How to Prepare for the ELAT

Sitting the English Literature Admissions Test (ELAT) was one of the most nerve-wracking parts of my Oxford University admissions process. 

The Oxford interviews made me quake with anxiety, but they were basically pleasant conversations to see if the tutors and you would be a good fit for the next three years. 

The interviews are focused on your character and passion for your subject.

The English Literature Admissions Test (ELAT) is a test of your academic brilliance and potential

You take the ELAT under timed conditions, with the paper-based test lasting 90 minutes, and it feels as though everything is on the line. 

Your grades were deemed acceptable. Your personal statement has been approved. You’ve gone through your interviews. And now all that’s left is to show them what you can really do. 

I remember my hand shaking and sweaty as I raced through my ELAT, but luckily my preparation had paid off and just a couple of days before Christmas I received the only present I wanted that year: an offer to study English Language and Literature at Oriel College, Oxford University. 

I’m going to show you how I prepared for the ELAT and give you some top tips so you can get the best result possible in the ELAT. 

How to Prepare for the ELAT

First, let’s talk a little bit about exactly what the ELAT is and what to expect.

• ELAT paper length: 90 minutes 
• ELAT aim: to test your close reading skills and “ability to shape and articulate an informed response to unfamiliar literary material” (according to Oxford University).
• What do you have to do in the ELAT? Write one essay comparing two passages, focusing on “language, imagery, syntax, form and structure”.

You will have six passages to choose from, and all passages are on the same theme, but they come in a mixture of different forms (like poetry, prose, drama, fiction and non-fiction) and come from different dates. 

This is what you will be asked in your ELAT paper:

“Select two of the passages (a) to (f) and compare and contrast them in any ways that seem interesting to you, paying particular attention to distinctive features of structure, language and style.”

Read that aim carefully.

Deconstruct it, take it apart, memorise it.

Get comfortable with it.

What are the main components they are asking you?

• Compare and contrast
• In any ways that seem interesting to you
• Pay attention to structure, language and style

This is your modus operandi from now until you take the exam. You are a compare and contrast robot on the lookout for interesting ways structure, language, and style differ between writing.

Let’s get into the ELAT tips.

Do the “three reads” method

You’ve got six texts to choose from, and you want to whittle those down to two that you feel confident to compare and contrast. 

The first read-through is a cursory one.

This isn’t a deep, brow-furrowing analysis of each text because you only get 90 minutes and you’re going to discard two thirds of the texts.

The first read is you looking for the two texts that stand out to you personally. This read will have the aim of seeing if any particular passage has stylistic, linguistic, and thematic points that make you perk up.

Once you’ve narrowed down your two texts, you’re going to do your second read-through.

Don’t worry if you didn’t understand the texts on the first read. That’s not what the first read is about. The second read is about getting down to the nitty-gritty and doing a deep, focused read where you’re on the lookout for things to talk about.

Then the third read-through, which you may wish to combine with the second read, is about getting that paper dirty. Underline, circle, draw lines, make notes, scribble all over your paper.

Ask yourself these two questions:

• What is being said?
• How is it being said? 

Creativity and insight comes from clarity.

Don’t even worry about saying anything clever until you can answer those two questions.

You can’t have an informed response until you can articulate what the actual text is saying and how it is saying it.

This doesn’t need to take forever, but just get a sentence or two in your mind answering that first question. Then you’re on the hunt for techniques that back it up.

Work from a structure

While you’re making your text dirty with underlinings and circling on your third read, you’ll want to put a structure in place for your essay.

It’s way easier to write under timed conditions if you know exactly what you’re going to write about. You do not want to figure out your next point ad hoc as you go.

Some writers can wing it, or pants it (writing by the seat of their pants), but the writers who are typically most consistently successful, productive, prolific, and quick writing are the ones who work from an outline.

Next to the extracts, note down three points with specific areas you’re going to compare and contrast.

You’ll have a short introduction and conclusion (of a sentence or so, because you don’t want to waste much time on this), but those three points are going to form the meat of your essay.

Each point is a paragraph. And in each paragraph you compare the texts to each other on stylistic and linguistic points. Where do they agree? Where do they disagree? What do they do that’s the same? What do they do that’s different?

• Intro
• Point 1
• Point 2
• Point 3
• Conclusion

That’s your outline.

Fill that in (roughly) before you begin writing your essay.

If you’re super speedy as a writer and think you can get more points in, go for it. But I’ve found for most people, including myself as someone who writes and thinks quickly, three points stretches you enough to be comfortable and allows you to go deeper on your points.

It’s better to have three quality points, than to spread yourself to thin over five points where you don’t really say anything of substance.

If you want more guidance, you could (and probably should) just make each point about the three things the examiners want you to pay particular attention to:

• Point 1 = structure
• Point 2 = language
• Point 3 = style

But within those brackets, find something interesting and unique.

Structure, for example, might be contrasting how one writer uses a poetic form to talk about their theme, whilst another writer manipulates the play form. 

PEE – point, example, explanation 

Drill this down into your mind.

It’s a magic formula that takes the pressure off you and ensures you write a readable (even good) essay.

You’ve got your three main points, your three main paragraphs, and within those paragraphs you’ll want to structure them as introducing your point, then elaborating with the example you’ve chosen, then going a little further with more explanation.

Writer A says X about Y theme by use of Z stylistic device, whilst Writer B prefers to use X stylistic device to present that same theme. We can see this in lines three and four when Writer A does…. You get the drift. 

You’re a ringmaster – that’s how you compare and contrast

Think of the writer of each text as though they were written by two friends (or enemies).

You bring them into conversation with each other.

You’re the ringmaster, pitting them to fight it out.

Where do they agree? Where do they disagree?

What does one friend say in their text? What does the other say?

These two writers may be separated by hundreds of years, different cultures, different classes, different lives – but what do they say about the grand topics of human nature?

What does Shakespeare say about society? Does Dickens agree?

There’s a conversation about love and class between Austen and Hardy. What does that conversation look like?

A great compare-and-contrast essay is part boxing match, part ballet performance. And you are director of cinematography, ringmaster and referee.

Let there be blood and beauty on the canvas.

“…uses lexis from the semantic field of…”

This is a great stock phrase where you can fill in the blanks.

• Lexis = words/vocabulary
• Semantic field = a set of words related by field, meaning, industry.

For example, a writer may be discussing love, but they may repeatedly be using lexis from the semantic field of medicine. If they’re talking about potions and cures and ailments, then that’s what they’re doing.

Why are they choosing medical words to discuss love? This is where the interesting discussion and nuance comes in.

And then perhaps another writer is also talking about love, but they’re using lexis from the semantic field of war – battle, fight, struggle, defeat. Can you see where this starts to get fun? 

Look for repetition

If something’s repeated, it’s meaningful.

Great writers don’t just randomly repeat words or structures, phrases, images, or ideas. There’s a lot of thought gone into these great texts. If you see the same thing crop up more than once, you might want to comment on it. 

I’ll repeat: repetition is meaningful!

Look for sentiments expressed in strange ways

Read the beginning of this poem by James Joyce:

Though I thy Mithridates were,

Framed to defy the poison-dart,

Yet must thou fold me unaware

To know the rapture of thy heart

And I but render and confess

The malice of thy tenderness.

That’s a damn hard poem to deconstruct. Damn hard to understand (thanks, Joyce). But you know what immediately stands out to me? What stands out before I even begin to think of the meaning? It’s the strange way that first line is written.

“Were” should be the third word if we want to make it syntactically proper. But why has Joyce put it at the end?

You could say he’s trying to obtain a more archaic tone, which is reinforced by his use of lexis like “thy” and “thou”. However, I think that putting it out of place and at the end of the word (especially when “were” is typically a word we glide over as it doesn’t have a vivid image associated with it) means Joyce wants emphasis put on that word.

Why does he want it emphasised? Well, “were” is a passive construction and I believe Joyce wants us to really focus on just how passive the speaker, the one folded unaware in love, feels.

That’s the type of thinking you’ve got to do for the ELAT.

Show your working out

Just like in Maths, you’re going to want to show your working out.

There’s never really a correct interpretation of a text. Some interpretations can be more outlandish and eccentric than others. And it’s absolutely fine to land on an interpretation that almost certainly isn’t correct – as long as you can back it up!

Make your point, but bring a lot of ammo to the battle. Examples and elaboration are key!

This is what the examiners really want to see. They want to see you contrasting, comparing, and setting up a compelling debate.

Read these three books:

You’re going to want to read a lot more than three books, but in order to get your mind thinking in the best way and to have a ton of terminology in your writing arsenal, you will want to make close companions of these three books:

• The Ode Less Travelled by Stephen Fry
• How to Read a Book by Mortimer Adler
• Language in Literature: An Introduction to Stylistics by Michael Toolan

Read them over and over. Make notes. And apply what you’re learning to books you’re reading. 

Look for literary techniques, then reason why they’re being used. 

Once you’ve figured out what the writer is saying, you want to be like a focused tractor-beam, lasered in on metaphors and similes, alliteration and assonance.

• How does this metaphor connect to the writer’s thoughts about love? 
• How does the alliteration in this poem convey as sense of unease?

ELAT Checklist:

• Structure: What’s the form of the content? Is it a poem? If so, what kind? Is it shaped? Is it a sonnet or ballad or heroic verse? Is it rhymed or unrhymed? What’s the punctuation like? What’s repeated? 
• Meaning: What is the writer trying to say? What themes are they hitting on? Love, jealousy, war, grief, anger? And what are they specifically saying about that theme?
• Language: What literary devices are used and how do they reinforce the meaning? Look out for similes and metaphors. Try to identify what semantic fields the lexis is taken from. Also what are the key images that stand out?
• Effect: How do you the reader feel by virtue of what is being said and the way it is being said?

Do a lot of ELAT practice papers

The only way to get better at all this, is to practice over and over again until it becomes second nature.

Compare and contrast, compare and contrast, compare and contrast. 

But also do this in your own self-motivated reading too.

Go to secondhand bookstores, grab a stack, keep a spiral notebook, and continuously introduce different authors in conversation with each other.

This is called syntopic reading and is the most valuable, deepest kind of reading you can do.

That’s why they are testing you on it in the ELAT. 

You also want to practice under timed conditions and try to get teachers to either mark them or comment on them. 

Read as much as you possibly can

Especially that of the literary critique variety. Books of essays by the greatest minds. And read newspapers and opinion pieces, especially from high quality periodicals, voraciously. 

There’s Art and Letters Daily, three new pieces to choose from each day, but browse down and make it an aim to read a few each day of what interests you. 

You can also do the Bradbury Trio to bolster your reading. That means you read one poem, one essay, and one short story every night. 

Yes, this is a lot of reading! 

But if you’re scoffing at this now, studying English Literature is not for you and you’ll have a harder time than you might be having for the ELAT. If you can’t get into a position where you’re having fun comparing and contrasting texts, this course is not for you. 

Sure, you might find it difficult and stressful but overall you should get a thrill out of reading and analysing, thinking about and comparing ideas. 

Watch TED talks. Make it an aim to watch one a day. Any topic, whatever interests you. 

If you’ve got some cash to splash, invest in MasterClass or the Great Courses and soak up some grand ideas. 

Choose passages you can say the most about – don’t go for difficulty

Examiners won’t be impressed by what passages you chose. “Oh, they chose a really difficult one. Top marks!” No, they’re impressed by how you handle what you do choose.

So go for the passages you feel most passionate about, interested in, and excited about.

Don’t quibble over what you choose to highlight

It might seem silly or trivial or a non-point, but it’s absolutely none of those things if you feel you can confidently and passionately discuss it. 

Have fun and put your own personality into the mix

Remember that you’re comparing and contrasting in ways that seem interesting to you.

Just like in the Oxford interviews, they want to get a sense of who you are as a person because they want to see if they would enjoy working with you for the next three years.

And relax!

The ELAT tests natural ability so, although I’ve tried my best, here I can’t really say “do this” and “study this” in order to achieve “this result.” What I’ve doing here is try to bring out your natural ability through these recommendations. 

Bolster your reading, thinking, comparing, contrasting, and writing to an enormous degree (as much as you possibly can), live and breathe it, then sit the ELAT and let the chips fall where they may. And have a blast doing so. 

Good luck.