題目 1 · Single Comparative Extract & Whole Text Essay
50 分Extract 1: Othello
(Extract to go with Question 1)
RODERIGO. Iago!
IAGO. What say'st thou, noble heart?
RODERIGO. What will I do, thinkest thou?
IAGO. Why, go to bed and sleep.
RODERIGO. I will incontinently drown myself.
IAGO. If thou dost, I shall never love thee after. Why, thou silly gentleman!
RODERIGO. It is silliness to live when to live is torment, and then have we a prescription to die when death is our physician.
IAGO. O villainous! I have looked upon the world for four times seven years, and since I could distinguish betwixt a benefit and an injury, I never found man that knew how to love himself. Ere I would say I would drown myself for the love of a guinea hen, I would change my humanity with a baboon.
RODERIGO. What should I do? I confess it is my shame to be so fond, but it is not in my virtue to amend it.
IAGO. Virtue? a fig! 'Tis in ourselves that we are thus or thus. Our bodies are gardens, to the which our wills are gardeners; so that if we will plant nettles or sow lettuce, set hyssop and weed up thyme, supply it with one gender of herbs or distract it with many, either to have it sterile with idleness or manured with industry, why, the power and corrigible authority of this lies in our wills. If the balance of our lives had not one scale of reason to poise another of sensuality, the blood and baseness of our natures would conduct us to most preposterous conclusions. But we have reason to cool our raging motions, our carnal stings, our unbitted lusts; whereof I take this, that you call love, to be a sect or scion.
RODERIGO. It cannot be.
IAGO. It is merely a lust of the blood and a permission of the will. Come, be a man! Drown thyself? Drown cats and blind puppies. I have professed me thy friend, and I confess me knit to thy deserving with cables of perdurable toughness; I could never better stead thee than now. Put money in thy purse; follow thou the wars; defeat thy favor with an usurped beard. I say, put money in thy purse. It cannot be that Desdemona should long continue her love to the Moor -- put money in thy purse -- nor he his to her. It was a violent commencement, and thou shalt see an answerable sequestration -- put but money in thy purse. These Moors are changeable in their wills -- fill thy purse with money. The food that to him now is as luscious as locusts, shall be to him shortly as acerb as the coloquintida. She must change for youth; when she is sated with his body, she will find the error of her choice. She must have change, she must; therefore put money in thy purse. If thou wilt needs damn thyself, do it a more delicate way than drowning. Make all the money thou canst. If sanctimony and a frail vow betwixt an erring barbarian and a supersubtle Venetian be not too hard for my wits and all the tribe of hell, thou shalt enjoy her -- therefore make money. A pox of drowning thyself! It is clean out of the way. Seek thou rather to be hanged in compassing thy joy than to be drowned and go without her.
RODERIGO. Wilt thou be fast to my hopes, if I depend on the issue?
IAGO. Thou art sure of me -- go, make money. I have told thee often, and I retell thee again and again, I hate the Moor. My cause is hearted; thine hath no less reason. Let us be conjunctive in our revenge against him. If thou canst cuckold him, thou dost thyself a pleasure, me a sport. There are many events in the womb of time which will be delivered. Traverse, go, provide thy money. We will have more of this tomorrow. Adieu.
RODERIGO. Where shall we meet i' the morning?
IAGO. At my lodging.
RODERIGO. I'll be with thee betimes.
IAGO. Go to, farewell. Do you hear, Roderigo?
RODERIGO. What say you?
IAGO. No more of drowning, do you hear?
RODERIGO. I am changed; I'll go sell all my land.
Exit RODERIGO.
IAGO. Thus do I ever make my fool my purse;
For I mine own gain'd knowledge should profane
If I would time expend with such a snipe
But for my sport and profit. I hate the Moor,
And it is thought abroad that 'twixt my sheets
He has done my office. I know not if't be true,
But I for mere suspicion in that kind
Will do as if for surety. He holds me well,
The better shall my purpose work on him.
Cassio's a proper man. Let me see now --
To get his place, and to plume up my will
In double knavery -- How, how? -- Let's see --
After some time, to abuse Othello's ear
That he is too familiar with his wife.
He hath a person and a smooth dispose
To be suspected -- framed to make women false.
The Moor is of a free and open nature,
That thinks men honest that but seem to be so,
And will as tenderly be led by the nose
As asses are.
I have't. It is engender'd. Hell and night
Must bring this monstrous birth to the world's light.
Exit.
(Act 1, Scene 3)
'Iago is nothing more than a motiveless, purely evil villain.' By referring closely to Extract 1, printed in the accompanying Resource Booklet, and to other appropriately selected parts of the text, show to what extent you would agree with the view expressed above. Your argument should include relevant comments on Shakespeare's dramatic methods, and relevant external contextual information on the nature of Shakespearean Tragedy. N.B. Equal marks are available for your treatment of the given extract and other relevant parts of the text. [50]
(Extract to go with Question 1)
RODERIGO. Iago!
IAGO. What say'st thou, noble heart?
RODERIGO. What will I do, thinkest thou?
IAGO. Why, go to bed and sleep.
RODERIGO. I will incontinently drown myself.
IAGO. If thou dost, I shall never love thee after. Why, thou silly gentleman!
RODERIGO. It is silliness to live when to live is torment, and then have we a prescription to die when death is our physician.
IAGO. O villainous! I have looked upon the world for four times seven years, and since I could distinguish betwixt a benefit and an injury, I never found man that knew how to love himself. Ere I would say I would drown myself for the love of a guinea hen, I would change my humanity with a baboon.
RODERIGO. What should I do? I confess it is my shame to be so fond, but it is not in my virtue to amend it.
IAGO. Virtue? a fig! 'Tis in ourselves that we are thus or thus. Our bodies are gardens, to the which our wills are gardeners; so that if we will plant nettles or sow lettuce, set hyssop and weed up thyme, supply it with one gender of herbs or distract it with many, either to have it sterile with idleness or manured with industry, why, the power and corrigible authority of this lies in our wills. If the balance of our lives had not one scale of reason to poise another of sensuality, the blood and baseness of our natures would conduct us to most preposterous conclusions. But we have reason to cool our raging motions, our carnal stings, our unbitted lusts; whereof I take this, that you call love, to be a sect or scion.
RODERIGO. It cannot be.
IAGO. It is merely a lust of the blood and a permission of the will. Come, be a man! Drown thyself? Drown cats and blind puppies. I have professed me thy friend, and I confess me knit to thy deserving with cables of perdurable toughness; I could never better stead thee than now. Put money in thy purse; follow thou the wars; defeat thy favor with an usurped beard. I say, put money in thy purse. It cannot be that Desdemona should long continue her love to the Moor -- put money in thy purse -- nor he his to her. It was a violent commencement, and thou shalt see an answerable sequestration -- put but money in thy purse. These Moors are changeable in their wills -- fill thy purse with money. The food that to him now is as luscious as locusts, shall be to him shortly as acerb as the coloquintida. She must change for youth; when she is sated with his body, she will find the error of her choice. She must have change, she must; therefore put money in thy purse. If thou wilt needs damn thyself, do it a more delicate way than drowning. Make all the money thou canst. If sanctimony and a frail vow betwixt an erring barbarian and a supersubtle Venetian be not too hard for my wits and all the tribe of hell, thou shalt enjoy her -- therefore make money. A pox of drowning thyself! It is clean out of the way. Seek thou rather to be hanged in compassing thy joy than to be drowned and go without her.
RODERIGO. Wilt thou be fast to my hopes, if I depend on the issue?
IAGO. Thou art sure of me -- go, make money. I have told thee often, and I retell thee again and again, I hate the Moor. My cause is hearted; thine hath no less reason. Let us be conjunctive in our revenge against him. If thou canst cuckold him, thou dost thyself a pleasure, me a sport. There are many events in the womb of time which will be delivered. Traverse, go, provide thy money. We will have more of this tomorrow. Adieu.
RODERIGO. Where shall we meet i' the morning?
IAGO. At my lodging.
RODERIGO. I'll be with thee betimes.
IAGO. Go to, farewell. Do you hear, Roderigo?
RODERIGO. What say you?
IAGO. No more of drowning, do you hear?
RODERIGO. I am changed; I'll go sell all my land.
Exit RODERIGO.
IAGO. Thus do I ever make my fool my purse;
For I mine own gain'd knowledge should profane
If I would time expend with such a snipe
But for my sport and profit. I hate the Moor,
And it is thought abroad that 'twixt my sheets
He has done my office. I know not if't be true,
But I for mere suspicion in that kind
Will do as if for surety. He holds me well,
The better shall my purpose work on him.
Cassio's a proper man. Let me see now --
To get his place, and to plume up my will
In double knavery -- How, how? -- Let's see --
After some time, to abuse Othello's ear
That he is too familiar with his wife.
He hath a person and a smooth dispose
To be suspected -- framed to make women false.
The Moor is of a free and open nature,
That thinks men honest that but seem to be so,
And will as tenderly be led by the nose
As asses are.
I have't. It is engender'd. Hell and night
Must bring this monstrous birth to the world's light.
Exit.
(Act 1, Scene 3)
'Iago is nothing more than a motiveless, purely evil villain.' By referring closely to Extract 1, printed in the accompanying Resource Booklet, and to other appropriately selected parts of the text, show to what extent you would agree with the view expressed above. Your argument should include relevant comments on Shakespeare's dramatic methods, and relevant external contextual information on the nature of Shakespearean Tragedy. N.B. Equal marks are available for your treatment of the given extract and other relevant parts of the text. [50]
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解題
This extract, the closing movement of Act 1 Scene 3, is a pivotal moment of characterisation: it moves from Iago's cynical, prose manipulation of Roderigo into his first true soliloquy, in which the audience is granted privileged, direct access to his thinking for the first time. A strong response will use this shift as its analytical spine, testing the claim that Iago is 'nothing more than a motiveless, purely evil villain' against what the extract and the wider play actually show.
On one hand, there is real evidence for a reading of Iago as pursuing evil disproportionate to any grievance. In the extract, his manipulation of Roderigo is casually sadistic: the repeated imperative refrain 'put money in thy purse', hammered five times in a single speech, exposes Iago's contempt and his purely instrumental, parasitic use of another human being ('Thus do I ever make my fool my purse') purely 'for my sport and profit'. The soliloquy's closing couplet -- 'I have't. It is engender'd. Hell and night / Must bring this monstrous birth to the world's light' -- reaches for imagery of demonic, unnatural gestation that aligns Iago with something closer to an allegorical Vice figure from the morality-play tradition than a realistically motivated antagonist, and this theatrical inheritance is worth noting as context: Shakespearean tragedy absorbs the medieval Vice's relish in soliloquised, audience-facing evil, and Iago's asides and soliloquies throughout the play (compare his 'And what's he then that says I play the villain' in Act 2 Scene 3) repeatedly break the fourth wall in a way that invites the audience into complicity with his scheming, a dramatic method that makes his malice feel performative and self-delighting rather than strictly rationally motivated.
On the other hand, the extract itself resists the idea that Iago is simply 'motiveless'. Twice in this short soliloquy he offers reasons: professional and sexual. 'I hate the Moor, / And it is thought abroad that 'twixt my sheets / He has done my office' gives a jealousy motive -- the rumour that Othello has slept with Emilia -- while the turn to 'Cassio's a proper man... To get his place, and to plume up my will / In double knavery' reveals professional envy, resentment at being passed over for the lieutenancy that frames the whole play from Act 1 Scene 1 ('I know my price, I am worth no worse a place'). What is dramatically remarkable, and should be central to a top-band answer, is Iago's own uncertainty about his motives: 'I know not if't be true, / But I for mere suspicion in that kind / Will do as if for surety.' He does not claim conviction, only that suspicion is sufficient warrant for revenge -- this is a man constructing motive to justify an appetite for destruction that precedes and exceeds any specific grievance. This is arguably more psychologically disturbing than pure motivelessness would be: Iago is shown manufacturing self-justifying narratives on the spot ('Let me see now--... How, how?--Let's see--'), the broken syntax and dashes dramatising thought improvised in real time, which makes him a study in self-deception and opportunism as much as a study in evil for its own sake.
Beyond the extract, the play consistently supplies Iago with plausible, if inadequate, motives that a candidate should draw on for the 'other relevant parts of the text' requirement: wounded professional pride at Cassio's promotion (Act 1 Scene 1); the same suspicion about Emilia repeated and intensified in Act 2 Scene 1 ('I do suspect the lusty Moor / Hath leap'd into my seat'); resentment of Cassio's courtly grace, 'He hath a daily beauty in his life / That makes me ugly' (Act 5 Scene 1); and simple appetite for control and 'sport', made explicit when he tells Roderigo their manipulation is 'sport and profit'. Taken together, these accumulate into a portrait of a man for whom multiple, overlapping and possibly self-deceiving motives coexist with a deeper, less explicable relish in cruelty and control -- which is precisely why Coleridge's phrase 'motiveless malignity' has proved so productive and so contested in the play's critical history: it captures something true about the disproportion between Iago's stated grievances and the scale of destruction he unleashes, without being literally accurate, since motives, however thin or self-serving, are repeatedly offered.
Genre context should also inform the argument. As a domestic tragedy focused on marriage and reputation rather than the fall of a state (contrast King Lear or Macbeth), Othello relies on Iago functioning simultaneously as psychologically 'real' -- convincing enough that Othello, and often the audience, trust him as 'honest Iago' -- and as a structural embodiment of the tragic hero's hamartia. Othello's tragic flaw, his readiness to trust appearances and 'those that seem to be so' (as Iago himself notes of himself and, by extension, of Othello's credulity), needs a plausible tempter to exploit it; a purely allegorical, motiveless Vice would undercut the psychological tragedy Shakespeare is building, whereas an Iago driven by recognisable, if inadequate and self-serving motives, makes Othello's downfall feel earned rather than externally imposed, which is central to the Aristotelian conception of tragedy as arousing pity and fear through a fall that is causally, not merely accidentally, brought about.
A balanced conclusion should therefore agree that Iago's malice is disproportionate, self-delighting and theatrically 'motiveless' in the sense that no single grievance adequately explains the scale of destruction he causes, while resisting the idea that he is motiveless in a literal sense: the extract shows him actively generating and half-believing his own justifications, which is a more dramatically sophisticated, and more disturbing, portrait of evil than pure motivelessness would provide, and one that serves the demands of Shakespearean tragedy by keeping Iago both psychologically credible and structurally necessary to Othello's fall.
On one hand, there is real evidence for a reading of Iago as pursuing evil disproportionate to any grievance. In the extract, his manipulation of Roderigo is casually sadistic: the repeated imperative refrain 'put money in thy purse', hammered five times in a single speech, exposes Iago's contempt and his purely instrumental, parasitic use of another human being ('Thus do I ever make my fool my purse') purely 'for my sport and profit'. The soliloquy's closing couplet -- 'I have't. It is engender'd. Hell and night / Must bring this monstrous birth to the world's light' -- reaches for imagery of demonic, unnatural gestation that aligns Iago with something closer to an allegorical Vice figure from the morality-play tradition than a realistically motivated antagonist, and this theatrical inheritance is worth noting as context: Shakespearean tragedy absorbs the medieval Vice's relish in soliloquised, audience-facing evil, and Iago's asides and soliloquies throughout the play (compare his 'And what's he then that says I play the villain' in Act 2 Scene 3) repeatedly break the fourth wall in a way that invites the audience into complicity with his scheming, a dramatic method that makes his malice feel performative and self-delighting rather than strictly rationally motivated.
On the other hand, the extract itself resists the idea that Iago is simply 'motiveless'. Twice in this short soliloquy he offers reasons: professional and sexual. 'I hate the Moor, / And it is thought abroad that 'twixt my sheets / He has done my office' gives a jealousy motive -- the rumour that Othello has slept with Emilia -- while the turn to 'Cassio's a proper man... To get his place, and to plume up my will / In double knavery' reveals professional envy, resentment at being passed over for the lieutenancy that frames the whole play from Act 1 Scene 1 ('I know my price, I am worth no worse a place'). What is dramatically remarkable, and should be central to a top-band answer, is Iago's own uncertainty about his motives: 'I know not if't be true, / But I for mere suspicion in that kind / Will do as if for surety.' He does not claim conviction, only that suspicion is sufficient warrant for revenge -- this is a man constructing motive to justify an appetite for destruction that precedes and exceeds any specific grievance. This is arguably more psychologically disturbing than pure motivelessness would be: Iago is shown manufacturing self-justifying narratives on the spot ('Let me see now--... How, how?--Let's see--'), the broken syntax and dashes dramatising thought improvised in real time, which makes him a study in self-deception and opportunism as much as a study in evil for its own sake.
Beyond the extract, the play consistently supplies Iago with plausible, if inadequate, motives that a candidate should draw on for the 'other relevant parts of the text' requirement: wounded professional pride at Cassio's promotion (Act 1 Scene 1); the same suspicion about Emilia repeated and intensified in Act 2 Scene 1 ('I do suspect the lusty Moor / Hath leap'd into my seat'); resentment of Cassio's courtly grace, 'He hath a daily beauty in his life / That makes me ugly' (Act 5 Scene 1); and simple appetite for control and 'sport', made explicit when he tells Roderigo their manipulation is 'sport and profit'. Taken together, these accumulate into a portrait of a man for whom multiple, overlapping and possibly self-deceiving motives coexist with a deeper, less explicable relish in cruelty and control -- which is precisely why Coleridge's phrase 'motiveless malignity' has proved so productive and so contested in the play's critical history: it captures something true about the disproportion between Iago's stated grievances and the scale of destruction he unleashes, without being literally accurate, since motives, however thin or self-serving, are repeatedly offered.
Genre context should also inform the argument. As a domestic tragedy focused on marriage and reputation rather than the fall of a state (contrast King Lear or Macbeth), Othello relies on Iago functioning simultaneously as psychologically 'real' -- convincing enough that Othello, and often the audience, trust him as 'honest Iago' -- and as a structural embodiment of the tragic hero's hamartia. Othello's tragic flaw, his readiness to trust appearances and 'those that seem to be so' (as Iago himself notes of himself and, by extension, of Othello's credulity), needs a plausible tempter to exploit it; a purely allegorical, motiveless Vice would undercut the psychological tragedy Shakespeare is building, whereas an Iago driven by recognisable, if inadequate and self-serving motives, makes Othello's downfall feel earned rather than externally imposed, which is central to the Aristotelian conception of tragedy as arousing pity and fear through a fall that is causally, not merely accidentally, brought about.
A balanced conclusion should therefore agree that Iago's malice is disproportionate, self-delighting and theatrically 'motiveless' in the sense that no single grievance adequately explains the scale of destruction he causes, while resisting the idea that he is motiveless in a literal sense: the extract shows him actively generating and half-believing his own justifications, which is a more dramatically sophisticated, and more disturbing, portrait of evil than pure motivelessness would provide, and one that serves the demands of Shakespearean tragedy by keeping Iago both psychologically credible and structurally necessary to Othello's fall.
評分準則
Level of Response mark scheme (50 marks), holistic and qualitative, assessing AO1 (informed, relevant personal response using appropriate terminology), AO2 (analysis of Shakespeare's dramatic methods) and AO3 (relevant contextual understanding, here of Shakespearean Tragedy as a genre), with equal weighting given to treatment of the given extract and to other relevant parts of the text.
Band 0 (0 marks): no creditable response / not attempted.
Band 1 (1-10 marks): response is mostly irrelevant, largely misunderstood, or seriously inaccurate; little or no engagement with the extract; assertions about Iago made with minimal or no textual support; no meaningful reference to dramatic methods or to Shakespearean Tragedy as a genre.
Band 2 (11-20 marks): basic response showing a little awareness of the extract and of Iago's role; mostly assertive and narrative in approach (retelling what happens rather than analysing it); limited, undeveloped reference to dramatic methods (e.g. noting the soliloquy exists without analysing its effect) and minimal or generic contextual comment.
Band 3a (21-25 marks): limited but deliberate engagement with the question; some relevant use of the extract (e.g. noting 'put money in thy purse' or the 'monstrous birth' image) but explanation remains thin; dramatic methods and genre context are named but not securely integrated into the argument; coverage of 'other parts of the text' is thin or confined to one or two moments.
Band 3b (26-30 marks): increasingly purposeful and competent response; a clear line of argument addressing 'motiveless malignity' with reasonable use of both the extract and other parts of the play (e.g. Act 1 Scene 1, Act 2 Scene 1 or 3, Act 5 Scene 1); some effective, if not always fully developed, comment on dramatic methods (soliloquy, prose/verse shift, imagery) and relevant, if somewhat generic, contextual comment on tragedy.
Band 4 (31-40 marks): coherent, secure and consistent response with a clear, sustained argument that engages critically with the proposition (e.g. agreeing malice is disproportionate while challenging 'motiveless' using Iago's stated jealousy/professional resentment in the extract); effective, integrated analysis of dramatic methods (e.g. the rhetorical repetition of 'put money in thy purse', the broken syntax of Iago's improvised scheming, the shift from prose manipulation to verse soliloquy, imagery of gestation/monstrosity); secure, well-applied contextual knowledge of Shakespearean Tragedy (e.g. the Vice tradition, hamartia, the tragic hero's downfall); good, well-balanced use of extract and wider text.
Band 5 (41-50 marks): assured, excellent and perceptive response, sophisticated in its handling of the ambiguity between 'motiveless' evil and Iago's self-generated, self-deceiving justifications; sustained, precise, well-selected close analysis of the extract's language, imagery and dramatic form (soliloquy as privileged access, rhetorical patterning, syntax dramatising thought-in-process) fully integrated with well-chosen material from across the play; sophisticated, precisely applied contextual understanding of Shakespearean Tragedy (e.g. Aristotelian causality, the tragic hero's hamartia, generic inheritance from the morality-play Vice) used to illuminate rather than merely decorate the argument; consistently fluent, accurate, well-structured expression.
Examiner hard caps (applied regardless of Band otherwise reached): if no dramatic methods are considered, maximum mark is 30. If only limited dramatic methods are considered, maximum mark is 40. If no external contextual information (on Shakespearean Tragedy) is provided, maximum mark is 30. If only limited contextual information is provided, maximum mark is 40. If the response is pure narrative/description without argument or evaluation, maximum mark is 20 (Band 2). [50]
Band 0 (0 marks): no creditable response / not attempted.
Band 1 (1-10 marks): response is mostly irrelevant, largely misunderstood, or seriously inaccurate; little or no engagement with the extract; assertions about Iago made with minimal or no textual support; no meaningful reference to dramatic methods or to Shakespearean Tragedy as a genre.
Band 2 (11-20 marks): basic response showing a little awareness of the extract and of Iago's role; mostly assertive and narrative in approach (retelling what happens rather than analysing it); limited, undeveloped reference to dramatic methods (e.g. noting the soliloquy exists without analysing its effect) and minimal or generic contextual comment.
Band 3a (21-25 marks): limited but deliberate engagement with the question; some relevant use of the extract (e.g. noting 'put money in thy purse' or the 'monstrous birth' image) but explanation remains thin; dramatic methods and genre context are named but not securely integrated into the argument; coverage of 'other parts of the text' is thin or confined to one or two moments.
Band 3b (26-30 marks): increasingly purposeful and competent response; a clear line of argument addressing 'motiveless malignity' with reasonable use of both the extract and other parts of the play (e.g. Act 1 Scene 1, Act 2 Scene 1 or 3, Act 5 Scene 1); some effective, if not always fully developed, comment on dramatic methods (soliloquy, prose/verse shift, imagery) and relevant, if somewhat generic, contextual comment on tragedy.
Band 4 (31-40 marks): coherent, secure and consistent response with a clear, sustained argument that engages critically with the proposition (e.g. agreeing malice is disproportionate while challenging 'motiveless' using Iago's stated jealousy/professional resentment in the extract); effective, integrated analysis of dramatic methods (e.g. the rhetorical repetition of 'put money in thy purse', the broken syntax of Iago's improvised scheming, the shift from prose manipulation to verse soliloquy, imagery of gestation/monstrosity); secure, well-applied contextual knowledge of Shakespearean Tragedy (e.g. the Vice tradition, hamartia, the tragic hero's downfall); good, well-balanced use of extract and wider text.
Band 5 (41-50 marks): assured, excellent and perceptive response, sophisticated in its handling of the ambiguity between 'motiveless' evil and Iago's self-generated, self-deceiving justifications; sustained, precise, well-selected close analysis of the extract's language, imagery and dramatic form (soliloquy as privileged access, rhetorical patterning, syntax dramatising thought-in-process) fully integrated with well-chosen material from across the play; sophisticated, precisely applied contextual understanding of Shakespearean Tragedy (e.g. Aristotelian causality, the tragic hero's hamartia, generic inheritance from the morality-play Vice) used to illuminate rather than merely decorate the argument; consistently fluent, accurate, well-structured expression.
Examiner hard caps (applied regardless of Band otherwise reached): if no dramatic methods are considered, maximum mark is 30. If only limited dramatic methods are considered, maximum mark is 40. If no external contextual information (on Shakespearean Tragedy) is provided, maximum mark is 30. If only limited contextual information is provided, maximum mark is 40. If the response is pure narrative/description without argument or evaluation, maximum mark is 20 (Band 2). [50]