Part B – Paper 2

What could the text type be? Most Likely Journalism – Articles (Newspaper or Magazine) Speeches Letters Least Likely Journals Reference book extracts Autobiography Obituaries Travel Writing

Key things that you must do: Use Paragraphs! Use punctuation. Use a good range of vocabulary Plan Proofread Use Devices (if you are supposed to be persuasive, use rhetorical devices). Be formal

AO5 The first major pitfall with the writing section is forgetting to paragraph. This could potentially limit you to 6/24 marks as Level 2 explicitly states that you are using paragraphs – so if you aren’t they aren’t meeting the requirements of that second bullet point. The overall structure of the piece is heavily rewarded in this exam – perhaps more so than before and so it is vital that you plan a well-structured piece that you can complete in the time. TOP TIP: Write for 30 mins to write so that you have time to plan and proof-read in the exam. In terms of form, you need to make sure that they are aware of the key forms of texts e.g. newspapers, letters (salutation and close) and speeches etc. so you can replicate them. There also needs to be evidence of deliberate crafting – so avoiding clichés, deploying devices like rhetorical questions, using specific metaphors will all add to these marks. Finally, you need to try and make it interesting – how can you engage your reader. Think about the techniques that you analyse elsewhere in the paper.

AO6 The potential issues surrounding AO6 are fairly obvious – spelling, punctuation and grammar are things we wrestle with every day. With regards to spelling, try to focus on using a wide range of sophisticated vocabulary, even if you are a little concerned about their spelling. However, word of warning – it must be appropriate. The punctuation marks are two-fold in this paper – accuracy and effect. Using a well-deployed exclamation mark or effectively using a question is a fairly easy way of hitting these marks. To get the top marks think about using brackets, dashes, semi-colons etc. However you MUST make sure it suits the effect they are aiming for. Sentence structure is also all about effect – you should vary your starts (or use repetition for effect), You should vary your length for effect – Top Tip – look at how the writers do it and recreate the effects.