Context

Also called AO3, Social and historical context

When and where a text was written, and what that meant. Assessed explicitly, and easy to do badly.

What it is

Context is the social, historical, cultural and literary situation of a text — and often of its reception. Most boards assess it as a distinct assessment objective, usually AO3.

Where it applies

English Literature. Weightings differ by board and by question, so check yours.

How it works

Context is only worth marks when it illuminates the text. The examiner reports say this every year: bolted-on history scores nothing.

The strongest use is when context explains why a moment would land differently for its original audience — the Divine Right of Kings in Macbeth, the Poor Law in A Christmas Carol, 1912 setting with a 1945 audience in An Inspector Calls.

How to use it in your work

Integrate it into a point about the text, never as a separate sentence. Compare:

"Victorians were very religious." — nothing.

"Scrooge's redemption follows the shape of a Christian conversion narrative, which a Victorian reader would have recognised immediately — so Dickens is not asking whether change is possible, he is asking why it is so rare." — that is AO3 doing work.

Learn three or four context points per text, deeply, rather than twenty shallowly.

Where to get help

Your teacher, your board's mark scheme, and the examiners' reports, which are free on every board's website and say plainly what loses marks.