January Mock 2021 - revision resources, tips and technique

This post is intended for second year A-level media students. First years can breathe a sigh of relief... for now...

The January mock for 2021 is more important than any mock you've ever sat, for reasons we've hopefully made clear. Yes, it's a mock, but this time there's potentially more riding on it than ever. No stress!

However, you are all more than adequately equipped to take on this mock. First of all, you've been making excellent, high quality notes throughout the year and a half you've been studying media. And, if your notes are a little threadbare, this very blog is absolutely stuffed with resources to help you.

This post links to some of the most important resources to help you in this mock, which will cover newspapers, the music industry, the TV Industry (Humans only) and the magazine industry (Woman only)

So get clicking on the links below, and get revising!

General help and exam technique

You can find every official past paper collected here, as well as every previous  mock exam

The 'cheat sheet' lists five facts for every set text in every industry for every question. It's great!

Remember, the revision guide remains the most full on resource on the entire blog, and it has literally every possible question that could ever come up, presented in revision-friendly tick-list!

How do you actually structure an exam response? Check out this video!

You can find a full index of every Media Focus video here

Absolutely every media theory is covered in this video: you can skip to the exact theory you want to revise too!

There's also the text version of the media theory resource here

Newspaper industry

You can find the set editions of the newspapers here

Here's some exemplar answers for a question on The Daily Mirror

You can find an excellent analysis of the set edition of The Mirror here

Here's a run-through of  how industrial concerns influence The Mirror

Here's a good post on how newspapers construct meaning through intertextuality 

Here's a load more exemplar answers

You've got to know all this newspaper terminology!

Music video industry

There are thirteen videos on the music industry! Click here to access the playlist

This one has a student exemplar on Riptide

Here's a link to the remote learning 'lockdown lessons' which has an index of all the work you did on music videos in summer 2020

Click here for a full-on analysis of Riptide

TV

I definitely recommend watching the key study scenes, which have been shared with you already...

This video covers hyperreality in Humans, which is possibly the most difficult media concept of all...

An initial analysis of Humans

A little industry context for channel 4

Here's a whole bunch of marketing for Humans

Some analysis of the marketing campaign for Humans

Here's a post about how to talk about regulation and Humans

Here's a wee bit of textual analysis of Humans

Here's some more full-on key scene analysis for Humans

Exemplar Humans answers

Magazines

Here's a full on analysis of the front of Woman

There are some excellent student examples of how to answer magazine questions here

There's a cool task for the Alfred Hitchcock interview in Woman here

And an EVEN COOLER task for the kitchen double page spread