Let’s look at some top tips for the essay section of Paper One Section B.
Here are two major things the examiner is looking for:
Does this have variety?
Is it sustained?
Let’s imagine you have been asked to advise secondary school pupils on what to do for money.
Of course you need to talk about the sorts of jobs they can do.
E.g. Saturday job in a shop, delivering papers/magazines, babysitting, washing cars. This shows some variety because you have identified a number of different ways.
If you had said work in a newsagents’, work in a hairdressers’, work in a supermarket, then really you are only offering one idea: working in a shop. The only variety is the different types of shops and that isn’t good enough.
So, you’ve got some variety. Well done. Now you need to sustain it.
Otherwise you just end up with a list of bullet points.
So, how could you sustain it? Well, you could talk about the advantages and disadvantages of each job. You could explain how to go about getting one of these jobs.
This is something you have to figure out in the exam. What you can decide is that for each idea you give you will write a paragraph ion it before going on to the next idea. Make you paragraphs between 4-10 sentences long. Don’t forget you can use some ideas from Q FOR PRAISE.
If you can LINK your paragraphs, then you will gain extra marks.
For example:
Well, if getting up at the crack of dawn on a winter’s morning isn’t your idea of fun, you could try baby-sitting. That’s always nice and cosy.
Do you see how the first sentence of this paragraph looks back at the last idea and introduces the new idea?
You could add even more variety by looking at it from another point of view. Now that you have written about how to make money you could write about how to spend less. So, you could suggest shopping in factory outlets, discount stores, making your own clothes, clubbing together and sharing, buying second hand and shopping on eBay.
This way you are adding even more variety to your answer and making it sustained.
Another fantastic way to sustain your work is to put in an anecdote: a little story that illustrates your point. So, in our example you could invent some story about a job you did.
Take for example the idea that you have to write to write a letter to the head teacher persuading them to invest in more TV’s. You could invent a story about how watching a TV version of Romeo and Juliet meant that you were able to understand the story better rand this improved your grades.
Or if you are tying to persuade your friend not to run away then you might invent a story about somebody at school who did this and describe the terrible things that happened to them.
This is a good way to generate another paragraph for your writing so that it is sustained. Don’t over do it though: one per essay is enough.
If it is appropriate, a little bit of humor can gain a few extra marks.
So can using rhetorical questions now and again.
Try to use some different types of sentence such as imperatives (command sentences e.g. ‘Phone up. Now.”)
If you are asked to write an article a great way to start it off is to describe a little incident and then introduce the main idea of the article.
Lets imagine you are asked to write about the ban on hoodies.
You could start like this:
You are walking toward the local indoor shopping center, looking forward to a good day’s retail therapy (notice the touch of humour). You’re talking quietly with two friends, not a care in the world. Suddenly a heavy hand lands on your shoulder. “Sorry, you can’t come in here dressed like that. No hoodies.” Outrageous? Unfair? Well for thousands of teenagers this is the reality of everyday life.
Do you see how creating a scene like this can draw the reader right into the main part of your story?
But don’t overdo it. You’re not writing a story!
Another good way to do this is to use the word, ‘Imagine.’
For example,
Imagine, you are minding your own business, about to do a little light shopping, when a heavy hand bars your way. ‘No Hoodies.’
Placing the reader at the centre of this anecdote is an effective what to achieve your purpose of grabbing their attention..
