How to get an A on the reading questions

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How to get an A on the reading questions

• English Paper One
• Section A

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How do I revise for an unseen text?

• Have knowledge and understanding of the
  assessment objectives
• Ensure you understand what the A criteria
  requires of you
• Read the questions carefully and be aware of what
  you are being tested on

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Assessment objectives

• Read with insight and engagement
• Make appropriate reference to texts
• Develop and sustain interpretation of texts
• Select material appropriate to purpose
• Understand and evaluate linguistic and structural
  devices

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Understanding the mark scheme

• Identify the key differences between the C/B band
  and the A/A band
• What are the important phrases in the A/A band?

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A/A criteria

• Appropriate detail from the text explored with
  depth and insight. Thorough as well as
  perceptive.
• Well-considered personal response based on
  appropriate evidence from the text.
• Text analysed and explored, showing insight into
  technique and use of language.
• Selective account of events, showing insight into
  the characters attitudes and viewpoints.
  Thorough, perceptive, coherent, sounding like
  character.

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In other words STAND OUT FROM THE CROWD!
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5 question types

• Locating and retrieving information
• Personal response
• Character response
• The craft of the writer
• Empathetic response

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Locating and retrieving information

• What clues or details can you find to prove or
  show something?
• What evidence can you find to prove or show
  something?

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Locating and retrieving information top tips

• Look at the number of marks available and find a
  corresponding amount of evidence
• Dont include anything which isnt relevant to
  the question make each point count
• Work your way through the lines chronologically
• Success is all about attention to detail

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What clues are there to suggest Richard is well
organised and experienced as a hired killer?

• He put the car in Templewood Avenue as near as
  he could to the point where the path left it to
  wind across West Heath. This was to be on the
  safe side. There werent any real risks, but it
  was always well to ensure a quick getaway. He
  strolled into the pathHed do it here, Richard
  decided.

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Personal response

• What do you learn about a character or
  relationship?
• What impressions do you get of a character, or
  relationship or place?
• What are your thoughts and feelings about a
  character or relationship?
• How effective do you find these lines as and
  ending to the story?

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Personal response - top tips

• Make personal comments on the passage and support
  them with evidence ie, prove it by building up a
  case of evidence
• Use the first person I think I get the
  impression thatWe learn
• Keep focused on the text you are reading
• Offer speculative comments like this suggestsit
  probably means it could be thatthis might
  implythis would infer
• Use the wording of the question to help you start
  your answer off

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What do you learn about Squeaky in these lines?

• Highlight key aspects of the text that you would
  use in response to this question
• Discuss with a partner which are basic points and
  which you could expand on
• Read the student answer what grade would you
  give it and why?

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Examiners response

• Answer works at 2 levels surface details from
  the text she doesnt have much to do around the
  house she is small and skinny she has to look
  after her brother Raymond. Valid, sensible
  points GRADE E
• But, student also interprets the details and
  reads between the lines. Good inferences and use
  of quotations. GRADE A

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INFERENCE

• What we learn about someone or something without
  being told
• Also known as reading between the lines
• What could you infer about Raymond from the
  sentence hell dash across traffic to the
  island in the middle of Broadway and give the
  pigeons a fit?

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What are your thoughts and feelings about the
opening of this story?

• How would you respond to this question?
• What is wrong with the sample answer?
• Can you find evidence to support the inference
  that this is a strange, bleak and
  ominous/threatening place?

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Character response

• What are the characters thoughts and feelings
  about what happens in these lines?
• What do the two characters learn from this
  experience?
• How do the characters behave in these lines?

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The craft of the writer (how questions)

• How does the writer convey the horror of this
  event?
• How does the writer create excitement and
  suspense in these lines?
• How does the writer successfully create the
  effect of?
• How does the writer make this passage humorous
  and amusing?

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Writers craft - top tips

• These questions require close reading of how a
  writer creates a particular effect
• Appreciate the effect of words, phrases, images,
  sentences, paragraphs and their contribution to
  the whole text
• Avoid straightforward device-spotting
• Focus on 3 main areas content, language and
  structure

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Device spotting DONT!

• The writer creates drama by using third person
  and a lot of adjectives
• There is an effective simile on line 71
• The writer uses short sentences except when they
  are long
• The writer uses superlative adjectives such as
  you and me

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Looking at language

• Look at the following adjectives and verbs which
  are taken from the opening to a story
• Explain what mood and atmosphere these words
  establish
  
• What could the story be about?

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• Plunges
• Tilting
• Purr
• Swoops
• Slithering

• Black
• Ugly
• Stark
• Cold
• Grimy

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Tickets, Please

• How does the writer successfully create the
  effect of being on a tram journey?
• Consider the following
• a. What is described and what happens
• b. The mood and atmosphere
• c. The writers choice of words and phrases.

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What is described.

• Where the description starts
• Broad outline of the journey uphill/downhill/sto
  p/start/through villages
• How and where the journey ends.

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The mood and atmosphere

• Sentences very long to show the excitement and
  sense of danger
• Roller coaster effect created through use of
  punctuation twists and turns
• Slow climbs and racing sensations abrupt halt
  and lurching starts
• Sense of relief at slowing to a halt.

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Writers choice of words

• Lots of nouns locations and landmarks
• Adjectives describe the barren, rugged
  landscape and communities
• Verbs showing the extremes of the trams
  actions and movements
• Personification of the tram.

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Empathetic response

• Imagine you are You write an entry in your
  diary. You include your thoughts and feelings
  before, during and after these events.
• Imagine you are Afterwards you tell your friend
  what has happened and what you feel about the
  day. Write down what you say.

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Empathetic response - top tips

• Reflect on the situation and respond in a way
  that is believable
• Capture the personality and attitude of the
  character
• Show a secure knowledge and understanding of what
  you have read
• Focus on the words of the text and manipulate
  them into the thoughts and feelings of the
  character
• Empathy tasks test your READING skills

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A/A criteria

• Appropriate detail from the text explored with
  depth and insight. Thorough as well as
  perceptive.
• Well-considered personal response based on
  appropriate evidence from the text.
• Text analysed and explored, showing insight into
  technique and use of language.
• Selective account of events, showing insight into
  the characters attitudes and viewpoints.
  Thorough, perceptive, coherent, sounding like
  character.