Approach to Unseen Texts

There is a strategy for approaching unseen texts that you need to respond to in exam situations.

Firstly, read the question before you read the text. Because these tasks are worth few marks, only read to answer the question. Spend your time according to the amount of marks for each question. For two marks you need to answer the question in one paragraph with references to two examples from the text. For three marks, three examples in one or two paragraphs. In the HSC exam, for questions worth five or six marks you need to synthesise and address two texts in relation to each other. This is a mini essay.

In a class assessment task you might be addressing one text at a time. 

There are some literary features which are common to all texts - look for these as your answers. There is no point looking for metaphor or personification if there are no examples in your text. (Of course, if you can comment on metaphor, symbols, imagery, etc, then do so.) Otherwise, look for:
- structure
- voice, persona, tone, point of view
- title
- punctuation (if there is no punctuation, that is noteworthy)
- composer, who constructed a text in context, for audience, a purpose, and to effect a responder
- text type/ genre/ style
- ideas
- literal (exactly what it says)/figurative language (figurative opens up simile, metaphor etc)/inferential (what does it suggest). Every word used falls into these categories. 
- words
- sentences
- layout on the page
- mood/atmosphere
- representations
- how the composer positions the reader and why
- also look for patterns and repetitions - they are noteworthy.

Your answer should address What (describe), How (explain) and Why (analyse). For the question worth the most marks you should evaluate the effectiveness of the techniques, ie, make a judgement.