I was reduced to helpless laughter when one of the criteria for "O level style" exams", designed to set higher standards, was that English Literature candidates would not be allowed to take their set texts with them into the exam room. I can remember wasting huge amounts of time learning great chunks of English literature off by heart, including the precise punctuation, just so that I could drop in quotes here and there in my essays. Frankly, if you haven't read the set texts before entering the exam room, you have little hope of passing even if they are there in front of you. I don't reckon that I could read a play by Shakespeare, a full-length novel and a collection of verse (that's what the syllabus included then) and answer questions on them in the three hours of the exam.
On the other hand, on one of my BA exam papers, I answered a question on comparing two poets – one of whom I knew little about having read only a couple of his poems. I knew a great deal about the other one and had read everything he wrote lots of times. That was one of my alpha papers, apparently.