Your exams will be two mini-versions of the real exams you'll do next summer. Below is a full guide to what you need to revise for each section of the exam. Please note that the current topic of Magazines will NOT be tested in these exams as we have only studied one of the CSPs. Instead, we'll give you a baseline assessment at the start of Year 13 that will focus on Magazines and Radio.
Know your exams
One of the most important aspects of preparing for examinations is knowing exactly what topics could come up in each exam. For your A Level Media exams, your Year 12 content will come up in the following places:
Paper 1 Section A: Language and Representation
- Unseen text: advert, social media screengrab or music promotion of some kind. Media language analysis (8 marks)
- Advertising & Marketing: Score hair cream and Maybelline That Boss Life (12 or 9 marks)
- Music Video: Common - Letter to the Free and The Specials - Ghost Town (12 or 9 marks)
Your real exam in Year 13 will also contain a 20-mark essay on Advertising or Music Video but this will not be part of your Year 12 exam.
Paper 1 Section B: Audience and Industry
- Media Industries questions - media terminology / theory (6 marks)
- Film: Blinded By The Light (9 marks)
Paper 2: in-depth topic areas
- Unseen text: advert, magazine cover, videogame cover etc. (9 marks)
- Television: Capital and Deutschland 83 (25 marks)
How to revise
Revision is a very personal thing and everyone has different techniques. Missing out on your GCSE exams might mean that you have not developed your own systems for revision or perhaps not used such techniques for a long time. Here's a video on YouTube with top tips for A* A Level revision:
Personally, I strongly recommend using flash cards (they are often called record cards if you are trying to buy them online or in WHSmiths). The simple act of distilling topics into a few key words or phrases to put on the card will seriously help in remembering the key information in the final exams. I have spare flash cards in DF07 if you'd like some.
In summary, you need to revise the following for your Year 12 Media exams:
- All media language and theory learned throughout the course so far - look back particularly at the extended MIGRAIN Introduction to Media unit as this contained a lot of key terminology and theory e.g. genre, narrative, industry theory, gender theory etc.
- All our CSPs and associated theory - and focus in on the areas YOU ideally want to write about it next year's exams e.g. politics or postmodernism for TV, Gilroy, double consciousness or postmodernism in Music Video etc.
How to plan and answer A Level Media exam questions
One of the key skills you would have developed if you'd completed your GCSEs as normal is techniques to take on exam questions. In order to help you, these 'walk and talk' videos go through a range of different A Level Media exam questions and cover the number of marks, how long to spend on the answer and what structure or points you could make in your answer. Not all of these question types or CSPs will come up in your Year 12 exams but the videos will help with exam technique and revision regardless.
Paper 1 Section A - 9 mark question on Advertising and Marketing:
Paper 1 Section A - 20 mark question on Music Video:
Paper 1 Section B - 6 mark question on Film Industry (note: different CSP to ours):
Paper 1 Section B - 9 mark question on Film Industry (note: different CSP to ours):
Paper 2 - 25 mark TV question:
Good luck with your revision and give these exams your best shot!
Due date: Tuesday 15 June (first Media exam!)
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