How to Answer Paper 1 Questions 5 and 6 Flashcards
All 12 cards in this deck
What are Paper 1 Questions 5 and 6, and how many marks are they worth?
A choice of two imaginative writing tasks. You answer one, for 40 marks: 24 for AO5 (content and organisation) and 16 for AO6 (vocabulary, sentence structures, spelling and punctuation).
How long should you spend on Paper 1 Section B?
About 45 minutes: roughly 5–10 minutes to plan, then most of the time writing, with a few minutes at the end to check.
What do Paper 1 writing tasks usually look like?
Both begin 'Write about a time when…' (you made a discovery, someone helped you, you went on a journey) and add 'Your response could be real or imagined.' One of the two also gives you two images.
What do you have to do with the images in Question 6?
Nothing, if you don't want to: the task says you may base your response on one of them. They're there for ideas. You still have to answer the written task.
What forms can a Paper 1 writing answer take?
Pearson's mark schemes accept narrative, descriptive or monologue responses. Whatever you choose, they expect clear organisation: an introduction, development and a conclusion.
How is the theme of Section B linked to the reading?
The writing tasks share a theme with the extract in Section A (love and separation, a journey, a discovery). You can draw on the extract for ideas, but borrowing its content without making it your own is a weakness examiners mention.
What does the top AO5 level (20–24) reward?
Writing that shapes the reader's response with subtlety, a sophisticated, sustained tone and style, and complex ideas organised with a range of structural features so the whole piece holds together.
What does the top AO6 level (14–16) reward?
An extensive vocabulary used strategically, rare spelling errors, punctuation that is accurate and adds emphasis and precision, and a range of sentence structures chosen for particular effects.
What should go in the planning box?
A short plan of your content and structure: the moment you'll write about, five or six paragraph steps and your ending. Plans aren't marked unless you write no answer. A list of devices or an acronym is not a plan.
Why is trying to tell a whole story in 45 minutes a mistake?
It leads to a rushed plot with no depth. Choose one episode or moment and develop it: the higher levels reward controlled, detailed writing, not lots of events.
What do examiners say about openings in Paper 1 writing?
They criticise cliché openings and long preambles before anything happens. Start close to the moment that matters, and give the reader enough to picture the people and place, because they don't know your characters.
How should you use 'ambitious' vocabulary and punctuation?
Only where it fits. Examiners criticise words used for the sake of it and every punctuation mark forced in. Precise, well-placed choices score better than a show of rare words.