MEST3 revision: links and advice

The MEST3 exam is approaching and now is the time to really step up your revision and preparation to maximise your chance of a top grade.

It goes without saying that you should be following the department Twitter account for up-to-the-minute links and stories over the next 10 days. Making reference to very recent news stories or political developments is a great way of showing the examiner you are a top-level Media student.

We've also built up a range of resources over the years of this specification that may be useful for your MEST3 revision. Work through the following and pick out anything useful:

MEST3 Section A

The main starting point is the index to the Identities and the Media unit from earlier this year. You need to make sure you know all the theories, debates and media terminology from this unit. You can also find original lesson PowerPoints via this link too.

Guidance on how to approach Q2 and Q3 in Section A can be found here as well as the details below.

This includes the crucial links to the 10 example Q2/3 questions for Identity and 10 example Q2/3 questions for NDM too. 

Question breakdown

Question 1 Media forms - 8 marks - 10 minutes

Question 2 linked to Identity, New/Digital Media or media debates - 12 marks - 15 minutes

Question 3 linked to Identity, New/Digital Media or media debates - 12 marks - 15 minutes


The critical element of Section A is that questions 2 and 3 require a wide variety of examples from across the media - in effect, this is a mini essay testing everything you've learned over the last two years. To reach the top level, you must discuss media texts that are NOT the unseen texts in the exam. This is where your case studies, NDM story index and Year 12 work need to come to the fore.

Revision cards

For MEST3 Section A, revision cards are an excellent method to ensure you have enough examples from the wider media for questions 2 and 3 (usually based around media debates to do with Identity and New/Digital Media). For this you need:

• TEN revision cards with examples linked to Identity (E.g. youth, feminism, race/ethnicity - post-colonialism, gender identity issues, identity and film, collective identity, identity and social media etc.)
• TEN revision cards with examples linked to New/Digital Media (E.g. Citizen journalism, #blacklivesmatter campaign, social media impact on news, streaming services and changes in the music industry, Netflix and Amazon Prime etc.

MEST3 Section B

The most important starting point is the December index for the News and New/Digital Media unit. If you learn every aspect of this confidently then you won't go far wrong (and you can apply many of the theories and debates to your independent case study topic too - AND the Section A NDM question!)

Make sure you memorise some of these quotes from critics/theorists/media professionals and include them in your Section B essay answers. These notes on Marxism and Pluralism may be useful too.

You can find a blogpost full of past MEST3 Section B New/Digital Media questions here.

Suggested case study revision topics can be found here.

You can find links to lesson PowerPoints here if you missed any of the original lessons.

Section B revision cards

Using revision cards is a far more active and effective revision technique than simply reading notes or highlighting text.

The active nature of distilling notes into a few key words, statistics, quotes or theories means you are MUCH more likely to remember them in the exam.

For MEST3 Section B, you need revision cards for the following topics:

• The decline of the newspaper industry – including stats!
• Paywalls – David Simon ‘Build The Wall’/Sun, Times paywall v free Mail Online and Guardian
• News Values – Galtung and Ruge
• News Corporation – Rupert Murdoch and newspaper industry
• User Generated Content (UGC), citizen journalists and hyperreality in modern news (Baudrillard)
• Impact on audience and institution – choice/trust (News on the Tweet – newspapers and Twitter)
• Marxism and Pluralism
• Alain de Botton – news as a form of social control
• Globalisation
• Your own, independent case study (this will obviously require multiple revision cards)

General revision tips and links

Read Media Magazine - the latest issue is in our MM archive. It's particularly important to read any articles on your independent NDM case study - plus NDM/Identity articles in general.

This Google document contains a range of issues, theories and debates for A2 Media.

Here are some additional media theory quotes if you've memorised all the NDM quotes linked above.

This blogpost has a list of AQA media issues and debates - along with a link to a media glossary if you're unsure on any terminology.

Use our archive of 160+ A Level Media Factsheets on a huge range of topics, concepts and theories. Find it on the Media Shared drive - M:\Resources\A Level\Media Factsheets. Just a few that might be particularly relevant for MEST3:

050 We Media
067 Lady Gaga and the digital music industry
083 The impact of new media on TV
104 Audiences in the digital age
112 Netflix
113 TV and social media
114 Online privacy: Google
122 The changing face of the music industry
136 The rise of YouTube opinion leaders
143 Politics and persuasion
145 VICE News
149 Ownership and control in the digital age
165 Death of Print Media
168 The cultural industries
171 Power and Media Industries
173 The Rise of Fake News
179 Marxism, Hegemony and Representations
The exam is on Monday 4 June (AM) - make sure you are in the dining hall by 8.30am.

You have some great coursework grades, the MEST1 re-sit went really well and you KNOW this stuff!

Good luck!

MEST1 re-sit mock exam: learner response

Your learner response for the MEST1 Frozen Planet mock exam is very simple: revise anything you struggled on for the real exam!

However, there are a few activities we can use to maximise what learn from this mock exam. Complete the following on a blogpost called 'MEST1 re-sit learner response':

1) Type up your feedback in full. Check with your teacher if there's anything you don't understand.

2) Identify how many marks (out of 12) you got for each question in Section A.

3) Read the mark scheme carefully and identify at least one possible answer for each question in Section A that you didn't include in your response.

4) Read the Examiner's Report for this exam carefully. Pay particular attention to the stronger and weaker answers outlined for Section A.

5) What do you need to add to move up a level in Section B?

6) Identify three revision priorities for your MEST1 exam that you will revise in the next week.

Complete this for homework as part of your revision for the exam next week.

Remember:

MEST1 exam: Wednesday 23 May (AM)

MEST3 exam: Monday 4 June (AM)

MEST1 Mock exam - Wednesday 9 May

Your MEST1 mock exam is on Wednesday 9 May.

This is a crucial reminder of everything you need to revise before the real MEST1 re-sit on Wednesday 23 May.

Important note: if the mock exam clashes with your Art exam or a Languages exam, simply arrange a convenient time to sit the MEST1 mock exam in DF06. You will need two hours and a pair of headphones for this.

What do you need to revise?

MEST1 Section A

You need to look over everything you've studied in Media for the last two years, paying particular attention to media terminology and theory. Look over your blog indexes for the following units:

MIGRAIN Introduction to Media (you may also want to check this year's, super-charged new-specification MIGRAIN unit if you fancy some additional revision/learning)
Film Language unit - camerawork, editing, sound and mise-en-scene (link is to this year's expanded new-specification version - we didn't do an index for this last year)

Plus everything from Year 13 - the NDM News unit, your Identities and the Media unit etc. This can really set you apart from the competition.


MEST1 Section B

Here you need to look back specifically at the work on Ill Manors, A Field In England and your independent case study. Remember the basics:

• You must write explicitly about all three media platforms: print, broadcast and e-media (you do not have to write about them equally).
• Try and mention three case study texts - Ill Manors, A Field In England and your independent case study film. Again, these do not need to be covered equally.

Other useful links

We'll put some other useful links here - such as last year's Examiner's Report on MEST1 (the exam you did last May).

Above all else, make sure you answer the question and offer your opinion on the media debates raised by the question.

Good luck!