What you'll be able to do by the end
- Select and quote relevant textual detail
- Analyse how a writer uses language to achieve effects
- Analyse how a writer uses structure to interest the reader
- Evaluate a text critically, responding to a given statement
- Write a description or narrative with sustained crafting
- Control technical accuracy across an extended piece
- Manage the time across 80 marks in 1 hour 45 minutes
Everyone can write a description. Far fewer can write one that scores above Level 2 — and the difference is entirely learnable. This paper is easy to start and hard to finish well, so the marks are in the finishing.
Part 1 — How the paper works
You get one literary fiction extract — usually around 700 words — then five questions.
| Question | Skill | Marks | Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | List four things | 4 | 5 min |
| 2 | Language analysis | 8 | 10 min |
| 3 | Structure analysis | 8 | 10 min |
| 4 | Evaluation | 20 | 20 min |
| 5 | Descriptive or narrative writing | 40 | 45 min |
Total: 80 marks in 105 minutes.
Structure is worth the same as language, and most students have never been properly taught it — so they write about language again and score 2 out of 8. Structure is about the order things happen in, and where the reader's attention is pointed. Not words. Not sentences. Sequence and focus.
The source
Read the extract carefully. It is the source for Questions 1 to 4.
The animal centre
The gate was the worst part. Ellen had known it would be, had rehearsed it in the car with her hands pressed flat against her thighs, and still, standing in front of it, the latch seemed like a thing that would require more of her than she had.
Behind her, the engine idled. Her mother had promised not to watch and was watching.
She lifted the latch.
Inside, the yard was smaller than she had imagined and untidier — a wheelbarrow tipped on its side, a stack of blue crates, a hose coiled like something sleeping. Somewhere out of sight a radio was playing, badly tuned, the voices sliding in and out of static. Nobody came. She stood with her back against the closed gate and counted the crates. Eleven. Then she counted them again and got eleven again, which was, she supposed, something.
The door of the low building opened and a woman came out carrying a plastic tub, and did not look up.
"You'll be Ellen. There's a wheelbarrow gone over, would you stand it up."
That was all. No welcome, no how-are-you, no dreadful bright voice. Ellen crossed the yard and stood the wheelbarrow up. It was heavier than it looked and left rust on her palms, and by the time she had finished the woman had gone back inside and the door was standing open behind her, which she understood, after a moment, was an invitation.
The room was warm in a way that felt deliberate. It smelled of hay and something sweeter underneath, and the light was low and orange. Along one wall stood a row of wooden enclosures, and in the third one from the end, in a nest of shredded paper, something was breathing.
"That's Ada," the woman said, without turning round. "She's four. She won't come out for you today."
Ellen said nothing. She had not expected to be told what an animal would not do.
"She won't come out for me either, most days. She comes out when she's decided to." The woman set down her tub and wiped her hands on her jeans. "You can sit by her if you want. You don't have to do anything."
There was a stool. Ellen looked at it for longer than was reasonable and then sat down on it, and the woman went away into another room, and the radio muttered, and nothing at all was required of her.
After a while the shredded paper shifted.
It was not much — a settling, a small collapse in one corner of the nest, the sort of movement that might have been nothing. Ellen did not move. She found that she was holding her breath and made herself stop, slowly, through her nose, the way she had been taught by three separate adults and had never once managed until now.
The paper shifted again. A snout appeared, dark and wet and absurd, and withdrew.
Ellen stayed where she was. Outside, a car door closed and an engine pulled away, and she registered it the way you register weather. The radio found a station and lost it. Her hands, she noticed, were resting open on her knees, which was not how she had put them there.
The snout came back. This time it stayed.
She did not speak to it. She did not reach for it. She sat, and it looked at her, or faced her at least, and the low orange light lay along its back, and neither of them did anything else for eleven minutes, which Ellen knew because she had been counting, and which was the longest she had been anywhere in eleven months without once thinking about leaving.
Part 2 — Question 1: list four things
Question 1 (4 marks)
Read again the first part of the source, the yard, lines 1 to 9. List four things from this part of the text about the yard.
How to do it: stay inside the stated lines (anything outside scores nothing); give four separate things, not one thing described four ways; keep answers short — a phrase is enough; copy or paraphrase, both fine.
This question is worth 4 marks and takes two minutes. Do not spend eight minutes crafting elegant sentences. Write four bullet points and move on.
Part 3 — Question 2: language analysis
Question 2 (8 marks)
Look in detail at the paragraphs from "The room was warm" to "You don't have to do anything." How does the writer use language here to describe the room and the woman? You could include the writer's choice of words and phrases, language features and techniques, and sentence forms.
The structure that works: method → short quotation → effect → zoom on one word.
A Level 2 answer: "The writer uses adjectives to describe the room which makes it sound nice." A Level 4 answer: "The adjective 'orange' carries a domestic, lamp-lit quality — the light of a living room rather than a public building." Same technique named — the second says why that word and not another.
What's available in these lines
| Method | Example | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Sensory detail | "smelled of hay and something sweeter" | Immersive; engages a sense other than sight |
| Colour adjective | "low and orange" | Domestic, warm, non-institutional |
| Deliberate vagueness | "something was breathing" | Withholds the animal; creates curiosity |
| Short declaratives | "She's four. She won't come out for you today." | Blunt, unsentimental, undemanding |
| Modal verb | "won't", not "can't" | Grants the animal choice |
| Negative permission | "You don't have to do anything" | The offer of nothing is the offer that matters |
Part 4 — Question 3: structure analysis
Question 3 (8 marks)
You now need to think about the whole of the source. How has the writer structured the text to interest you as a reader? You could write about what the writer focuses your attention on at the beginning, how and why that focus changes, and any other structural features.
Structure is not words or sentences. It is:
| Feature | Question to ask |
|---|---|
| Opening focus | What are we shown first, and why that? |
| Shifts in focus | Where does attention move — outside to inside, wide to narrow, one character to another? |
| Time | Does it move steadily, jump, slow down, speed up? |
| Zooming | Does the writer narrow from a scene to a detail? |
| Repetition & motif | What comes back, and has it changed? |
| Ending | What are we left with, and how does it relate to the opening? |
Do not write about language. If your paragraph contains a quotation followed by analysis of a word choice, you're answering Question 2 again and scoring almost nothing. Test each paragraph: does it explain where the writer put something, and why there? If not, it isn't structure.
Part 5 — Question 4: evaluation
Question 4 (20 marks)
Focus on the second half of the source, from "The room was warm" to the end. A student said: "This part of the story shows how much can happen when nothing happens. The writer makes the reader feel the significance of a very small moment." To what extent do you agree? Consider your own impressions, evaluate how the writer creates them, and support your opinion with references to the text.
"Evaluate" means having an opinion on the statement and arguing it using method. Every paragraph needs: a judgement (agree / partly / disagree), method (what the writer does), and effect (why it works, or doesn't).
Qualify the statement. "I agree, but…" or "I agree with the first half more than the second…" shows genuine engagement rather than compliance. An answer that simply agrees for four paragraphs is safe and caps around Level 3. An answer that agrees, disagrees with one part, and justifies both is doing what "to what extent" asks.
Part 6 — Question 5: creative writing
Question 5 (40 marks — 24 content & organisation, 16 technical accuracy)
You are going to enter a creative writing competition, judged by people your own age. Either: write a description of a place where you feel calm, as suggested by a picture of a quiet, low-lit room. Or: write a story about a time when something changed.
Choosing
| Description | Narrative | |
|---|---|---|
| Needs a plot? | No | Yes |
| Main risk | Becomes a list of things | Runs out of time before the ending |
| Best for | Strong vocabulary & imagery | Students who can plan & structure |
| Common failure | No structure — just objects | Too much plot, no description |
Most students should choose description. Narratives fail on structure far more often than descriptions fail on content, and a description cannot run out of plot.
Structure for a description — don't write a list
| Approach | How it works |
|---|---|
| Zoom in | Wide shot → middle distance → one small detail |
| Zoom out | One detail → the room → the world outside |
| Time passing | Same place, morning to night |
| Circular | End with the image you opened on, changed |
| Follow a sense | Sound → smell → touch → sight |
Open with a specific image. Explore. Return to it in the final line, altered by what came between. Examiners consistently reward it, and it gives you an ending — which is where most pieces fall apart.
Techniques that lift the grade
| Technique | Weak | Strong |
|---|---|---|
| Specific noun | a bird | a jackdaw |
| Verb doing the work | the light came in | the light leaned in |
| Unexpected metaphor | soft as silk | a hose coiled like something sleeping |
| Short sentence for impact | — | Nothing moved. |
| Sentence variety | all medium-length | long, long, short |
| Semantic field | random imagery | all imagery from one idea |
Replace general nouns with specific ones. "A bird sat on a tree" → "A jackdaw sat on a sycamore." It costs nothing, needs no extra time, and immediately signals a writer who is choosing rather than reaching. Do it throughout and it lifts a whole grade band.
Planning — five minutes, not none
Description: choose your structure (zoom / circular / time); pick four or five images, one per paragraph; decide your opening and closing lines before you start. Narrative: one event only; five paragraphs (opening image, situation, complication, turn, ending); know your last line before you begin.
Trying to fit an entire plot into 45 minutes. A GCSE story should cover twenty minutes of a life, not twenty years. One room. One conversation. One decision. That's enough.
Technical accuracy — 16 marks
Sentence demarcation (full stops, not commas); a new paragraph at every shift of focus; spell words you can spell; use a range of punctuation correctly; vary sentence length deliberately. Leave five minutes to read it back — check only for missing full stops and capitals. That alone typically recovers two or three marks.
Mark scheme
Question 1 — 4 marks
One mark each, maximum four, from lines 1–9. Acceptable answers include: the yard was smaller than she had imagined; it was untidier than she had imagined; a wheelbarrow was tipped on its side; a stack of blue crates; a coiled hose; a radio playing out of sight; the radio was badly tuned; there were eleven crates; nobody came out to meet her.
Do not award marks for answers taken from outside lines 1–9, or two marks for the same idea rephrased.
Question 2 — 8 marks (language)
Level 4 (7–8): Analyses the effects of the writer's language choices; judicious range of quotations; sophisticated, accurate terminology.
Level 3 (5–6): Clearly explains effects; range of relevant quotations; clear, accurate terminology.
Level 2 (3–4): Attempts to comment on effect; some appropriate quotations; some terminology, not always apt.
Level 1 (1–2): Simple comment; simple references; simple terminology.
Indicative content: sensory description of smell and light; the adjective "orange"; "something was breathing" withholding identification; the woman's short declaratives; the modal "won't" granting agency; "You don't have to do anything" as the offer of nothing; the warm room contrasted with the untidy yard.
Naming a technique without explaining its effect remains Level 1–2, however accurate the terminology.
Question 3 — 8 marks (structure)
Level 4 (7–8): Analyses effects of structural choices; judicious examples; sophisticated terminology. Level 3 (5–6): clearly explains effects; relevant examples; clear terminology. Level 2 (3–4): attempts comment; some examples. Level 1 (1–2): simple comment and references.
Indicative content: opening on an obstacle rather than a setting; positioning the reader outside with Ellen; progressive narrowing from yard → room → enclosure → nest → snout; the withheld identification of the animal; the shift from external dialogue to internal stillness; the slowing of time in the final section; the counting motif at opening and close; the repetition of "eleven"; the final sentence expanding outward to eleven months.
Responses that analyse word choices rather than structure cannot exceed Level 2.
Question 4 — 20 marks (evaluation)
Level 4 (16–20): Evaluates critically and in detail; perceptive understanding of methods; judicious textual detail; convincing, critical response to the statement. Level 3 (11–15): evaluates clearly; clear understanding of methods; range of references. Level 2 (6–10): some evaluative comment; some understanding. Level 1 (1–5): simple comment and references.
Agreeing: the section contains almost no event — tension from absence, not incident; earlier stakes (eleven months) give a tiny action disproportionate weight; physical detail carries emotion the narrative refuses to state; the slowing of time makes the reader attend closely; the final sentence delivers significance retrospectively.
Qualifying / disagreeing: the writer arguably withholds feeling rather than making the reader feel it — the response is deduced, not experienced; some readers may find the lack of incident unengaging; the final sentence could be seen as explaining too much, undercutting the restraint before it; the significance depends on earlier information, so the section may not stand alone.
Responses that agree without qualification can still reach Level 4 if the method analysis is sufficiently perceptive, but qualification is the more reliable route.
Question 5 — 40 marks (24 content & organisation + 16 technical accuracy)
Content L4 (19–24): convincing and compelling; assured register; extensive vocabulary and sustained crafting; varied, inventive structure; fluently linked paragraphs. L3 (13–18): consistently clear; matched register; increasingly sophisticated vocabulary; effective structure; coherent paragraphs. L2 (7–12): mostly successful; conscious vocabulary; usually effective structure; some paragraphing. L1 (1–6): simple and limited; random paragraphing.
Technical accuracy L4 (13–16): secure sentence demarcation; wide, accurate punctuation; full range of sentence forms; consistent Standard English; ambitious accurate spelling. L3 (9–12): mostly secure; variety of forms; generally accurate. L2 (5–8): mostly secure/sometimes accurate; some control. L1 (1–4): occasional demarcation; simple range.
Common mistakes on this paper
Spending too long on Question 1. Four bullet points, two minutes, move on.
Answering Question 3 with language analysis. Structure is sequence and focus, not word choice. This costs students six marks routinely.
Not qualifying in Question 4. "To what extent" invites disagreement. Full agreement caps most answers at Level 3.
Choosing narrative and running out of time. Twenty minutes of a life, not twenty years.
Listing objects in a description. A description needs a structure — zoom, time, or circular — or it becomes an inventory.
General nouns. "A bird on a tree" instead of "a jackdaw on a sycamore." Free marks, left behind.
No proofreading. Sixteen marks are technical. Five minutes recovers two or three of them.
Teaching notes
Teach Question 3 early and repeatedly. It's the one students haven't met before, it's worth the same as language, and most classes never get properly taught it. Start by having students describe what a film camera does — where it points, when it cuts, when it lingers. Structure makes immediate sense in film and transfers cleanly to text.
The "zoom" habit transforms Question 2. Students quote and then paraphrase. Teach them to select one word from their quotation and stay with it for two sentences. It is the single highest-value technique on the paper.
Question 4 needs modelling of disagreement. Students are reluctant to disagree with a statement printed on an exam paper — it feels like being wrong. Show them a top-band answer that qualifies, and explain that "to what extent" is an invitation.
For Question 5, teach description rather than narrative to most of the class. Narratives fail structurally under time pressure far more often. A description with a circular structure and five planned images is a far more reliable route to Level 3 or 4.
Make them plan. Five minutes, non-negotiable. The single strongest predictor of a good Question 5 is whether the student knew their last line before they started.
This source rewards discussion before analysis. Ask a class what actually happens in it. The answer — a piece of paper moves and an animal's nose appears — usually produces an argument about whether that counts as a story. That argument is Question 4, and having it out loud first makes the written answers far better.