You've definitely done the right thing of doing some extra revision on this question because it's really important in this exam. It's worth the same amount of marks as questions 1, 2, and 3 combined. So, this is a really important one to get right. Let's do this. The first thing to look at here is the question itself. So, I've got an example taken from a past paper. And the formula to this question is always very, very similar. It will start off by giving you a specific line range it wants you to talk about. Typically, it's about the middle of the text to the end because question number one would have focused on the very start. Question number two would have focused on somewhere towards the start. And question number three would
have been the whole thing. What you get next is you get a student statement, as you can see here. Now, this part, as well as the exact line range, is what changes from question to question. What the student says will be something specific to the text you've been given in the exam. However, what they say tends to be quite common. They're usually commenting on a feeling in the text. So, a certain character feels scared, or we as a reader feel scared. Um or a certain character doesn't know what's happening, or we as the reader don't know what's happening. So, sometimes it'll talk about character, sometimes it'll talk about us as a reader, but it generally tends to be dealing with affect. Like, what is
the character thinking or feeling, or what is a reader thinking or feeling. The next part of the question is pretty much always the same. It is, "To what extent do you agree?" And then it gives you a three bullet points list of things you could consider. So, you need to consider your opinion, you need to evaluate the how the writer describes whatever it is in the text, and you need to support your response with quotes. Now, this question, "To what extent do you agree?" This is a higher-level English question because what it is doing is acknowledging an important truth that exists in every text we study. And that is that there is not one single valid interpretation. There are different degrees to which we can agree
with one another. I like to think of it as like there's no right or wrong, it's all 50 shades of gray, okay? And that is what question four wants you to address. It wants you to consider, uh, is this student's idea valid? Now, there will always be a validity to it. They will never give you a student statement where what the student says is just complete and utter rubbish and they're wrong and you should disagree. So, never disagree entirely. The two approaches you should take is either to fully agree or to partially agree, but also have your own interpretation as well. Now, in my course on, um, this exam, I go through how to, uh, partially agree, but for the purpose of this video, I'm just going to
go through 100% agreeing. It's worth keeping in mind that you don't necessarily get more marks for partially agreeing. That can mean that you find it easier to be more perceptive and therefore have an easier time in to getting into level four, but you can absolutely still get full marks just by 100% agreeing with the student. The mark scheme is again broken down into four levels, just like questions two and three. And the, uh, focus of the levels is also pretty much identical to questions two and three. So, at level one, you've got simple and limited. At level two, you have some. At level three, it's clear and relevant. And at level four, it's perceptive and detailed. The only real difference here
is that in question two and three, they talk about your analysis. In question number four, they talk about your evaluation. And we'll go over in more detail in a moment what that means, what evaluation means. So, first of all, with the level one simple limited evaluation. So, it says simple limited evaluative comments on uh the reader. Now, this appears to be at first sight one of the most important bullet points. It's first. They also say here evaluation, evaluation, evaluation. And evaluation seems to be the most important thing. However, in practice, what ends up happening in terms of the marks is that students often are implicitly evaluating. What I mean by that is they never particularly say
anything outright evaluative, but just by the very nature of trying to agree with the student, they are evaluating. Now, what I'm going to show you to do in this video is how to explicitly evaluate, and my recommendation is always to explicitly evaluate. But the reason I brought up how this tends to work in practice is because actually with this question, what I find is the bullet point that makes the biggest difference to your mark is the second one. It's your actual language analysis. So, at level one, you show a limited understanding of writer's methods. You basically don't really comment at all. At level two, you show some understanding of writer's methods. So, you comment a little bit, but what you
say is very kind of generic or is um perhaps incorrect or just not very detailed, it's quite vague. At level three, you show a clear understanding of writer's methods. So, you are now starting to really break down the quotations. And at level four, it's a perceptive understanding. So, you're really starting to analyze in detail um and noticing things that other students are missing. That bullet point tends to be the biggest one that will affect your mark because if you aren't analyzing, then you're not really successfully proving the student's statement. And so, it's like I said, when you do successfully analyze to fully prove the student's statement, you've essentially also evaluated at the
same time because you've judged that the student's statement is accurate. So, I would still say, like question two and question three, analysis is everything in this question. And the evaluation is quite easy to just slip in in how you express your evaluation. Because all evaluation is is about judging what's the most important techniques being used. So, of all the different techniques being used to um which ones are the most significant, which ones are the most effective. So, that's the kind of thing that's really easy to express just when you're talking about your analysis. Evaluation also, of course, means judging the extent to which the student's interpretation is valid. So, by nature of saying that you fully agree
with the student's statement, you're evaluating. By nature of saying that you partially agree, you you know, you have your own interpretation as well, and what your interpretation is, that is also you evaluating. So, please do not overthink the evaluation part. It's actually pretty straightforward as I'm going to show you in more detail in a bit. The hardest part, the most important part with this question, is that detailed thorough analysis. If you can get the analysis to a really high standard in this answer, you will be able to achieve a really high mark overall. The other two bullet points that you've got, first of all, is about the textual detail. So, simple limited textual references, you basically don't have any, or they're
for really like explicit quotes. Uh select some appropriate textual references, you have got some good quotes in there, but perhaps some not so good. A range of relevant textual references, quotes are all good. A range of judicious textual detail, your quotes are really, really good. Now, as I've said in previous videos about the other questions, this bullet point is probably like one of the least important to the examiner because basically they are far more focused on the quality of your analysis, to what extent you're evaluating, and that will decide your mark more than the quotes. However, for you as the person writing the answer, this is something really important to keep in mind because if you aren't at
least picking level three standard quotes, quotes that are relevant and having a range, then you are not going to be able to show the level three analysis or the level four analysis necessary. You're not going to have good quotes for you to analyze and have that insightful detail in your analysis. So, for you, quote choice is incredibly important. I've seen so many students work where they had all the right ideas and all the wrong quotes to prove them. So, quote choice, very, very important step for you to then be able to do good analysis. For the fourth bullet point, again, AQA have said that this can be implicit. What I mean by that is, you don't have to outright say, "I agree with the student. Therefore, the student is
right. I agree with the student." and keep saying that over and over and over and over again. I do recommend starting your answer with a clear like, "I agree with what the student has said." just because that is a real clear focus on responding to the statement. But with this one, as long as you are talking about what the student's statement is talking about, AQA accepts that as you answering the questions, you being focused on the student response. So, we can see here that at level one, again, is that you don't really um answer the question, you're not really responding to the student's statement. With level two, you're kind of responding, but sometimes you say things that aren't relevant. Level three, you're definitely being
clear and relevant and answering the student statement. And level four, you're convincing and critical. Now, let me explain a little bit more of what this means by the convincing and critical response. Basically, at the end of reading your answer, I want to feel without a doubt that that student was right. That's why it's convincing. You have wholeheartedly convinced me that student is right. However, the main way that you're going to have done that is via bullet point number two, via your analysis of the writer's methods. So again, analysis is really important here because by analyzing techniques and analyzing how they prove the student statement, you're going to be having that convincing critical response.
The critical response um can be achieved via like partially agreeing, partially disagreeing because you're having that kind of like, "Ooh, I don't fully agree with this. I've got my own ideas." But it doesn't have to be. It can also just be that you're being critical in the sense of you're considering what is it that makes the student right? What are the most important techniques in making the student right? So that kind of evaluation of thinking about which are the most significant techniques, that kind of evaluation can make you critical. So then in that way, you can 100% agree with the student and still have a convincing and critical response. To explore uh this question in more detail, we're going to use an extract
from a text called The Bricks That Built the Houses by Kate Tempest. If you haven't heard of Kate Tempest before, she's a brilliant spoken word poet um and The Bricks That Built the Houses is her first novel. And being a poet, she's written it in a very poetic style. So it's a really great text for us to have a look at today. Now, in the process of answering this question, one of the first things we have to do is read the question itself. And when we read the question, we need to identify what ideas the student is expressing in their statement that we are going to have to prove. So, if we have a look at this example question here, a student said, "This part of the story builds a lot of tension and really makes the reader
wonder what has happened." So, we've got two different things going on here. First of all, that the story builds a lot of tension. Second of all, that it really makes the reader wonder what has happened. Now, this is pretty common with these question four statements. They will often have two different arguments in them. However, AQA have said that you do not have to analyze both. It is okay if you focus on proving one and don't have time for the other. Because again, the hardest thing about this exam paper is not necessarily the skills of the questions themselves, but it's about how can you do that in 20 minutes, 25 minutes. So, if you feel like you're struggling for time, just try and focus on proving
one of the arguments in the statement, not both. Because I've got plenty of time, I'm going to look at how we can prove both. Once you've highlighted the key things in the statement, it's then time to read the text. Now, this is assuming by the time you reach question four, you've read this text at least twice. Because you would have read it once as part of your 15-minute reading time, and then you would have read it a second time for question number three. So, you probably now can reread this section very much with question four in your mind and focusing on just trying to spot things for this question four. And that's a good thing cuz it'll mean you can read a lot faster and you can focus on just finding what you need faster.
So, that's what I'm going to do with this extract. Um the extract goes on to two pages because of course, the extract for question four is significantly longer than the one you deal with for question number two. And but as I go through the text, I'll keep identifying different techniques I can see being used that build a lot of tension and make the reader wonder what has happened. Another important thing to note for this question is that I'm allowed to analyze both language and structure. And I recommend you aim to do both whenever you're answering this question. It just helps you to ensure that your analysis is as thorough and detailed as possible. So, let's do this. They leave town in a fourth-hand Ford
Cortina. It's night and the city is full of itself. There is thunder in the sky, the kind of clouds that make you bow your head. So, from reading that, the first thing that stands out to me is the description of it being night, of there being thunder in the sky, and the kind of clouds that make you bow your head. From that, we can immediately see pathetic fallacy going on. And also, the fact that this is the very first paragraph that I'm dealing with in this section, how it's that focus on the setting in the very opening. So, now that I've identified that, I've got to ask myself, how does that prove the student's statement? Well, the pathetic fallacy of thunder and clouds and night all come together
to create quite an ominous foreboding atmosphere. There's definitely a feeling there that something bad is going to happen because that is typically where that kind of uh weather is used. We've also got to ask ourselves structurally, why at this point? Why at the very opening here? Now, I think that this is about making sure the reader feels that tension from the very start. So, in that sense, if I was um uh partially disagreeing with this person, I'd probably say their wording of builds a lot of tension isn't completely accurate, and instead actually the tension is there from the very, very start. But, I'm just going to say the tension is there from the very, very start, and we'll see if it builds
as it goes on. But, that focus on setting in the opening is all about from the very beginning of this extract having tension. So that's everything in the first paragraph. Now let's go to the second paragraph. They are heading for the motorway. Leon is driving. His shirt damp with sweat, his arms sore at the wrists from gripping the wheel. He sits low down in the driver's seat, but the top of his head still kisses the roof of the car. Leon is muscular, built like a fighting dog, 6 ft 2 and light on his feet. His movements are liquid slick. His face is screwed up with worry as he turns left down the roads he's always known and pushes the tired engine up Blackheath Hill towards the A2 roundabout weaving
between the clattering suction of the heavy goods lorries. All right. So from reading this paragraph, what stands out to me is the description of Leon's shirt being damp with sweat, his arms sore at the wrists from gripping the wheel, the fact that he sits low down in the driver's seat, and the fact that his face is screwed up with worry. So first of all, with the shirt damp with sweat sitting low in the driver's seat, we've got that imagery there. We can really visualize what he's doing, and from what he's doing, we can infer how he is feeling. So his shirt being damp with sweat, his arms being sore because of how much he's gripping the wheel, he is definitely afraid. He's definitely worried. He's nervous right
now. Sitting low down in the driver's seat, he doesn't want to be seen. We definitely get all of that from this imagery. Thinking about how that proves the student's statement, well that builds the tension because it confirms what we thought we had in the opening. So we had that pathetic fallacy where things felt a little bit ominous, and that's now then being confirmed by this shift from macro to micro and the focus on character because now we can see, yes, definitely something bad is going on here because the character is feeling afraid and nervous and worried. We've also got an explicit confirmation of that with this screwed up with worry. Um I wouldn't necessarily analyze that because it is even though it's
technically a metaphor, it's uh very very obvious. It's quite explicit in saying that he is worried. But something I might talk about is the fact that this entire text is written in present tense. Leon is driving. His face is screwed up with worry. He turns left down the road. And I think that choice of present tense is important. This is me evaluating here. That is important to proving that the student's statement is correct because in times of it building a lot of tension, the fact that it's in present tense makes it feel very immediate, like it's happening in the moment. It also helps with the idea of making the reader wonder what has happened. Because we feel like we're sort of jumping in at events
um later on. Um and we're coming in with only part of the story. And so that's building tension for us because clearly something has just recently happened, but because we're dealing in the present tense, we don't yet know and we're very kind of limited to finding things out as they happen in the present. One more paragraph to read and this one is a lot longer. So again, I'll read it and then I'll go through and think about which part of it's could support the student's statement about building tension and the reader wondering what's going on. Harry's in the back, one arm stretched across the top of the seats, drumming her fingers, shifting her weight. She is small and getting smaller every second.
Her little body hunched in the back of the car, her limbs splayed like the arms of a broken umbrella, jittering. She clutches the brown suitcase that rests on her lap. She grips the handle so tight it stitches are imprinted on her palm. Fear knots her shoulders and they spike together at her back like folded wings. Becky's in the front, her legs are crossed tightly, her elbows are tucked into her hips. She's biting her thumbnail. Her body is taut as a tripwire. Her features are soft and generous like the faces carved in stone on temples. Nose pierced with a shining stud. A mouth that turns up at the corners. Tall and straight-backed with a commanding presence. Her dark eyes stare at the dark road
while the dark car shakes on its wheels. Becky watches the wing mirrors noticing every movement, every fierce headlight. Harry watches the cars behind. Leon keeps his eyes on the road. If someone is coming after them, there isn't much they can do but keep going. Right, so there's a few things, quite a few things actually in this paragraph that could support the student's statement. The first one is again that imagery with Harry. Um she's small and getting smaller every second. Uh being hunched in the back of the car, that's very similar to the image that we had uh with Leo. Limbs splayed like the arms of a broken umbrella jittering. Um she's clutching a brown suitcase that rests on her lap and
she's gripping the handle so tight it stitches are imprinted on her palm. Fear is knotting her shoulders. Um Becky, she's biting her thumbnail and her elbows are tucked into her hips. Her body is as taut as a tripwire. Uh her dark eyes stare at the dark road while the dark car shakes on its wheels. Noticing every movement, every fierce headlight. Uh Harry watches, Becky watches. Leon keeps. And then that last line, if someone is coming after them, there isn't much they can do but keep going. So there was a lot I noticed in that one that could support the student's statement. And again, this is what you need to be doing in the exam. Just as you read, have a highlighter in hand and just whenever
you think you've got something, just highlight. Don't think about it in that moment yet. Just keep highlighting and then when you finish reading, revisit your highlights and think, "Okay, what is it I found here?" So, it's very much almost like you start off with listening to your gut and you just highlight with your gut and then you go back over and try to consciously think about what it is you found. So, in terms of my conscious thinking about what it is that I found, the first thing is all this imagery again. We're getting a lot of imagery that is conveying to us that the characters are really nervous, just like we had with uh Leo. But, I also think adding a kind of structural layer onto that, we get that
imagery being combined with an external narrative viewpoint. Now, the external narrative viewpoint means that we don't know what the characters are thinking and feeling, but we are left to infer from their behavior. So, for example, the description that Harry is clutching the brown suitcase so tightly that its stitches are imprinted on her palm. It could just be that she's incredibly nervous and she's kind of clinging onto it for a sense of security, but it could also be that the writer is giving us a little clue as a reader to what might have happened and it involves this suitcase. Like, this suitcase is important and that is why Harry is is clinging onto it so much. So, in terms of the student statement of
building tension, that tension continues to be built as we have more imagery of more characters um going through this nerves and we definitely have like this pattern of metaphors between the different characters. So, Leo had his face screwed up with worry. Um Harry is getting smaller every second. Um Becky is taut as a tripwire. We have this pattern of metaphors all trying to convey how nervous they are. And when that combines with the structure of the external narrative viewpoint, it means we don't know why they're nervous. We keep being told they're nervous, but we don't know why. So, on the one hand, tension is being built because of how the the characters feel, the characters feel that tension.
But, also for us as a reader, that tension is coming from the fact that we don't know why they're so nervous. [snorts] And that again, another structural thing going on here is the fact that it keeps shifting between characters. And that's going to be pretty important, too, because if we had Leo being really nervous, and then it shifted to a character who wasn't so nervous, we would think the situation was just something involving Leo. But, the fact that it shifted from Leo to Harry to Becky, and all three of them are clearly really, really nervous, structurally speaking, that is just reinforcing to us as a reader again and again and again how much tension there is in this scene, how much tension our
characters are feeling, and therefore starts to affect us and the amount of tension that we are feeling as well. In this later part of the text, there's some more stuff going on, too. First of all, in that sentence uh her dark eyes stare at the dark road while the dark car shakes on its wheels. So, you've got that repetition of dark there, dark eyes, dark road, dark car. Uh now, of course, the dark road and dark car are kind of more literal in the sense that this is at night, but dark eyes is metaphorical. Um I mean, again, it could be her eyes are brown, but I think that it it's more of a metaphor here, perhaps of like how she's feeling inside. So, again, we're being given a little bit of a clue um in the sense of,
you know, this is something that has really affected them emotionally, as we can see in that metaphor of dark eyes. And then that repetition of just dark, dark, dark, dark, it's it's almost as if it's increasing the tension because it makes the the negative symbolism of the darkness, the the evil ominous symbolism of darkness, feel like it's covering everything, like the tension is covering everything. And we get that as well in the personification of the car, the dark car shakes on its wheels. Now, this could be literal in the sense that the dark car at the car is shaking because, you know, it's just like it's an old car. We did get told that it was a fourth-hand Ford Cortina, so it's an old car.
But, I do think there's also deliberate language there in it shaking and that having connotations of fear. So, the fact that they that Kate is also personifying the car as being afraid, again, it's that suggestion of the tension consuming everything and how tense it's making everything feel. So, that's a really effective line there. Again, this is me evaluating because I am saying that sentence right there is one of the most important. That's me judging. So, because I think that line is one of the most important, I'm definitely going to talk about that one. The other thing we've got afterwards as well, we've got that significant line change. So, something I've just thought of actually in the moment now as well is
after that line, we have it very quickly go sentence, sentence, sentence of shifting between the three characters. Becky, Harry, Leon, sentence, sentence, sentence. And I think that each sentence is also showing there's a pattern in each sentence again in showing how alert they are. So, Becky watches the wing mirrors noticing every movement, every fierce headlight. Harry watches the cars behind. Leon keeps his eyes on the road. So, there's almost like a parallelism there in terms of like we've got three sentences in a row of each character really focusing on, you know, their surroundings, which again is going to be highlighting the tension because it's it's suggesting to us they think someone
might be after them, you know, they're looking out for something. And that is then confirmed by the very last line. If someone is coming after them, there isn't much they can do but keep going. So, we have a sudden shift there to more of an internal narrative viewpoint because that sentence is basically explaining why Leon is keeping his eyes on the road. That's his kind of um process behind it. Like, you just have to keep going. So, that sudden shift to the internal is really effective because it confirms the suggestion we had in the imagery from the three sentences prior. Someone could be coming after them. So, in terms of the student's statement about the reader doesn't know what's happening,
by the end of this extract, we still don't We still don't know exactly what it is they've done or exactly who's coming after them. But, we do get given little bits of detail throughout this extract that just increase the tension because we get a sense of what a serious situation they might be in. So, the fact that they've got this suitcase adds a layer there because we're like, "Okay, what's in the suitcase? What have they got?" The fact then that somebody could be after them again adds another layer there. And in terms of building the tension, um it's really important in building the tension because of that pace and how it speeds up that pace in those three sentences of Becky, Harry, Leon and how
it's like jumping between them a lot faster. Um perhaps also itself reflecting the the the uh alertness that they're feeling cuz it's very like it's very quick, you know? Um so, yeah. Essentially, there is loads of stuff in this extract that we can analyze in order to prove that student's statement. Um I'm sure you might have found things that I haven't talked about here as well. And if you have, please let me know in the comments cuz I'd really love to hear what you've got to say as well. But, I think that I have found the uh the majority of the really significant ones. And that's what we want to keep in mind because we're evaluating, we don't want to talk about things that aren't important or aren't
effective. We want to talk about the biggest and most effective techniques possible. Once we've been through the text and figured out what we're going to analyze, the next step is thinking about how we're going to express that analysis using evaluative language. Now, in my course on this question, I give you a lot um of different like sentence starters and a lot of different evaluative words you can use, but for the purposes of this video, I'm just going to give you uh my kind of like five favorites. That's essential, more or most effective, significant, arguably, and important. Now, of those five, four of them are clearly about making a judgment about the importance of something. Essential, significant, important, more
or most effective. And this is why I say that the evaluation is really easy to slip into your answer. Instead of saying uh the writer uses this metaphor to express this, you simply say a really essential metaphor to conveying this is blah blah blah blah. Or um the writer uses this metaphor, which is really important in suggesting blah blah blah blah. So, just by using these words, you can help show the examiner that you are judging which techniques are more important in conveying the student's statement and showing that they're right. Arguably is an adverb that I really like because it's showing that you're kind of weighing up um you're you're having a kind of little debate. You're thinking things through. And so, it's a really
easy word to slip into your sentences, but again, just immediately makes you come across like you're being more critical, you're being more evaluative. Um it's ef- especially effective when combined with one of the others. For example, saying something like arguably one of the most important techniques the writer uses is blah blah blah blah blah. So, I really recommend that you follow the analysis you're used to doing, but you just keep using these words like essential, significant, important, arguably. It's also worth noting that you should and can get in the habit of doing this for the other questions as well. Um for question two and question three, you're not going to be marked down for expressing yourself in this
way. This is just good essay writing skills. This is higher level essay writing skill. So, by all means, use evaluative language for questions two, three, and four. The last thing we're going to do today is have a look at a bit of a model answer. Now, when you're writing your question four, because it's worth 20 marks, you want to aim to have about four paragraphs written. Now, when I say paragraphs, I'm referring to however you've been taught to write paragraphs, PEEL, PEAZL, or if you follow my T. Now, because you're going to be dealing with potentially one or two ideas that the student has said in their statement, it basically comes down to like two T paragraphs on one of the student's ideas, two T paragraphs on the other.
Um you might also find that you don't separate them as two paragraphs. For example, with this student's statement, um we are obviously trying to deal with the uh building a lot of tension and making the reader wonder what has happened. So, with the building a lot of tension, I might do like two paragraphs worth of analysis, but I just write it as one ginormous paragraph. So, if it was a T paragraph, it would go T E A E A E A E A, for example. Or if you think of P paragraphs, P E E E E E P and just keep going with that analysis over and over and over again until you basically got nothing else to say, and then you move on to the second statement. Same goes if you find that you struggle with uh covering both parts
of the student statement in the time limit and you only cover one part of the statement, just again, uh focus on just finding more and more and more and more things, go back and forth again and again and again and again on uh analyzing different techniques you can use to really prove the student's answer. So, we're going to have a look at this model. This is only the very first part. We've got the kind of opening sentence and then one paragraph. I've not written the entire thing so that you can then have a go at writing the second half. And if you want you can share that in the comments so we can all have a look and see your wonderful brilliance. But I'm going to start off by reading the model we've got here and
I'll kind of talk through the different things that it's done that are good so that you get a sense of the kind of standard we're aiming for. I fully agree with the student's statement as throughout this section of the text we can clearly see the writer building tension and the source of this tension is that the reader does not know what has happened. So that opening sentence just begins the evaluation by clearly stating to what extent they agree and it then repeats the student's statement in other words. Now one thing I would say about this, a lot of students do do this and I do think it's a nice way to start but it's also arguably a little bit of a waste of time in that this section here is just
me rewriting what that says and that doesn't really add anything to my answer. So don't be afraid to just keep it simple as I fully agree with the student's statement full stop. Now if you don't fully agree with the student's statement, if you've only partially agreed, then this is also where you would establish what your interpretation is. So you would start off by saying I agree with the student's statement that blah blah blah blah. However, I would add my own interpretation that blah blah blah blah. So starting off with a sentence either stating that you fully agree or you partially agree, it's just a nice clear way to start to show that you're really answering the question. On to the next paragraph.
The tension is immediately created in the opening paragraph through the use of pathetic fallacy. Thunder in the sky, the kind of kind of clouds that make you bow your head. This creates an ominous atmosphere and a sense of foreboding as thunder and dark clouds are frequently used to symbolize unpleasant or evil events. It is significant that this occurs at the very start of the text as it suggests that the writer wants the reader to be aware of the tension from the very beginning, even though we do not yet know what has caused it. This is further reinforced in the shift in focus from macro to micro as the writer begins to describe the character of Leo as shirt damp with sweat, his arms sore at the wrist from
gripping the wheel. From this imagery, the reader would infer that Leo is very nervous and worried about something, thus heightening the tension from the first paragraph as the reader now has their initial sense of foreboding confirmed. Something has happened. The writer continues to shift from character to character in the car and with each character uses a metaphor to suggest that they are also worried. His face is screwed up with worry, she is small and getting smaller every second, her body is taut as a tripwire. All of these metaphors convey that the characters are feeling very tense. The simile of a tripwire suggests the tension is physically impacting their bodies, while the metaphor of getting
smaller could suggest that the character is trying to avoid being seen and so is shrinking themselves down. But could also be a metaphor for their mental state and suggesting that the character is trying to detach themselves from the situation. The fact that these metaphors are found across all three characters is arguably the most important technique in building the tension as it reinforces to the reader that this tension is heavily consuming multiple people, thereby suggesting that something has happened which is very serious. So obviously the analysis in this paragraph is just what I talked about earlier. So I'm going to do is focus on breaking down the actual uh writing style and why this is a really good writing style.
First of all, the classic trick when you want to introduce your quotation rather than using the kind of like primary school simplistic the quote that shows this is, just use a colon. Colons are so quick to write, save you precious microseconds. So make whatever your point is, colon, provide your quotation. The next thing that's good about this is the evaluative language. So we have phrases like this is uh it's significant that this is further reinforced in Um else? I know there's more somewhere. Where is it? Uh there we go. Arguably the most important technique. So, we've got evaluation peppered throughout this paragraph. We've also got higher-level analytical techniques like considering multiple
interpretations of a metaphor as well. We've also got the fact that it analyzes both language and structure. Um I'm not going to highlight that because, you know, that's me basically highlighting the entire In fact, you know what? I will highlight. I will highlight a little bit of the structural from the very beginning. There we go. Um so, the fact that it does both language and structural analysis is also going to be in this answer's favor because it means that it's really considering the quotes in detail. It's not just looking at language things going on in them. It's also looking at structure as well. So, I really recommend analyzing language and structure together if you can. We're also clearly focused on
answering the student's statement even though we haven't actually said student's statement anywhere in this answer. The reason that it's clear is because we do keep using the question keywords. We keep using the word tension, and we keep talking about the reader wondering what's happened throughout this analysis. And therefore, the examiner would see that we are focused on the student's statement. So, in terms of that bullet point of being focused on the statement, even though we haven't said the student this, the student that, the examiner would still know we are focusing on the student's statement here. So, while I couldn't give this uh model answer a mark just based on what's here, it definitely at the moment has the
hallmarks of a level four answer in terms of the evaluation, in terms of the detail of the analysis and how insightful it is, and the fact that it's really, really focused, and everything is just completely focused on that student's statement and really breaking that down. So, this would be a really good model answer. What I want you to do next is try and have a go at finishing it. So, you could keep going um on analyzing the tension. Obviously, this paragraph doesn't analyze everything that could be analyzed to prove that there's a lot of tension, but you could also just have a go at the second part of the statement and write a paragraph analyzing um that the student is right that the tension
comes from us wondering what has happened.