The Merchant of Venice exam questions — Eduqas GCSE English Literature C720
Eduqas GCSE English Literature · C720
The Merchant of Venice exam questions
What you need to know
How Eduqas's Shakespeare questions work: an extract question worth 15 marks and an essay on the whole play worth 25, and the assessment objectives each rewards.
How to plan and write both answers, using The Merchant of Venice as the worked example, with model answers and commentary.
Questions set out as Eduqas sets them, with their wording and marks.
Component 1 Section A: both questions on the play studied, closed book, about an hour: about 20 minutes on the extract question and about 40 on the essay.
The extract question, 15 marks for AO1 and AO2 equally: place the extract in the play, track its beginning, middle and end, stay inside it, and consider how an audience might respond; be ready for a version that asks about the characters' thoughts and feelings.
The essay, 20 marks for AO1 and AO2 equally plus 5 for spelling, punctuation, vocabulary and sentence structure (AO4): a character, relationship or theme at different points in the play, with short quotations from memory.
Context isn't marked in this section: mention it only where it supports an interpretation.
Model answers to both questions, with the band and mark an examiner would give each and why, and a Grade 5 and a Grade 8 paragraph side by side.
The Summer 2025 essay: Bassanio and Portia, and the ideas the mark scheme and examiners' report reward.
How to use the time and avoid the commonest mistakes: retelling, writing about the whole play in the extract question, long context, and labelling techniques without saying what they do.
