Predictions for AQA Jekyll + Hyde Questions for 2025
As an AQA examiner, here’s my best guess at what the 2025 questions might be for Dr Jekyll + Mr Hyde!
Every year, students and teachers get very hung up on trying to figure out exactly what the topic of the exam question will be - and I get it, it makes sense because if you can predict the exam question, you can focus all your time and energy into revising just one or two topics rather than absolutely everything. However, it’s a very risky approach - if the topic you want doesn’t come up, it will automatically leave you feeling down and stressed before you even start writing the essay!
For this reason, before I give my predictions I want to stress that it’s imperative to revise all topics thoroughly. Exam boards try to stop students from guessing by sometimes repeating issues that have been on previous years, or even last year - so don’t think that just because a question came up last year, something similar won’t come up again.
If you’re stressed or worried about revising for Jekyll + Hyde, take a look at our Complete Revision Course below:
Ok so let’s jump into the predictions….
First off, the questions are always on theme, setting and/or character. So revise these thoroughly! Secondly, they are only going to be on the major characters, and the major themes - so there’s no point for instance revising Inspector Newcomen in detail. Poole is a bit of a borderline character, so I would actually suggest making some notes on him.
Secondly, the structuring of the question is always the same. It gives you an extract, tells you where the extract is from (be sure to use this to analyse structure in your answer), and then gives you the question.
The question is always something like “Starting with this extract, explore how Stevenson presents / creates….” and then the ending can be character, theme or setting.
Here is the June 2022 exam:
Robert Louis Stevenson: The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Read the following extract from Chapter 6 (Remarkable Incident of Dr Lanyon) of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and then answer the question that follows. In this extract, Utterson thinks about his friendship with Dr Jekyll and how it has changed.
[Extract: “Time ran on… betook himself to Dr Lanyon’s”]
Starting with this extract, explore how Stevenson presents Dr Jekyll as a mysterious character. Write about: • how Stevenson presents Dr Jekyll in this extract • how Stevenson presents Dr Jekyll as a mysterious character in the novel as a whole. [30 marks]
We see that this is a character question. So the ‘points’ of your essay would be based around Jekyll’s character, but you could also include ideas about setting and theme underneath that.
Here’s the June 2023 question:
Read the following extract from Chapter 1 (Story of the Door) of The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and then answer the question that follows. In this extract, Mr Enfield tells Mr Utterson about his encounter with Mr Hyde.
[Extract: ““Well, it was this way,” ….really like Satan.”]
Starting with this extract, explore how far Stevenson presents Mr Hyde as a threatening and dangerous character. Write about: • how Stevenson presents Mr Hyde in this extract • how far Stevenson presents Mr Hyde as threatening and dangerous in the novel as a whole.
So again, we have a character based question - focused around a specific feeling or mood.
Here is June 2021 for comparison: Starting with this extract, explore how Stevenson uses settings to create a disturbing and threatening atmosphere.
This one is setting-based, not character-based.
And the June 2020 one: Starting with this extract, explore how Stevenson presents ideas about good and evil in The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
This one is theme-based, not character or setting.
In the June 2024 paper, although it’s not yet been fully released, the topic was ‘setting’
So, my best guess is that theme is likely to come up this year, because we’ve had setting - character - character - setting for the past four years. But like I say, it’s not 100% accurate as they may just go back to character, or double up on setting two years in a row. So the absolute best thing to do really is make sure you’re confident on all aspects of the text.
Thanks for reading!
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