English Language Paper 1 Flashcards
Give an Overview of English Language Paper 1
1 hour and 45 minutes MAKE
SURE TO PLAN ON QUESTION 5 & 4
80 Marks!
Read the source relevant to the question. So if Question 2 says from lines 16-25. Read them lines.
When reading the source do not forget to look at the box giving you context.
How would you answer Question 1? [4 Marks]
Highlight what the question is asking you about and which lines it is asking you about first. DRAW A BOX around the lines you have been asked to analyse.
Directly quote from the text, answers can be very short
Then make sure to only state what has been asked of you.
DO NOT INFER
Start each word with what you have been asked about e.g. “The Jungle was…..”
What is the Success Criteria for Questions 2?
Shows perceptive and detailed understanding of language:
Analyses the effects of the writer’s choices of language
Selects a range of judicious textual detail
Makes sophisticated and accurate use of subject terminology
The writer’s choice of adjectives to describe Hartop as ‘a thin, angular man, starved-faced’ suggests both the gaunt appearance of a man who is malnourished and, metaphorically, the hard edges of someone whose character is possibly devoid of generosity or compassion for others, including his family. The use of the adverb ‘awkwardly’, where it says that he ‘seemed to occupy almost all the seat, sprawling awkwardly,’ not only reinforces the impression of Hartop’s body being tall, sharp and skinny, but also that, in deliberately ‘sprawling’, spreading his frame and taking up the space in the van, he was self-centred and intentionally selfish towards others - a difficult person in mind and attitude to life, as well as in body
How would you answer Question 2?
2-3 WHAT HOW WHY Paragraphs
Q2: Embed a quote, state the language device and explain what you can infer from it/effect on the reader (purpose of author).
BE SPECIFIC ABOUT EFFECT AND PURPOSE.
NEVER WRITE makes it interesting or paints a picture and if you are be specific e.g. it paints a grim picture in the mind of readers. There will probably be a metaphor/simile, alliteration, personification
Ask yourself what is the writer trying to achieve.
Example: The writer describes the setting in a way that makes it sound idyllic. “The sound of water resembles a chime of fairy bells” This simile conveys how delicate and pretty the sound was, and emphasises how lovely it would have been if you had lived there. It’s almost as if the surroundings are magical and trying to resemble a real home for Brightly who lives outside like a homeless person. The fairy bells symbolise a magical sentimental world, that perhaps provides an escape for Brightly’s difficult existence.
MAKE SURE YOU CONSIDER ALL THREE: Words and Phrases, language Features and techniques.
You will almost always find a list so learn how to write about a list.
What is the Success criteria for Question 3?
Shows perceptive and detailed understanding of structural features:
Analyses the effects of the writer’s choices of structural features
Selects a range of judicious examples
Makes sophisticated and accurate use of subject terminology.
The Hartops’ van is a main focus of the text – in Perceptive, the beginning when the old and shoddy exterior is detailed described, and towards the end when Alice ‘could analysis see the red tail-light of the van again’ and is reunited with her parents. The text begins with the 7-8 marks exterior of the van, old and ‘re-painted green’, travelling through the ‘treeless stretch of country’ in the wind and rain. This wide and open scene is then contrasted with the claustrophobic, squashedup interior of the front of the van, where Alice and her mother, despite their thinness, are ‘pressed tight together’ whilst Hartop is ‘sprawled awkwardly on most of the seat. We then move forward, through the rainy countryside as Hartop drives the old van to its destination in order to sell his produce. This movement is stopped when the van stops and the subsequent dialogue results in Alice leaving the van to look for whatever has fallen from the roof as the van is driven on. The family, once so pressed together, are now separated. The reader stays with Alice, outside in the rain watching the tail-light of the van disappear. The text develops with Alice later moving out of the darkness when she sees the stationary red taillight and the ‘lights of the houses’. However, at the end of the text she is cast back into isolation by the sharp words of her father and we leave her as she ‘walked away and vanished, all without a word’.
How would you answer Question 3?
3 What, How, Why paragraphs beginning, Middle and end.
This question is about what, where, why and how something is happening.
You have to write why there is a shift in focus and its effect. This can be done through: Flashbacks or Flashfoward. Shifts in focus or Perspective
Zooming in and out to a broader description.
Repetition
Foreshadowing.
Analysis should be precise and contextualised,
Write about cyclical structure and a new impact.(This is being perceptive)
Example:
The story begins and Ends with Brightly moving along his journey Dreaming along on his journey. The story begins with ‘Up the road… to St Mary Tavy came Brightly dragging on his arm and ends with him dreaming about ’a little ca r t’ as he ‘trampled the moor’. By beginning and ending the story with Brightly’s journey, the writer creates a circular narrative where Brightly is trapped in his life of poverty mirroring the cycle Brightly finds himself in. The writer illustrates how it doesn’t matter what Brightly dreams of he is still hungry and homeless, walking across a landscape he is too blind to appreciate and unable to ever achieve his dreams.
What is the Success Criteria to Questions 4?
Focus this part of your answer on the second part of the source, from line 34 to the end. A student said, ‘This part of the story, where Alice is sent back along the road to find what has fallen from the roof and returns with the chrysanthemums, shows how hard and cruel Hartop is, so that all of our sympathy is with Alice.’
To what extent do you agree?
In your response, you could:
consider whether Alice is treated cruelly by her father
evaluate how the writer creates sympathy for Alice
support your response with references to the text. [20 marks]
Shows perceptive and detailed evaluation:
Evaluates critically and in detail the effect(s) on the reader
Shows perceptive understanding of writer’s methods
Selects a range of judicious textual detail
Develops a convincing and critical response to the focus of the statement
Example: I think both Alice and Hartop are deserving of our Perceptive, sympathy, so it doesn’t all go to Alice. Although his detailed wife tries to protest, Hartop is determined that Alice evaluation is going out in the wind, rain and darkness to look for whatever fell off the van roof. Our sympathy for 16-20 Alice seems assured as the writer tells us that, to marks Alice, the van ‘seemed to be moving away rapidly’, with the adverb ‘rapidly’ suggesting Hartop’s careless lack of compassion in leaving Alice isolated and abandoned. However, Alice’s acceptance of this suggests that she is used to her father’s uncompromising and harsh ways so she ‘stoically’ accepts the discomfort and pain of the wind and rain as her duty. Later, the writer uses the conspiratorial relationship between mother and daughter, through dialogue, as a way perhaps to create sympathy for Hartop. Having successfully returned with the flowers, he overhears Alice say to her mother that it was ‘Only a bunch of chrysanthemums’, meaning that it was nothing, it was hardly worth the trouble he caused her to find them, that they are not important. Alice felt safe saying this to her mother but ‘Hartop appeared at the very moment she was speaking’. Since the chrysanthemums are his livelihood, his business, he is indignant and angry. Although confrontational, Hartop is not cruel; he is just a frustrated, struggling, poor man trying to earn a living against the odds - and as such is deserving of our
How do you answer Question 4 English Language Paper 1
BOX the lines you have been asked to answer. Reread the source.
Make sure you are giving you opinion on the opinion.
Evaluate Ideas and Methods.
When we are talking about methods we are talking about everything like structure and language.
Talk about writer’s viewpoint and how they show that viewpoint
3-4 WHAT HOW WHY Paragraphs
You can Totally Agree, Partially Agree, Totally Disagree. So if you have one area where you disagree you can say that as it shows perceptiveness and evaluation.
Example:
I agree with the reader that Brightly enjoys his time in the Church, and it does have a positive affect on him. Even once he has left the Church, he is still thinking about his time there, and the song heard ‘some days’. In fact, it had such a positive effect upon him, he even visits a ‘public library’ to look up jerusalem on a ‘map of. the world’. However, what it is that he enjoys is the song about milk and honey, and the irony is that although the church gave him hope, it did nothing to satisfy his hunger, and he left the warm church without any of the promised milk and honey. The imagery of the ‘warm’ church contrasts with the description of ‘barren village’ and ‘piled rocks’ where Brightly spends the rest of his time. This contrasts illuminates how little brightly has, and how the joy he takes from the song, is only ever fleeting, because it describes a place that is out of Brightly’s reach. This suggests the positive effect on brightly is merely ‘superficial’
What is the Success Criteria for Question 5?
Content
Communication is convincing and compelling
Tone, style and register are assuredly matched to purpose and audience
Extensive and ambitious vocabulary with sustained crafting of linguistic devices
Organisation
Varied and inventive use of structural features
Writing is compelling, incorporating a range of convincing and complex ideas
Fluently linked paragraphs with seamlessly integrated discourse markers
Technical Accuracy
Sentence demarcation is consistently secure and consistently accurate
Wide range of punctuation is used with a high level of accuracy
Uses a full range of appropriate sentence forms for effect
Uses Standard English consistently and appropriately with secure control of complex grammatical structures
High level of accuracy in spelling, including ambitious vocabulary
Extensive and ambitious use of vocabulary
How do you answer Question 5?
Description:
- Descriptive writing isn’t literary fiction.
- You’re not telling a story. That’s the ‘narrative’ part of Section B.
- All you’re doing is creating a visualisation for the reader using language.
Use the Five senses.
Vary sentence and paragraph lengths
Use different Sentence Openings.
Use Section A Extract
Plan a journey through the image
Make sure there is a change in the end to show circular structure.
Show not tell.
Create a semantic field
How do you use the senses?
Visual
Appeal to the reader’s sense of sight so they can imagine what the scene looks like. For instance:“After years of heavy smoking, the once-white walls in her living room were now the colour of a torched crem-brulee.”As long as the reader knows what crème brulee looks like, they now have a very accurate description of how the living room walls appear.
Auditory
Write for the reader’s hearing senses so they can imagine what sounds are going on. “George woke to the sound of his Labrador barking, deep and loud, repeatedly and angrily, at the neighbour’s cat standing on the opposite side of the window.”It helps us imagine the sound now we know its pitch and volume.Be aware: onomatopoeia can be effective – perhaps a burst tyre can hiss or blood can gargle – but don’t use it gratuitously – only if it adds extra detail to your description.
Olfactory
Think about what scents and smells are going on. You can even cause a physical reaction with this one! Particularly if you’re describing food because you can get the reader’s mouth to water. For instance: “As I lifted my slice of pizza from the box, that rich, creamy smell of four melted cheeses – together with the sweet, sticky smell of buffalo-chicken – sent my tastebuds gushing.”Adding some detail about the smells in the scene helps place the reader there and makes it much more realistic.
Gustatory
If the person in your description is eating, what tastes can you describe? For instance:“The roasted hazelnut mixed with the flavour of dark chocolate. It was sweet, and bitter, with a slight aftertaste of wood – that same taste you get when you bite the top of a pencil.”Be creative, using your own experiences to help express your ideas.
Tactile
What do the objects in your scene feel like? Is the blanket someone’s sat on slightly itchy and course; is the ticket they’re holding slightly waxy; is the snowball they’re holding so cold that it feels numb to begin with, then turns slightly wet, and suddenly it feel like hundreds of needles are going into their skin as the cold sets in? We’ve all felt these sensations, so almost everyone can relate to these feelings. Another example here:“I was expecting it to be wet and slimy, but as the snake moved on my palm it was surprisingly dry and incredibly smooth – like a well-polished wooden banister.”
Personification
You can also immerse your reader by using personification to bring some of these senses to life a bit more.
- The wheels screamed
- The trees trembled
- The dog danced enthusiastically
- The fire swallowed the whole building
- The mountains bullied and intimidated the valley underneath
You could even make your landscape an extra ‘character’ in your description.
Here’s an example by Emily Dickenson to show how effective that can be:
“When it comes, the landscape listens,
Shadows hold their breath,”
How do i Create a semantic field?
“As the train hurtled towards the station at full speed, the brakes screamed desperately – the sound of a Prima Donna about to smash a bulb with her voice. Hot smoke billowed as the friction heated up, releasing the smell of burning rubber. The train alarm sounds – a deafening whistle like a thousand kettles sounding at once – before carriages knock into themselves so that the train becomes a giant mechanical caterpillar, curling up as it makes its way forward.”
You’ll notice in this example a semantic field of panic and alarm, created by the words: scream, smash, heated, burning. It’s an appropriate semantic field, given the context of a train crash. So when you create a semantic field, think about what mood you want to create. How do you want the reader to feel?happy / melancholic / nostalgic / sombre etc?Make sure you pick the right connotations from your word class choices to create the right mood and atmosphere.
What do i need to think of when writing a story?
Ideas Generator: Objects
In order to get those objects, we need to generate some ideas.So start with a central image – a suitcase always works well – they’re very versatile and fit into most settings, and operate as a good springboard for your story. If the question is for you to write a story set on a train, you can zoom in on your suitcase – let’s say, your old, battered-looking, well-travelled suitcase – and start your story there.
Perhaps this case has been left by somebody? What’s in it? A bomb? Some old books, clothes, gold?Equally, of course, that object could be a brown paper bag or an umbrella, a dirty wine glass or some spectacles, a torn up photo or a child’s toy.You can use one or more of these objects in your scene to add that important detail, or to inspire an entire narrative.
Ideas Generator: Characters
Now get a loose idea of some people to bring into your story – we can think about their personality traits later on:For example, my characters are:
An old woman
A young boy
A busy woman
An old man
A trendy dad
You should only need to focus on one or two or your characters in the exam, but like your objects – and everything you need to study for in fact – it’s good to be prepared with a few extra.Now if you’re struggling to come up with your own ideas, just head to Google Images and search for, say, an old man – pick one you like and give him a name.
- You can also get inspiration when you’re in a café, on a train journey or from social media.
- You could base a character loosely on somebody you know.
- Wherever you are, look around you for inspiration.
Putting Them All Together
Now you can start putting your people and objects together. For example:
- “An old man sat by the window wiping his glasses.”*
- “The young boy was falling asleep and slowly losing his grip on his teddy’s paws.”*
- “The woman stopped typing then looked out the window and smiled. The boy noticed and gently kicked her chair so she’d smile at him, too.”*
We’re now part way there to developing a story. So if the question asks you to write a story about a character who is new to the area, think about which of your characters would best fit the scene, then decide what objects they have on them when you first introduce them to the reader.
How do you write about setting in a narrative?
Immerse Your Reader in the Setting
There will usually be a question specifying the setting. For instance, it will ask you to write a story in a busy train station. That’s where you decide which of your objects and characters you want to bring in.
If you are given the setting, then think about what senses are going on. This helps to immerse your reader and brings your scene to life a lot more. It involves a lot of the skills covered in the Writing to Describe pages. So you’ll know that when you specify the senses being stimulated in the scene, it helps set a mood for your writing.
Using the Senses for a Setting
Here’s a really good example of creating a mood for your setting from Margaret Atwood’s novel ‘The Testaments’ – it’s taken from a scene where a girl realises her mother is seriously unwell.
“Her room no longer smelt like her – that light, sweet smell, like the lily-flowered Hostas in our garden – but as if a stale, dirtied stranger had crept in and was hiding under the bed.”
The smells there are familiar to us – even if we don’t know what Hostas are, we generally know what flowers smell like. So the contrast between that familiar and pleasant smell against the stench of a stale, dirty stranger, is really effective to emphasise an unwelcome atmosphere of sickness and pending danger.But the smells also say a lot about the characters in a small number of words: the ‘light, sweet smell’ shows how delicate and feminine the mother is, and the astuteness of the girl to recognise all that shows her intelligence and sensitivity – and how close their relationship must be.Senses can be a really good place to start your story as well.For example, “The smell reminded me of…” throws the reader straight in and creates some intrigue.Even more so if you add some contrast and juxtapose the sense to the setting:
“The smell reminded me of my step-mother smoking at the breakfast table.”
Firstly, we don’t expect someone to be smoking at the breakfast table, so we start making some flash assumptions about the characters, which may or may not turn out to be true. We’re intrigued by these two characters and whatever story is going between them, all because of a smell that wouldn’t normally fit the setting.
Ideas Generator: Settings
Sometimes in the exam you’ll be given a sense to write about and the setting will be up to you. For instance the question might ask you to write a story starting with “There was complete silence…”.Well where is that silence? And that’s for you to decide.Here’s where it’ll help for you to have some ‘Setting’ ideas up your sleeve. So mine are:
A wooded forest
A crowded beach
Inside an elevator
A wedding reception
Inside a car
On the surface, it might not look like there can be silence on a busy beach or in a car. But again that contrast and incongruity makes for a really interesting plot. So perhaps the beach has gone silent because there’s an eclipse happening or the music’s stopped at a wedding because someone is about to make a dramatic announcement.It helps if you have 1 or 2 generic spaces like an elevator or car because you can easily adapt them to fit most questions.
- It’s generally a good idea to stick to what you know with your settings.
- If you’ve never been to a wedding or a funeral before, maybe avoid writing about those as there’ll be lots of details you won’t know about.
- Having said that, if you get a question set at a wedding and you don’t like the other question options, then practice ways to get around it – could the weeding be on the beach or in your family’s garden?
- Enclosed spaces tend to be really fertile ground for creative writing too because the atmosphere can be intense.
How do i put a plot together?
The Narrative Arc
The plot for pretty much every story ever told follows the same narrative arch. A very basic formula that consists of three phases:
- Normality – everything’s going OK and people are going about their every-day lives.
- Disruption – there’s been some drama or an event where normality get turned upside down.
- New Normal – things have settled down and, while they’ve not gone back to exactly how they were before, a new normality has been established.
The technical term for these phases is:
Equilibrium -> Disequilibrium -> New equilibrium
You don’t need to know these terms for the exam, but it does sometimes help students to remember the narrative arc when they know the proper terms.And that’s it! That’s the magic formula for creating a story. Think about any of your favourite films or books or plays; they’ll always follow this three-phase formula.
Start in the Middle
But often stories start in the middle, at the point of disequilibrium, where we’re thrown into the story during the crisis or straight after. So we might get introduced to a character stranded on an island, for instance, and we’ll have no idea why they’re there. Or a plane has crashed in the jungle and we won’t know what’s happened.We’ll usually then be given a flashback to before the event, so that we know what that character’s equilibrium looked like and the events that led up to the disruption.Then after that, once we care about the character and know their backstory, we’ll want to see what happens next for them – what their new equilibrium looks like, and how they’ve been changed by the experience.This method can be a really intriguing way to start your story.
Plot Development
Your three-phase narrative arc doesn’t always need to involve a dramatic event; sometimes the disequilibrium of a story can be quite subtle. Sometimes the disequilibrium can be a petty argument. This is where a story is more character-based rather than plot-based, and the story is more about the maturing of a person or a relationship, so the change taking place is more emotional and psychological, rather than any big external event.That’s particularly true for a coming-of-age story or a romance plot.
Transformations
You can also transform your setting to follow the narrative arc. Twilight works very well for that: either going from day to night or night to day – that way, the change in your setting mirrors your plot, which can also allow for some pathetic fallacy.
Exam Tip
Make sure your tenses are consistent. Ask yourself if the action is taking place in the past, present or future. Just because your scene is transforming to night, that doesn’t mean you switch to future tense! If the action is still occurring in the present, stick to present tense.Just make sure you don’t chop and change tenses for no reason.
Parallel & Intertwined Narratives
Once you’re confident practicing different plots, you can start to intertwine narratives. For example, perhaps your story starts on a boat and they discover a plane wreck. Or perhaps you have two characters in separate cars and their lives come together some how.Do the two cars crash? Do they pull up to traffic lights and they recognise each other?Writing can be really entertaining when we’re offered different perspectives and there’s a plot twist like that – it shows the writer is ahead of the reader.
The Ending
It’s sometimes better to leave the ending open and let the examiner interpret it however they like. You don’t even need to know how your story ends! That’s sometimes the beauty of a great story, that the ending is very personal to the reader when it’s left to their own imagination.That’s a great way to make sure the examiner LOVES your story.
What are writing techniques?
Going back to the criminal trial analogy, think of all the following techniques as pieces of evidence in a crime! How many has the writer committed? Try to look out for these when you’re reading and see how many you spot.If there are any terms you don’t know, write the word down on a revision card with a brief definition next to it, then regularly test yourself on your new words until you remember them.
Tips for descriptive writing
