English Language Paper 1: Reading Question 1 Short succinct answers focused on the subject of the question gains the marks Question 2 Students need to understand the context of the passage Single word analysis works well Writing about effect is successful Sentence types and punctuation references rarely work Question 3 Complex technical terms are not needed, tracking the start-middle-end helped students focus their answers unless they just re-told the story Straying into language means focus on structure is lost Empty comments “makes the reader want to read on.” add nothing Contrasting the features in the article works well – earlier the writer used…to…which is different from… because… Remind students bullet points refer to structure that interests them Question 4 Students must cover both halves of the question for the full marks Writer’s methods must be included Only write about details from the lines stated Students don’t need to focus on a counter argument as this can make the answer overly complex Referring clearly to the question is very useful in this question Avoid using historical context from out of the text as this doesn’t show understanding of events or characters in the text

English Language Paper 1: Writing Question 5 There was “greater control, clearer narrative structure and shorter, more focused responses.” Students who focused on ‘gore’ didn’t achieve highly Planning is important but shouldn’t dominate the time Plots from films, games or past exams or lit texts should be avoided Wow words in vocabulary were often misused or misplaced within the writing Sentence variety was better this year Using semi-colons, colon’s and apostrophes accurately a few times is preferable to throughout the text at any point “Spelling of key words, correct homophones, correct apostrophes, accurate sentence and speech punctuation are all core skills for this specification”