hitcher, we hear the voice of the protagonist - "I let him have it" - as if we are witnessing a confession or police statement. The details of the assault are here explicit and the protagonist's part in the attack apparently unambiguous: "once with the head and six times with the krook-lok". That detail about the krook-lok, and the use of a rather "unpoetic" word, a trade name, seems to make the confession convincing and honest. However, as we shall see, some readers may see, even in this violent honesty, a certain ambiguity which lends a new and fuller meaning to the poem.

11. Please note At no point does the writer just RETELL THE STORY!