Question 3
Students waste time writing about language, rather than the changes of focus.
They forget to use the vocabulary that there is a change of focus, or other language about structure, like beginning, ending, develop, builds, etc. (If you know other terms, like rising and falling action, climax, denouement, use them – but only if you know them. You can still get full marks without them).
The passage will usually have a circular structure, where the ending goes back to something in the beginning, but presents it in a new way. Many students don’t realise this, so don’t comment on it.
Where there is more than one character in the passage, students need to comment on the change of perspective from one character to the next. Instead, too many students just write about the beginning, middle, and the end of the passage, and ignore the characters.
There are no marks for telling the examiner that something interests the reader, or makes the reader want to read on, because absolutely everything a writer ever writes tries to do both those things. It is equivalent to saying “he walked, using his legs”. We all know that everyone uses their legs in order to walk. So, it is pointless information.
However, if you simply write about 8 changes of focus, and how they affect what we think, feel or predict, you will get full marks.
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