Unseen poetry frightens students more than any other part of the exam, and it should not, because it is the one section where there is nothing to memorise. You cannot revise the poems, because you will not have seen them before. What you can do is learn exactly what AQA asks and practise the skill of analysing a poem quickly. This page explains the exam so you know precisely what you are walking into.
Where unseen poetry sits in the exam
Unseen poetry is Section C of AQA English Literature Paper 2, the same paper as your modern text and the poetry anthology. It comes last, so you need to leave enough time for it. The poems are printed on the paper, and you will never have seen them before, which is the whole point: the section tests how well you can read and analyse poetry on the spot.
The two questions
There are two questions in this section, and they are very different. The first is the big one, worth 24 marks, and it gives you one unseen poem and asks something like: what does the poet think or feel about a subject, and how do they present it? You analyse that single poem in detail. The second question is worth 8 marks and gives you a second unseen poem, asking you to compare the methods the two poets use to present a similar subject. So the first question is deep analysis of one poem, and the second is a shorter comparison of two.
What is, and is not, assessed
This is the key thing that makes unseen poetry different: there is no context. Because the poems are unseen, you are not expected to know anything about the poet or the period, so AO3 is not assessed here. That means no historical background, no biography, none of the context you use elsewhere. The marks are for AO1, your response and use of quotations, and AO2, your analysis of language, form and structure. The 8 mark question focuses almost entirely on comparing methods, which is AO2. Always check the exact wording and mark allocations against the current AQA specification.
Now you know the format, learn the method on the how to answer page, the essay shape on the structure guide, and what earns marks on the mark scheme page.