English Language Admissions Test (ELAT)

Required for 

• Oxford: English Language and Literature, English and Classics, English and History, English and Modern Languages
• Cambridge: English

Format

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In 90 minutes, you will have to write an essay comparing two out of six texts.

​The texts will be linked by a common theme (e.g. death, clothing, storms, food) but come from different periods (roughly, the 16th to the 21st centuries) and be of different forms(prose fiction, prose non-fiction, drama, and poetry have all come up in the past)

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Scoring

Your essay will be double marked, each examiner marking out of 30 to give a total of 60. 

You should definitely be aiming for a Band 1 score (48-60), and perhaps even a score above 50.
This is because Oxford and Cambridge admit yearly a little over 200 students, and every year a little over 200 students attain a score above 50 in the ELAT.

Why and how will your mark matter?
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Doing well in the ELAT shows admissions tutors that you can discuss (a) formally, periodically, and aesthetically nuanced texts beyond secondary school level (b) in a timed, public examination setting.

The ELAT is thus treated as a reasonably good indicator of your abilities (though, as with all parts of the admissions process, is not the be-all and the end-all!).

Planning

• While the ELAT instructions suggest you should spend at least 30 minutes reading and annotating, that might be too much for most. Instead, aim to spend 15-20 minutes.
• During that time, don’t settle on two texts just yet. Annotate perhaps three texts and then see which two will allow you to form the most incisive comparative reading. 
• If you have time, it is always a good idea to briefly sketch a plan for your essay. 
• Please remember that no extra paper will be provided, so keep that in mind when considering e.g. whether you should skip lines, and when planning the essay (it can’t be too long!).
• You will be able to refine your planning process by practising and working through two or three past ELAT papers.

Writing

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According to the ELAT marking criteria (https://www.admissionstesting.org/Images/47476-elat-marking-criteria.pdf), a Band 1 essay shows ‘a well-structured argument which is fully developed’.

• This means that your essay needs to exemplify (a) an argument that (b) is developed over paragraphs and sections.
• What is an argument in this context? Well, broadly speaking, it is your comparative reading of two texts that is incisive and non-obvious, i.e. requires illumination by close reading and analysis.
• Take Sample Paper 3 from the 2018 Practice Paper which scored 26/30 (52/60) as an example.
  • The candidate argues that the two texts display tonally different framings of childhood poverty, a difference inspired possibly by an idealist v.s. realist approach. T
  • his is evident in both texts’ narratorial ‘outsider’ perspectives, as well as the pathos affected by the fact that it is children who are suffering.
  • Though this is not perfectly developed by the candidate (as the examiner’s comments point out), the essay clearly has one sustained line of focus that is developed stage-by-stage: as the high mark suggests, such an approach works very well.

The marking criteria also suggest that your essay needs ‘sensitive, analytical close reading’. How might that be done?

• There is no one way of close reading. Indeed, one of the best ways to hone your critical abilities is to read more criticism: see the ‘Resources’ section below.
• However, we might turn again to Sample Paper 3 as an example of how we might do better close reading.
• The most important thing to notice is that the candidate does not think purely in terms of technique. In other words, they do not (like many candidates) try and pick out similarities and differences in language/imagery/structure/rhyme etc. and string together an essay. Instead, they think about more conceptually nuanced and aesthetically subtle aspects: narrative perspective and the affective use of childhood. As they expand upon their points, they then engage with more ‘conventional’ literary techniques such as diction or repetition or personification. This allows them to be incisive whilst also analytical.
• Other literary aspects you may wish to consider: the act of narration; metatextual elements; time and space; gendered gazes; direct/indirect/free indirect discourses; the presence of Othering and the Other; the interplay between fiction and truth and/or reality.
• Another important thing to realise that close reading should not be non-obvious. See the examiner’s comment on paragraph 2 of Sample Paper 3: the candidate’s analysis of the description ‘the burden that clung to her most affectionately’ in the Bleak House extract is ‘spending a little longer than is necessary on a fairly straightforward idea’. Indeed, it’s not really perceptive to point out that the adverb ‘affectionately’ illustrates ‘appreciation and love’, for instance.
• Do not give undue significance to sound effects, especially alliteration. 
• Finally, consider formal significances. A close reading of a poem would probably be missing something if it did not discuss aspects of prosody (rhyme, metre, lineation). Likewise, a discussion of drama should always keep in mind elements of performance.

​Last but not least, how should one handle the comparative part of the essay?

• Alternate between texts (either within a paragraph or a section) to ensure that you stay comparative and not give end-on accounts.
• If you can, try and give significance to your comparisons. E.g. the Sample Paper 3 suggests (briefly—but clearly the examiner was already very impressed) that the tonal difference between the two texts is motivated by different aesthetic preferences and approaches. 

Resources

Below are a selection of guides and commentaries, categorised according to literary form. As with all reading suggestions, feel free to pick and choose. It is also a great idea to think about how you can use what you have learned e.g. in a poetry commentary on close reading prose fiction etc.

Poetry

• Michael D. Hurley and Michael O’Neill, Poetic Form: An Introduction (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012)
  
  • [Excellent introduction to the workings of poetic forms: if you can incorporate this in your close reading of poetry you will surely shine.]
• The Blackwell’s Annotated Anthologies series
  
  • [Divided periodically; contains commentaries of every poem collected; the Victorian and Romantic poetry volumes are particularly good.]
• Ruth Padel, 52 Ways of Looking at a Poem (London: Vintage, 2004)
  
  • [For a popular audience, but still good.]
• Don Paterson, Smith (London: Faber and Faber, 2014)
  
  • [Anthology of and commentary on poems by Michael Longley; Paterson is a brilliantly eccentric yet terrific reader of poetry.]
• Helen Vendler, Dickinson: Selected Poems and Commentaries (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2010)
  
  • [Vendler is extremely famous for being one of the closest readers of language, but health warning: she can go a bit over the top. Don’t be afraid to learn from and disagree with her!]
    

Prose fiction

• James Wood, How Fiction Works (many editions)
  
  • [Introductory, but very readable and still widely used.]
• Marina Mackay, The Cambridge Introduction to the Novel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011)
  
  • [Brilliant, sophisticated work.] 
• Lionel Trilling, Prefaces to The Experience of Literature (New York: Harcourt, 1967)
  
  • [Very dated, but interesting as it contains commentaries on novel extracts and short stories. The poetry section is better, though.]

Nonfiction prose

• Thomas Karshan and Kathryn Murphy (eds), On Essays (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020)
  
  • [State-of-the-art volume on the literary essay: could give you plenty of incisive ideas if you decide to write on an essay in the ELAT.]
• Laura Marcus, Auto/biographical Discourses: Criticism, Theory, Practice (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1994)
  
  • [Autobiographies and other forms of life writing frequently come up in the ELAT.]​
    

Drama

• Martin Meisel, How Plays Work: Reading and Performance (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007)
  
  • [Very much gold-standard.]
• Mark Ravenhill, #MarkRavenhill101 on Twitter: see ‘English Subject Guide’ elsewhere on the website
• Hester Lees-Jeffries’s #SlowShakespeare blogs: see ‘English Subject Guide’ elsewhere on the website