Close Reading Skills Evaluation Questions

What does it mean? When you have to evaluate a piece of writing you have to judge its effectiveness – the extent to which it achieves a particular effect. Concepts like ‘How far does it convince, or how much does it achieve?’ are part of evaluation.

Types of Evaluation In the Int 2 close reading paper there are at two main types of evaluation question: 1.How effective do you find? OR to what extent is…successful in…? With reference to a particular technique like word choice, imagery or tone. 2.Same as above but with reference to a conclusion/title.

What does ‘EFFECTIVE’ mean? When you are asked to discuss or explain how effective something is, you are required to show how the writer produced or caused a desired result – usually to convince, persuade or demonstrate a point. In a nutshell, explain how ‘good’ something was – critique them!

Effectiveness of a Technique Example 1 The UK is not a group of nations swamped by a tidal wave of immigration. Relatively speaking, Europe contends with a trickle of refugees compared with countries who border areas that suffer from famine, desperate poverty, or violent political upheaval. (2) ? With reference to the text, discuss how effective you find the writer’s use of imagery in making her point clear.

Answer Imagery The writer’s use of imagery is very effective because the imagery of ‘swamped’, ‘tidal wave’ and ‘trickle’ are effective in helping to illustrate the point the writer is making – that there are very few immigrants or refugees. The images created by the use of ‘tidal waves and ‘swamped’ suggests a mass of water rushing with unstoppable force onto the land almost ‘drowning’ and ‘overpowering’ the country – this is not the case.

So, As you can see, an evaluation question includes analysis – this is because we cannot evaluate the effectiveness of something without first analysing it. Evaluation answers are generally longer as not only do you have to pick apart a specific example or technique, but explain how effective or successful it is.

Hints and Tips You must: Identify the image you are going to analyse – use a subheading to make it clearer for you and the marker! Analyse the image Say how effective you found it in conveying the special contribution – very effective? Not bad? Not at all effective? These types of evaluation question can sometime be coded as A/E so always look at the wording of the question.

Effectiveness of a Conclusion This kind of question usually takes one of the following forms:  To what extent do you agree that the final paragraph is an effective conclusion?  To what extent do you find lines 2-5 effective as a conclusion the author’s line of thought?  Explain, with close reference to the writer’s word choice, to what extent you find the final six lines fitting as a conclusion to the passage as a whole?

What to look for in an effective conclusion: First of all: Look at the start of the conclusion. Does it clearly signal the drawing together of an argument? If yes, this sentence is said to have a summative effect. Every good conclusion should have a summative effect. Summing up main points is the key requirement of any conclusion. The writer should round off their ideas.

What to look for in an effective conclusion ctn: Tone  is the tone of the passage mirrored in the conclusion? Length  short and memorable? Thought provoking?  does the writer question the reader? Last line  memorable? Ringing finality? Style is mirrored e.g. If passage was on Scots language, there would be Scots words in the conclusion. Reminded of the main strands of the argument. Reminded of the beginning of the passage / the title Memorable sentence structures

Questions on the passage as a whole Firstly, look at the coding at the end of the question. Is it E or E/A or E/U? It is worthwhile breaking down this question in detail and spending some time on it because it is usually worth 4 or 5 marks. This type of question is the type where, if you approach it sensibly, you cannot fail to get some marks! These questions can usually be broken down into four parts!

Question How persuasive did you find the passage as a whole? Justify your view by referring closely to the style and ideas of the passage.

1.How persuasive did you find the passage as a whole? The word in bold is important because that word has to appear in your answer, probably more than once. You need to relate your statements about the passage to the idea of how well you have been persuaded.

2. Justify your view… This means you have to provide evidence which shows why you found the passage persuasive. You could just say ‘I found the passage very persuasive’, but you will get no marks for that statement – you have to justify that opinion.

3. By referring closely to … This means that your evidence must be drawn from the words of the passage. You cannot just make general statements about the passages, you must quote words from the passage or refer to incidents or ideas.

4. The style and ideas… Style = imagery, word choice and sentence structure, tone, contrast, anecdote... Style covers basically all the work you have done on analysis, however, have a look and see if you’ve missed anything which could be described as a persuasive technique, e.g., rhetorical questions? You will not be given a helpful list of techniques so you must provide your own. Ideas = the main points in the writer’s argument/s. How persuasive/effective were they?

Hopefully you will feel much more confident when dealing with an evaluation question. Follow the advice given and aim to grab as many marks as you possible can! Try, as far as possible, to write in sentences for these questions. Pay attention to the marking scheme! It could just be 2 marks, but it could be 6!! Any questions?