Final revision links and tips

As we approach our final Year 13 lessons, we need to be stepping up revision for the upcoming exams.

This is the time to be revising the exam topics, practising questions and making sure there are no gaps in our knowledge. 

Exam revision links

Here's what you need to revise with links to the original blogposts:

Media Paper 1 - Monday 20 May (afternoon)

Section A: Language and Representation

Unseen analysis

• Revise media language and representations - including theory - as well as looking back at your assessment LRs across the course. Many of these had an unseen element so look at the mark schemes and feedback to help prepare for this question.
• For the unseen question, revise our work on Media codes and reading an image from Year 12. 
• MIGRAIN index from Year 12 is here.
• Original lesson slide PDFs can be found on Google Drive here (you'll need your Greenford login to access).

Advertising and Marketing

• CSPs: Score hair cream and Sephora Black Beauty Is Beauty.
• Final index is here.
• You can find the original lesson slide PDFs on Google Drive here.

Music Video

• CSPs: Old Town Road and Ghost Town
• Final index is here.
• You can find the original lesson slide PDFs on Google Drive here.

Section B: Industry and Audience

Film Industry

• CSP: Blinded By The Light
• Final index is here.
• You can find the original lesson slide PDFs on Google Drive here.

Radio

• CSPs: BBC Radio 1 Newsbeat and War of the Worlds (1938).
• You can find the original lesson slide PDFs on Google Drive here.

Newspapers

• CSPs: The Daily Mail and the Guardian newspaper and websites.
• Final index is here.
• You can find the original lesson slide PDFs on Google Drive here. 

Media Paper 2 - Tuesday 4 June (afternoon)

Unseen text analysis

• Revise media theories for this question - the question will ask you to apply a theory or theoretical perspective to an unseen text. 
• MIGRAIN index is here.
• Original lesson slide PDFs can be found on Google Drive here (you'll need your Greenford login to access). 

Television

• CSPs: Capital and Deutschland 83.
• Final index is here.
• You can find the original lesson slide PDFs on Google Drive here. 

Magazines

• CSPs: GQ and The Gentlewoman.
• Final index is here.
• You can find the original lesson slide PDFs on Google Drive here. 

Online, Social and Participatory Media

• CSPs: Zendaya and The Voice.
• Final index is here.
• You can find the original lesson slide PDFs on Google Drive here. 

Videogames

• CSPs: The Sims FreePlay and Horizon Forbidden West.
• Final index is here.
• You can find the original lesson slide PDFs on Google Drive here. 

Revision links, resources and guidance

We've got plenty of resources to help you with your revision and preparation for the upcoming exams.

You were given eight full practice papers to work on over Easter and beyond - four Paper 1 and four Paper 2. If you didn't get these let us know - they are SO useful! Use these for a combination of full two hour practice exam writing and shorter, targeted questions. The mark schemes are also brilliant for revising theories and CSPs.  

Here are some sample questions and answers we've worked on in exam revision lessons in previous years. We'll be adding to this document in our revision lessons after Easter but you may want to look through this for exemplar answers and help revising. Note that many of the CSPs have changed so we'll be updating these after Easter. You'll also need your Greenford Google login for this resource as it is only for GHS Media students.

We also gave you a paper copy of the Theoretical Perspectives resource which covers all the theories in the A Level Media specification. Let us know if you didn't get one!

On the subject of theories, we've collated all of Media Magazine's Theory Drop articles on the named theories into one PDF document. It's a great way to revise the theories - remember AQA's suggestion that for each named theory you create a bullet point summary followed by a table of reasons to agree/disagree with the key ideas. You'll need your Greenford Google login for the theory drop link.

Mark Dixon, writer of Media Theory for A Level, has a great website you can use for theory explanations, exemplar exam answers and much more. Sign up for free and you can access lots of content that will help you in the exams.

Don't forget our brilliant archive of Media Factsheets. You've used plenty of these for blog tasks over the last couple of years but there are plenty more we haven't set for homework. Look at these for example: 

• How to revise for A Level Media exams
• Exploring theoretical perspectives to print magazines
• Newspapers: an update
• Channel 4: an overview and update
• Understanding digital convergence
• BBC Radio 1 Newsbeat
• Using theory
• The BBC: an overview and update

We've also been sent some brand new factsheets for 2024 that might help your revision:

• Old Town Road
• Sephora Black Beauty Is Beauty
• Postmodernism
• Changing Role of Genre in Digital Age
• Representation and Reality

If you want to test your knowledge of the complete subject content, you can find it on the AQA website here. Look at the menu on the left-hand side - under media language, media representation etc. you'll find everything that could come up in exams: 

Finally, here's a short blog on what makes a good flashcard - always useful to get top tips on effective revision techniques.

Walk-and-talk exam feedback

If you want feedback on your walk-and-talk mock exams, book an appointment during your normal Media lesson time in the week of Monday 13 May with the relevant teacher. Bring your paper in for that appointment and we'll go through it together.

We can also give out coursework marks after 15 May if you come and see your coursework teacher. Remember these can still be changed by AQA moderation (and we also don't know what this year's grade boundaries will be) but it gives you an idea of where you are for 30% of the A Level. 

Good luck with your revision!