Part (a): comparing a cluster poem with an unseen poem

How part (a) works: a named poem from your cluster and an unseen poem on a linked theme, both printed, compared for 20 marks in about 45 minutes; the bullets point to ideas and attitudes, tone and atmosphere, and the effects of language and structure.
What earns the marks: analysis of language, form and structure (AO2) weighs most, then your response (AO1); context isn't marked, and an answer on only one poem cannot go above Level 3.
Reading the unseen poem: first impressions, the speaker, the situation and the turn, without assuming it shares the named poem's view.
Comparing throughout: an opening that sets out how the poems' views differ or agree, paragraphs that move between the poems, and 'similarly' only where the poems really are alike.
The worked example: the June 2024 Youth and Age question on contrasts between young and old people, with Holy Thursday as the named poem, practised against William Wordsworth's We Are Seven (1798), printed in full, as the unseen poem, with a plan, a model answer of about 600 words, the level and mark an examiner would give and why, and a Grade 5 and a Grade 8 paragraph side by side.
The part (a) questions OCR set for each cluster in June 2025 and June 2024: the named poems and themes, and what examiners said about them.
Quoting poetry: short quotations, with a slash where a line breaks.

What you need to know