Common Misconceptions about AO5

In my effort to try to become a trusted online source of information about the A-level English exams, I've set up notifications for the A-level English literature subreddit so that I get pinged every time someone posts. Hopefully we'll eventually be able to grow our community with people who trust me and I can make this place more active (the best outcome would be that people would make their own posts and invite their friends)!

This week, there have been a few different posts about AO5, and I've noticed that there are some misconceptions about it! So, I thought it would be useful and interesting for me to list them for you! If this is useful and liked by the community, maybe I'll make a blog post where I explain why they're misconceptions and what the actual truth is!

So here are the big ones I've noticed from students:

1. Doing AO5 well in the exams is just about making sure you know lots of quotes from lots of critics. ❌
2. Naming critics is the highest form of AO5 – better than being able to talk about adaptations or critical theory. ❌
3. You're only allowed to use famous critics or people who published for very prestigious universities. ❌
4. You should learn 2-4 critical interpretations per text. ❌
5. Your AO5 needs to be unique for each text you study. AO5 can't be shared across texts. ❌
6. You always need to agree with the critics. ❌
7. It's enough to add what the critic said and then move on. ❌
8. You have to know the name of the critic for it to be proper AO5. ❌
9. The examiner is going to check to make sure that the critics you use have been peer reviewed and are on JSTOR. ❌
10. You need to find AO5 that agrees with your perspective. ❌

I think my blog post on AO5 clears up a lot of these misconceptions, but it might be useful to make a specific post about it that addresses the problems properly!

What do you think? Do you think I should make a blog post where I explain why these misconceptions are wrong and what the truth is? Let me know what your thoughts are by commenting, and feel free to post any other blog post suggestions for me!