The extract in 2022 was deliberately chosen because the characters contrasted each other. This is always a feature of the extracts each year. So you can always write about contrast.
Question 2
Students often fail to analyse individual words, or short quotations.
They waste time writing long quotations.
The examiners liked that students could write about the choice of verbs and adverbs. These seem to be much more important than nouns and adjectives.
You must name a technique for each quotation– but this is not strict – ‘imagery’ will do if you are not sure.
The examiners try to have part of the passage with easy to find similes and metaphors.
Students who haven’t scored well on this question in their mocks need to read the whole of the passage, because the easy similes and metaphors might be at the end of the passage, as they were this year.
Many students went in with a list of techniques they were looking for. This led them to write about techniques like sibilance, alliteration and personification which might not have been in the passage at all!
It is much easier to just write about the effect of a quotation, and then name the technique which is actually there – or call it imagery if you don’t know its name.
However, if you simply write about the effect of 8 different quotations, or word choices, you will be able to get full marks.
Want to read 24 students answers to 3 different exam papers, all marked, with examiner’s commentary? Click here.