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GCSE English Literature · Eduqas style · Extract question
Eduqas style (extract): Shylock's speech and behaviour (The Merchant of Venice)
AO1AO215 marks · about 20 minutes

Look at how Shylock speaks and behaves here. How does it affect your feelings towards Shylock? Refer closely to details from the extract to support your answer. [15 marks] AO1, AO2

Read the extract, then write below it.
SHYLOCK. To bait fish withal; if it will feed nothing else, it will feed my revenge. He hath disgrac’d me and hind’red me half a million, laugh’d at my losses, mock’d at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine enemies. And what’s his reason? I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian example? Why, revenge! The villainy you teach me I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction. Enter a man from Antonio. SERVANT. Gentlemen, my master Antonio is at his house, and desires to speak with you both. SALARINO. We have been up and down to seek him. Enter Tubal. SOLANIO. Here comes another of the tribe; a third cannot be match’d, unless the devil himself turn Jew. [_Exeunt Solanio, Salarino and the Servant._] SHYLOCK. How now, Tubal, what news from Genoa? Hast thou found my daughter? TUBAL. I often came where I did hear of her, but cannot find her. SHYLOCK. Why there, there, there, there! A diamond gone cost me two thousand ducats in Frankfort! The curse never fell upon our nation till now, I never felt it till now. Two thousand ducats in that, and other precious, precious jewels. I would my daughter were dead at my foot, and the jewels in her ear; would she were hearsed at my foot, and the ducats in her coffin. No news of them? Why so? And I know not what’s spent in the search. Why, thou—loss upon loss! The thief gone with so much, and so much to find the thief, and no satisfaction, no revenge, nor no ill luck stirring but what lights o’ my shoulders, no sighs but o’ my breathing, no tears but o’ my shedding. TUBAL. Yes, other men have ill luck too. Antonio, as I heard in Genoa—
Source: William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice (1597). Public domain.
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How this is marked

AO1 (published assessment objective): Identify and interpret explicit and implicit information and ideas; select and synthesise evidence from different texts (English Language). For Literature: read, understand and respond to texts, maintaining a critical style, developing an informed personal response, and using textual references including quotations to support and illustrate interpretations. For Geography: demonstrate knowledge of locations, places, processes, environments and different scales. For History: demonstrate knowledge and understanding of the key features and characteristics of the periods studied.

AO2 (published assessment objective): Explain, comment on and analyse how writers use language and structure to achieve effects and influence readers, using relevant subject terminology to support their views (English). For Geography: demonstrate geographical understanding of concepts and how they are used in relation to places, environments and processes, and the interrelationships between places, environments and processes. For History: explain and analyse historical events and periods studied using second-order historical concepts.

Assessed against AO1, AO2 using Revision Robin's own level descriptors below. These are not the exam board's mark scheme. Every quotation in the feedback is checked against your answer and the extract before you see it, and a teacher's mark overrides ours.

Level 5 · 13 to 15Convincing, critical and exploratory response to the task and the whole text. Judicious, precise references integrated into the argument; analysis of the writer's methods with subject terminology used to sharpen the point; ideas about context or the writer's purpose are woven into the argument rather than bolted on.
Level 4 · 10 to 12Thoughtful, developed response. Apt references used to support a considered argument; examination of the writer's methods and their effects; ideas about context are relevant and linked to the task.
Level 3 · 7 to 9Clear, explained response. Relevant references; clear explanation of some methods and effects; some relevant comment on context.
Level 2 · 4 to 6Some explained comment. A supported point or two; some reference to the text; methods identified with simple comment on effect; context mentioned in passing or not at all.
Level 1 · 1 to 3Simple, supported comment. Narrates or describes the text; little reference to methods or context.