MEST3 Section A: revision task

The key to top performance in Section A of the MEST3 exam is a wide variety of examples from across the media.

Although Q1 will always test your textual analysis skills with the media texts in the exam, Q2 and Q3 increasingly focus on wider issues and debates in the media. These will be related to the two Year 13 exam topics: Identities and the Media and New/Digital Media.

You need a wide selection of examples for BOTH these topics that you can call upon depending on the nature of the questions on the day. Assuming you need four well developed paragraphs at the very least for these 12-mark questions, you’ll therefore be needing an absolute minimum of three of these wider examples for each question.

Section A revision task

You need to look over your blog work, class notes and collection of NDM stories from the whole of Year 13 in order to put together a list of examples for Q2 and Q3 in Section A.

Task 1: List 10 stories/debates/examples that you could use for the Identities and the Media question. 

E.g. fourth wave of feminism (#everydaysexism); gender identity issues (e.g. Caitlyn Jenner; Chelsea Manning, North Carolina LGBT law etc.) If you’re not confident enough to use all 10 in an exam situation then research, revise and create notes/revision cards until your knowledge is sufficient.

Task 2: List 10 stories/debates/examples that you could use for the New/Digital Media question.

Here, there’s no question you’ll have enough examples (your two NDM case studies are perfectly acceptable here) so it’s more about quality. Choose your 10 strongest examples to prepare for exam use – e.g. Citizen journalism and the #blacklivesmatter campaign against US police brutality; social media impact on TV news and newspapers; streaming services and changes in the music industry etc. Again, if you’re not confident enough to use all 10 in an exam situation then research, revise and create notes/revision cards until your knowledge is sufficient.

If you complete all 10 on your blog, create revision cards for each example with the key details, statistics and quotes. 

If you don’t complete 10 examples for each topic on your blog, you MUST finish for homework as part of your ongoing MEST3 revision.