Plot overview — Great Expectations — OCR GCSE English Literature J352
OCR GCSE English Literature · J352
Plot overview
Introduction
What you need to know
The whole novel in brief, stage by stage, and how Pip's three stages of expectations give it its shape.
Where each stage's turning point falls (Jaggers's news in Chapter 18, Magwitch's return in Chapter 39), and how the secret of Pip's benefactor drives the plot.
OCR's question on this novel is one essay, from a choice of two, for 40 marks: an extract-based question on the printed extract and the novel elsewhere, or a discursive question on a view of the novel, using at least two moments. Response (AO1) and language, form and structure (AO2) carry the most weight and equal weight, context (AO3) counts when it is relevant to the question, and 4 marks are for vocabulary, sentence structures, spelling and punctuation (AO4). An extract-based answer that never leaves the extract, or a discursive answer built on one moment, cannot go above Level 3. Each worked paragraph and exam tip is labelled with the question it is for.
