Musings on my 'A' Level English: Paper IV (The Novel)

I still have all my 'A' Level Examination papers and have extracted my English Paper IV (The Novel) from my 'archives'. There were twelve books listed for study, but our English teacher sensibly cut the number in half: those chosen were Dickens Hard Times; Emily Brontë Wuthering Heights; Trollope Barchester Towers; Hardy Tess of the D'Urbervilles; E.M. Forster Room with a View; and Virginia Woolf To the Lighthouse.

   

                   A Level English Classroom                                  Sixth Former

The course essays I wrote are before me now:
Varieties of power seeking form an important element in Trollope's entertainment, but they are not the whole. Discuss.
By what means does Hardy make the particular fate of Tess appear an organic part of the universal he is describing?
Room with a View supports and shows the victory of Emerson's values. Discuss.
What is remarkable about Wuthering Heights is its unity. Discuss.
The whole of Hard Times is directed to the rebuttal of all that Bounderby stands for. Discuss.

The questions on the actual Examination Paper were, of course, different:
3. What theme or themes do you think that Dickens was presenting in Hard Times, and with what success?
4. 'The method of narration is clumsy; both characters and episodes are often melodramatically unreal; the style is often atrocious.' Examine one or more of these strictures on Wuthering Heights, and explain how for most readers the greatness of the book as a whole triumphs over its alleged defects.
5. What are the attractions of Barchester Towers for readers of today?
8. 'Hardy was a countryman of genius, who both thought and felt always with all the countryman's strength and some of his limitations.' Does your reading of Tess of the D'Urbervilles incline you to agree with this judgement?
10. 'But the book doesn't get anywhere.' Explain to the complainant what he is missing in A Room with A View, or, if you agree with him, explain why.
11. Write a letter to someone who finds it hard to appreciate Virginia Woolf, trying to make appreciation easier.
13. 'It makes keener the enjoyment of a novel if we can imagine ourselves into the "climate", intellectual and social, in which the characters are moving.' Discuss.

I tackled numbers 3, 10 and 13. As for Virginia, my stream of consciousness was never more than a trickle; and Hard Times in class was with her novel. On the other hand, I recall those two years (also studying Chaucer's  The Franklin's Tale; Milton's Paradise Lost IX and X; and Shakespeare's King Lear and King John) with nostalgic affection. Happy days.