A Streetcar Named Desire: Exam Preparation Pack for AS / A Level Edexcel

With enduring characters and a sinister themes of lust, loss and lies, A Streetcar Named Desire remains a perennially popular choice at A Level.

Apply understanding and refine exam technique with key revision activities, detailed exam advice, essay-building activities, exam-style questions and model answers. Be prepared for AS and A Level exam questions with this thorough and supportive pack!

  • Student-friendly revision notes and activities on key elements of A Streetcar Named Desire, including:
    • Detailed scene-by-scene revision notes, and activities to recap knowledge of context, themes, motifs and more!
  • ‘Exam Skills’ section containing:
    • Sample essay plans and activities to provide a supportive framework for exam questions
    • Tasks on writing introductions to ensure students make a great first impression
    • Exam tips and guidance
  • 15 exam-style essay questions (5 for AS, 10 for A Level)
  • 10 sample essays (3 for AS, 7 for A Level) with detailed examiner commentary and reflective student activities – familiarise students with examiner thinking and practise improving grades

  • Plus! Student-friendly mark schemes and indicative content for all exam-style questions and activities – perfect for easy marking and self-assessment

Ready to embed into your revision programme in class or as homework.

What do teachers say about this resource? (11221)

I absolutely love this resource! As someone new to teaching Streetcar, this is a godsend! The range of detail covering each scene is really helpful in pushing knowledge and understanding, and will also work fantastically for developing pupil knowledge both in and out of the classroom... I really like that each scene has a selection of revision activities to help develop pupil engagement. Furthermore, the information on context, techniques, and themes/motifs is detailed but specific - keeping the most important elements to the forefront but doing so in a high level, academic way. The activities and range of essays are also effective... This resource is a brilliant companion to go alongside the study of the text because it develops the most important elements and gives high level concepts and ideas. This is done succinctly meaning that leaners of all abilities can access the content... It matches the spec perfectly and this is shown particularly well within the example questions/essay breakdown.

C Testa, MAT English Lead & Peer Reviewer

Very thorough and comprehensive. It strikes a good balance between knowledge and information and providing opportunities to for students to be actively engaged in adding their own responses... I liked the revision thinking box: in particular, the tasks that invited students to find supporting quotations. Throughout there is a close focus on literary techniques and these are ambitious ones. The fact that each technique is modelled and embedded in a sentence would help students learn how to use them. I like the key terminology box with it's academic mix of tier two and three vocabulary... The themes and motif section includes a space for students to add their own notes, and the revision activities would means students become actively engaged in the text. The commentary is ambitious and is excellent. The essay planning grid is a valuable educational tool. Looking at, and evaluating, the sample essays would be an excellent activity for students on their own or as part of a classroom discussion... Excellent.

E McNally, Head of English & Peer Reviewer

A really thorough pack, particularly strong with technical analysis, key terminology, exploring a wide range of features. Very useful and practical with so much to offer students and teachers. It is of the high quality that I always expect from ZigZag... I really like the way that there are embedded quotations throughout, such as the ‘melting pot’ and ‘raffish charm’ in the opening description of New Orleans. It’s so helpful to have the right quotes at your fingertips and to demonstrate to students how to use quotations fluently in this way... The section on Williams’ Literary techniques (p. 18-19) and the Dominoes activity (p.27-29) are really helpful and the Dominoes is a great activity... Really enhances the use of technical terminology through the text boxes and through the range of terms and features that are referred to. Because it is always accompanied by an example of the term in use... It not only enhances understanding of Streetcar but also gives teachers and students an excellent toolbox. I like the range of themes and motifs that are explored... The planning grids for essay responses are very helpful to show students how to break down ideas and use topic sentences to guide paragraphs. It is very common for AS/A level students to really struggle with getting started on essays so I think this is an effective way of modelling how to tackle this. The exercise on evaluating topic sentences in the following section really helps to build on that.

L Lockwood, English Tutor & Peer Reviewer

Very good indeed and it's getting ordered for my revision ASAP... The thinking questions put onus on the student to make real use of the very targeted insights... It would be great to use from scratch, but I think equally useful for revision... The section on Williams' literary techniques will key in very well to analysis also, signposting immediate and deployable knowledge for both stronger and weaker students... Key aspects of the play and the mark scheme are returned to consistently, with a shrewd eye for the dramaturgical/theatrical aspects that will access higher levels in the mark scheme - including plastic theatre, foreshadowing, use of sound and motifs. A particular strength is the concise but very useful presentation of key terms (e.g., epistrophe, harmartia, trope) that will enrich analytical writing... The strong content-related revision from earlier on is crowned by the very nicely presented exam responses and 'examiner's comments'. This is a rigorous and deeply useful section.

B Coulthard, Teacher of English & Peer Reviewer

Very comprehensive and focused on preparing pupils for the exam... Contained a range of activities, including scene highlights for each of the scenes of the play, and also a range of revision activities in different forms... I particularly liked the sheer variety of different activities: there were quotation retrieval tasks, mind map tasks, sample essay questions, useful peer and self assessment grids and I could go on. Any teacher buying this resource would have a plethora of different activities and tasks up their sleeve which would be a major asset to anybody teaching this text... The run-through of each scene was very thorough in picking out and highlighting important moments that were then explored in more detail. This would not only be useful for a pupil, but also for a teacher who might be teaching this text for the first time... I also liked the tasks after each section of input which helped pupils use their knowledge and check it through various activities. There was a perfect balance of input but also activities for the pupils to engage in... Overall, I thought this was a brilliant resource... My plaudits for what is an incredibly well-thought-out and meticulously planned and organised resource.

J Hathaway, Head of English & Peer Reviewer