At the start of the exam, you will be asked a series of short-form questions that check your ability to read a question thoroughly.
Here are some of the most common mistakes that students make in this exam:
You need to read and re-read the questions you have been asked. Make sure that you are clear on what you have been asked before attempting to answer. You must be careful. It is going to be tempting to rush - don't!
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On Paper 1, you are asked a 6-mark question about how the writer uses language and structure. It is important to understand how to respond to this question, as it could be the difference between one grade and the next.
Step 1: Establish what you are being asked Too often, you are so keen to get on with it that you don't read the question properly - this is a HUGE mistake. It's really important to understand what you're being asked to look for. Compare:
Step 2: Annotate I cannot say this enough. In fact, it is so important that I'm going to put it in huge, bold, pink font: DO NOT SKIP THE ANNOTATION If you skip annotation, then you're basically preparing to fail. You absolutely must take the time (5 minutes or so) to read the text over and over until you understand it. Highlight language and structure in two different colours. Take the time to mark them with (L) and (S). This forms the basis of your plan. Step 3: Write your response Now you have your plan, this is the easy part. As this is a 6-mark question, you need to follow this basic build:
Step 4: Check your response Before you move on to the next question, please make sure you take the time to check that your response makes sense. It sounds simple, but you'd be surprised how many students fail to check their responses and miss confusing sentence structures and weird paragraphs. Check your work. Always. This paper is all about your ability to read a question properly and analyse a writer's choices. If you can do that, you're golden. Good luck! Part of both Paper 1 and Paper 2 is showing your ability to evaluate a text. This sounds simple, but you'd be amazed how many students actually get this wrong to some degree! This is a 15-mark question on both papers and understanding how to respond to it will put you in good stead for tackling the rest of the paper. What does it mean to 'evaluate'? Basically, evaluation is asking you 'how well' something is done. For example, if I asked you to evaluate my teaching, I'd be asking you to tell me how well I teach; if I asked you to evaluate school lunches, you'd tell me how well they are made, and how well they are received. Texts are no different. Cardinal error #1: Misunderstanding the question Remember, you are being asked how well, not how. Which means that if you are asked to look at how well a writer creates tension, you need to evaluate how well he creates tension - not describe how it is done! A great many students have lost out on marks thanks to this small error of judgement. See the writer as an architect One of the key things you need to remember when writing an evaluation is that the writing is a creation made by the writer. You need to keep the writer in the forefront of your mind - why have they made particular choices? What is the thought behind it? How successful have they been? Take the task: In this text, the writer tries to engage the reader through their description of the jungle. Evaluate how successfully this has been achieved. If we re-write the question (which we should always, always do!) with the writer at the centre of it, we end up with: How well does the writer's description of the jungle engage the reader? Now we're cooking on gas. It means that now, when we evaluate, we know that we're not looking at how he describes the jungle, but how well he describes it in order to make it interesting. Annotating the text As always, annotation is key. It means that you don't need to plan and you won't be pushed for time when you're writing as all of your notes will already be there. I made a post last week about the comparison question and I showed you Ria's annotations - this is what annotations should look like: Make sure your annotations relate directly to the question, and nothing more. You don't want a whole heap of annotations that you can't use - that would be confusing. Answering the question First, let's look at the mark scheme: As you can see, you're being asked to write critically - I wrote a post of critical evaluation and highly recommend that you read it - you can find it here. However, you're also being asked to analyse and evaluate the writer's choices. So how do we do this? Refer back to the question, using the writer as a focus When you're writing about the writer, you must use evaluative language and you must refer back to the question. That means using words like: These evaluative words should help you to make the differentiation between 'commenting', 'explaining' and 'evaluating'. Consider: James wears a red hat, which symbolises his anger. James' red hat is a symbol of his anger as the colour connotes rage; the fact he wears it on his head could indicate that his anger is inside his head. The writer gives James a red hat to send a clear signal to the audience that he is feeling, in his mind, angry. It is a powerful indicator of his mood; these symbols are also used elsewhere - for example, when he is calm, he wears a blue hat. In the final response, the candidate has clearly evaluated the usefulness of James' red hat - they have said 'how well', not just 'how'. A good idea would be to use your topic sentences to establish evaluation - The writer successfully creates... The writer clearly displays... The writer creates an obvious... This then gives you free reign to begin your analysis in the knowledge that you've already clearly displayed your understanding of the writer as an architect. So, all in all, you must remember - TL;DR:
Section A of Paper 1 is the reading section. It requires you to read a text, then respond to a number of short, medium and long questions on it.
This is a really clear video that clearly outlines how to approach this section of the exam well. |
In a Nutshell...This paper is a run-up to Paper 2. If you can master this, you're golden. ArchivesCategories
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