Hello everybody and welcome to today’s video, where we are going to take a look at the exam
reports for the November 2021 AQA English Language GCSE exams, and see what tips they
gives us to do well in these exams in the future.
Starting off with paper 1 question 1, and there were two main issues: the first was
students selecting details from outside the specified lines.
Remember, the question directs you to a certain number of lines - draw a box around them in
the exam and make sure you select your answers from that section only.
The second issue was selecting information about the wrong character.
This is something we saw in paper 1 question 2 in the November 2019 exams.
Basically, if there is more than one character in a text, and a question directs you to answer
on a specific one, double check that the information you’re looking at is about the right character!
In paper 1 question 2 there was a word of caution about analysing lengthy quotes.
Using unfocused, long quotations can lead you to write about content rather than language.
Now you COULD use short, precise quotations.
Let’s look at a quick made up example.
Imagine you’re going to analyse the religious imagery in this quotation:
‘The angelic clouds drifted across the sky whilst Jacob squinted up with his hand to
his brow, desperately trying to spot the kite he had let go of only seconds before.’
OK so if you’re writing about religious imagery, you don’t need to quote the whole
sentence.
You could just write about how the writer uses religious imagery, describing the clouds
as quote ‘angelic’.
In this case your quotation would be one single word – you’re writing about the religious
imagery and in this sentence there is only one single word you’re going to analyse
in that way.
The rest of the sentence has nothing to do with religious imagery, so there’s no need
to quote it in this part of your answer.
Another point that came up for paper 1 question 2, and paper 2 question 3, which is also a
language analysis question, is about the need to write about the effects of language.
Some students spot language features but struggle to explain the effect of these features.
As you’ll know from my videos on these questions, one approach is to first ask yourself ‘what
is the specific effect that the writer is trying to achieve?’
Once you’ve got that in mind, you can then choose your words, phrases, language features
and techniques and sentence forms that achieve that effect.
If you’ve decided on the effect before you pick the features, it will help you to explain
how that effect is achieved.
What so often happens is a student will find a language feature - let’s say onomatopoeia,
but will have no idea why it’s used, or what its effect is.
Better to think first about the effect, then to pick the features that achieve those effects.
In paper 1 question 5, there was a point about uncontrolled sentence and paragraph lengths.
Now, for me, a lot of this comes down to planning.
Without a good plan it’s easy to get carried away in your descriptive or narrative piece
and forget about the technical skills you’re supposed to be thinking about too.
If you know this is a mistake you’re likely to make, why not write ‘paragraph and sentence
length’ in your plan.
That way you can look back at it as you write and be reminded to keep on top of it.
In Paper 2 question 2 there was a reminder that a key part of this question is inference.
For example, in a question summarising the differences between two things, it’s not
enough to just pick out the differences.
You have to then ask yourself ‘given that this is the difference, what does this lead
me to realise about what I’ve been asked to focus on’.
This requirement for inference isn’t explicitly clear in the wording of the question, so do
watch my video on paper 2 question 2 if you’re not sure how to draw an inference.
Finally, for paper 2 question 5, there were many answers that were so brief they failed
to get into level 2 of the mark scheme.
It’s an important reminder that timing is so crucial in this exam.
You should spend around 45 minutes on question 5.
If we allow 5 minutes for planning and 5 for checking at the end, that means you should
be writing for about 35 minutes.
Now we all write at different speeds, so there’s no certain page amount that makes an acceptable
answer, but it’s important you don’t spend too long on the earlier questions and run
out of time on question 5.
Remember, question 5 is worth half the marks of the entire paper, so you need to spend
45 minutes on it.
Further help can be found in my animated videos on each of these questions, which I’ll add
as a pinned comment.
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