York Notes for A Level: Tess of the D’Urbervilles includes features to help you achieve top grades, including extract analysis of key passages, to add extra in-depth information and also to demonstrate how to approach detailed analysis, a key skill in your exam. Students who can demonstrate this depth of understanding, linking out to contexts and critical interpretations, in their exam responses to Tess of the D’Urbervilles questions are likely to achieve a higher grade than those who comment on the novel in general terms. You might be asked, for example, to discuss moments in the novel where the narrator seems to look to Tess’s future fate, even while discussing the present moment, to explore the interplay of faith and doubt in nineteenth-century literature with reference to the novel and to discuss how the novel suggests that masculinity and femininity are cultural constructs. 

When you buy the online version of Tess of the D’Urbervilles A Level Revision Guide you’ll also benefit from revision podcasts from educational experts who provide extra insights into the text, discussing what makes the text great and picking out key contextual and critical ideas, all helping you to form your own interpretations and write an answer that meets examiners’ expectations of top grade students.

Print Edition information: Paperback, 104 pages, ISBN 9781292138176