IB Language and

Literature

Paper 1
Unseen Commentary

1
What is Paper 1?

Paper 1 is one of two examination papers that are set and marked externally, and it counts for 20% of the
total mark.

Paper 1 depends heavily on all the skills shaped throughout the entire course:
 the skills of organization and critical thinking, and
 the skills of effective and correct use of written language.

At SL you will be given a choice of two separate, previously unseen texts, together with guiding questions,
and will be asked to offer an analysis of one of the two texts. The texts will be non-literary and may
include:
 a complete piece of writing
 a complete piece of writing with visual content
 an extract from a longer piece of writing, or
 an extract from a complete piece of writing with visual content.

 In a commentary you need to:

 Understand the text
 Be able to identify and comment on the linguistic features of the text
 Be able to organise your findings into a coherent piece of writing.

 Your commentary should be a close study of the elements that contribute to the success, or
otherwise, of a non-fiction text.
 You will be asked to comment on the piece in the light of its possible audience and purpose and
any relevant contexts.
 You will need to examine the structure, imagery, diction, and a wide range of linguistic devices to
show thorough exploration o f the text and its effect on the reader. You will already be familiar with
many of these devices from your study of non-fiction and literature this year and from the GCSE
course.

The best way to develop your ability to read closely is to practise reading carefully as wide a variety of texts
as possible. It is important not to feel daunted by a text or extract. You WILL be able to find plenty to say
about it.

Though there are many acceptable approaches to such an analysis, the analysis must offer a developed
argument that is effectively organized. It is helpful to have a strategy to for approaching unseen texts to
enable you to examine it in detail. You will also be given guiding questions.

 First read through the text or extract at least twice to gain an overview of its subject matter and/or
message.

 Use the ACTS approach to get you started and to build your confidence.

2
ACTS
1. AUDIENCE AND PURPOSE

 Can you tell what kind of text it is?

 Does it aim to review, persuade, argue etc?
 Is it for those with an interest in a specific subject or of a particular standpoint (e.g.
shared with the reader)?

2. CONTENT AND THEME

 What is the text about?

 What ideas/ messages does the author convey?

3. TONE AND MOOD

 Is it serious, angry, friendly, encouraging, condemnatory, satirical?

 Is the atmosphere bleak, relaxed, mysterious?

4. STYLE AND STRUCTURE

 What perspective does it take? Objective or biased? Does it take an ideological

standpoint?
 Does it use pronouns?
 How does it hook or engage the reader?
 How is it developed and organised? What different types of sentence structures
are used? E.g. declarative, rhetorical questions, elliptical, imperative
 What effects are created by choice of lexis, register, irony, imagery, figurative
language, direct speech, etc

3
Glossary of terms

Language
Style/ form
Irony Figurative
Satire Simile
Satirical Metaphor
Tone Personification
Symbolism Assonance
Bias Alliteration
Provoking Repetition
Inflammatory Adjectives
Objectivity Verbs
Subjectivity Modal verbs
Anecdote Ambiguity
Bathos Puns
Pronouns
Hyperbole
Structure Allusion
Syntax Cliché
Parenthesis Euphemism
Rhetorical questions Emotive words
Declarative sentences Superlatives
Elliptical sentences Adverbial
Parallelisms Plosive
Juxtaposition
Contrast
Connectives Presentation
Circular Layout
Topic sentences Foregrounding
Clauses (main, dependent/ subordinate) Colour
Openers (adverbial, adjectival, progressive) Puffs
Contrasts
Font
Images
Captions
Heading
Subheadings
Logos

4
Write an analysis on one of the following texts. Include comments on the significance of context, audience,
purpose, and formal and stylistic features.

Text 1
I stayed in Jamaica eight months out of the year 1853, still remembered in the island for its suffering and gloom. I
returned just in time to find my services, with many others, needful; for the yellow fever never made a more
determined effort to exterminate the English in Jamaica than it did in that dreadful year. So violent was the
epidemic, that some of my people fell victims to its fury, a thing rarely heard of before. My house was full of
sufferers — officers, their wives and children. Very often they were borne in from the ships in the harbour —
sometimes in a dying state, sometimes — after long and distressing struggles with the grim foe — to recover.
Habituated as I had become with death in its most harrowing forms, I found these scenes more difficult to bear than
any I had previously borne a part in; and for this reason perhaps, that I had not only to cheer the death-bed of the
sufferer, but, far more trying task, to soothe the passionate grief of wife or husband left behind. It was a terrible
thing to see young people in the youth and bloom of life suddenly stricken down, not in battle with an enemy that
threatened their country, but in vain contest with a climate that refused to adopt them. Indeed, the mother country
pays a dear price for the possession of her colonies...

I do not willingly care to dwell upon scenes of suffering and death, but it is with such scenes that my life's experience
has made me most familiar, and it is impossible to avoid their description now and then; and here I would fain
record, in humble spirit, my conclusions, drawn from the bearing of those whom I have now and then accompanied
a little distance on their way into the Valley of the Shadow of Death, on the awful and important question of
religious feeling. Death is always terrible — no one need be ashamed to fear it. How we bear it depends much upon
our constitutions. I have seen some brave men, who have smiled at the cruellest amputation, die trembling
like children; while others, whose lives have been spent in avoidance of the least danger or trouble, have drawn
their last painful breath like heroes, striking at their foe to the last, robbing him of his victory, and making their
defeat a triumph... I remember one death, of a man whom I grew to love in a few short weeks, the thought of which
stirs my heart now, and has sustained me in seasons of great danger; for before that time, if I had never feared
death, I had not learnt to meet him with a brave, smiling face, and this he taught me.

I must not tell you his name, for his friends live yet, and have been kind to me in many ways. One of them we shall
meet on Crimean soil. He was a young surgeon, and as busy, light-hearted, and joyous as a good man should be; and
when he fell ill they brought him to my house, where I nursed him, and grew fond of him — almost as fond as the
poor lady his mother in England far away. For some time we thought him safe, but at last the most terrible
symptoms of the cruel disease showed themselves, and he knew that he must die. His thoughts were never for
himself, but for those he had to leave behind; all his pity was for them. It was trying to see his poor hands
tremblingly penning the last few words of leave-taking — trying to see how piteously the poor worn heart longed to
see once more the old familiar faces of the loved ones in unconscious happiness at home; and yet I had to support
him while this sad task was effected, and to give him all the help I could. I think he had some fondness for me, or,
perhaps, his kind heart feigned a feeling that he saw would give me joy; for I used to call him "My son — my dear
child," and to weep over him in a very weak and silly manner perhaps.

He sent for an old friend, Captain S——; and when he came, I had to listen to the dictation of his simple will — his
dog to one friend, his ring to another, his books to a third, his love and kind wishes to all; and that over, my poor son
prepared himself to die — a child in all save a man's calm courage. He beckoned me to raise him in the bed, and, as I
passed my arms around him, he saw the tears I could not repress, rolling down my brown cheeks, and thanked me
with a few words. "Let me lay my head upon your breast;" and so he rested, now and then speaking lowly to himself,
"It's only that I miss my mother; but Heaven's will be done." He repeated this many times, until the Heaven he
obeyed sent him in its mercy forgetfulness, and his thoughts no longer wandered to his earthly home. ..

An extract from the autobiography, The Wonderful Adventures of Mary Seacole (1857)
– Comment on the features of language and style used to present Mrs Seacole
– Comment on the importance of context, audience and purpose to your understanding of this text

5
Text 2

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Home › Emergencies › Food Crisis in Sahel

Sahel region of West and Central Africa may face a serious food crisis in 2012.

Food Crisis in Sahel

“The humanitarian response must tackle the underlying causes of

crises like this to prevent them recurring.”
Recent evaluations suggest 12 million people across West and Central Africa are facing a food crisis following
erratic rains that have caused poor food harvests and water shortages. Oxfam is gearing up our response: we hope
to reach one million people across Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger with humanitarian aid.

In 2012 the Sahel region of West and Central Africa is once again likely to face a serious food crisis that could, if early
and effective action is not taken, prove as costly to lives and livelihoods as the past food crises in 2005, 2008 and
2010, which affected more than 10 million people.

Yet early recognition of the coming crisis also provides an opportunity to avoid the mistakes of the past, enabling
action months earlier than in previous crises. By investing now in earlier and more cost-effective actions, vulnerable
populations can be protected from the worst impacts of the coming crisis at a much lower cost than if we waited.

The response should not stop at meeting emergency needs; it needs also to tackle the underlying causes of crises
like this to prevent them recurring. By investing more in longer-term interventions to reduce the people’s
vulnerability to external shocks, we can work to break the hunger cycle in the Sahel.

6
The situation in the Sahel

Early warning systems have identified a range of factors that are contributing to the coming crisis. Low rainfall and
water levels, poor harvests and lack of pasture, high food prices and a drop in remittances from migrants are all
causing serious problems.

According to national early warning systems, cereal production is down compared to the five year average, with
Mauritania and Chad showing deficits of over 50% compared to last year. National food reserves are dangerously
low, while prices of some key cereals have dramatically increased : prices of corn in the Sahel are 60-85% higher than
last five year average prices.

Recent reports said over 5.4 million people (35% of the population) in Niger, some 1.7 million people in Mali, 1.67
million in Burkina Faso and 700,000 people (over one-quarter of the population) in Mauritania are estimated to be
vulnerable to food insecurity. In Chad, 13 out of 22 regions could be affected by this food crisis: some 2.4 million
people don’t have always enough to eat.

What Oxfam is doing

Oxfam is gearing up its work to address immediately the needs of the most vulnerable people. We're working to help
communities increase their resilience to the coming crisis, we are getting ready to provide food assistance. Oxfam is
targeting to reach one million people across Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger and Senegal with
humanitarian aid.

In Burkina Faso, Oxfam is aiming to help 100,000 people access food, with cash for work activities, animal health and
food programs for pastoralists communities, and assistance to refugees from Mali.

In Mauritania, Oxfam started to work closely with some of the poorest families mainly around the Gorgol and
Brakhna regions and will be reaching 70,000 people this year. Our work is largely supporting pastoralist communities
with activities such as food for cattle, cash transfers, the rehabilitation of wells and water and sanitation programs.
We have also started a ‘co-op’ vegetable gardens program for 1,300 women by pumping water from a river.

In Chad, where Oxfam has been present for over 45 years, we aim to reach over 200,000 people for the current crisis
with cash transfers, seed distribution, food for herds, and veterinary care.

In Niger, Oxfam and its partners have begun cash for work, cash transfers and water and sanitation programs.

While an early response to the coming crisis is crucial to protect people in 2012, Oxfam has warned that preventing
future crises would require action to address the root causes and provide longer-term support for the poorest
people in a region where 300,000 children die from malnutrition-related diseases in a ‘non-crisis’ year.

From the website www.Oxfam.org website , December 2011

- Comment on the writer’s use of structure and layout in this extract.

- How does the writer combine image and language here to create a persuasive effect?

7
Text 3

My dear son, it is six o'clock in the morning on the island of Hong Kong. You are asleep cradled in my left arm and I
am learning the art of one-handed typing. Your mother, more tired yet more happy than I've ever known her, is
sound asleep in the room next door and there is soft quiet in our apartment. Since you've arrived, days have melted
into night and back again and we are learning a new grammar, a long sentence whose punctuation marks are feeding
and winding and nappy changing and these occasional moments of quiet.

When you're older we'll tell you that you were born in Britain's last Asian colony in the lunar year of the pig and that
when we brought you home, the staff of our apartment block gathered to wish you well. "It's a boy, so lucky, so
lucky. We Chinese love boys," they told us. One man said you were the first baby to be born in the block in the year
of the pig. This, he told us, was good Feng Shui, in other words a positive sign for the building and everyone who
lived there.

Naturally your mother and I were only too happy to believe that. We had wanted you and waited for you, imagined
you and dreamed about you and now that you are here no dream can do justice to you. Outside the window, below
us on the harbour, the ferries are ploughing back and forth to Kowloon. Millions are already up and moving about
and the sun is slanting through the tower blocks and out onto the flat silver waters of the South China Sea. I can see
the contrail of a jet over Lamma Island and, somewhere out there, the last stars flickering towards the other side of
the world.

Your coming has turned me upside down and inside out, so much that seemed essential to me has, in the past few
days, taken on a different colour. Like many foreign correspondents I know, I have lived a life that, on occasion, has
veered close to the edge: war zones, natural disasters, darkness in all its shapes and forms. In a world of insecurity
and ambition and ego, it's easy to be drawn in, to take chances with our lives, to believe that what we do and what
people say about us is reason enough to gamble with death. Now, looking at your sleeping face, inches away from
me, listening to your occasional sigh and gurgle, I wonder how I could have ever thought glory and prizes and praise
were sweeter than life.

And it's also true that I am pained, perhaps haunted is a better word, by the memory, suddenly so vivid now, of each
suffering child I have come across on my journeys. To tell you the truth, it's nearly too much to bear at this moment
to even think of children being hurt and abused and killed. And yet looking at you, the images come flooding back.

Ten-year-old Andi Mikail dying from napalm burns on a hillside in Eritrea, how his voice cried out, growing ever more
faint when the wind blew dust onto his wounds. The two brothers, Domingo and Just in Menongue, southern
Angola. Just two years old and blind, dying from malnutrition, being carried on seven-year-old Domingo's back. And
Domingo's words to me, "He was nice before, but now he has the hunger."Last October, in Afghanistan, when you
were growing inside your mother, I met Sharja, aged twelve. Motherless, fatherless, guiding me through the grey
ruins of her home, everything was gone, she told me. And I knew that, for all her tender years, she had learned more
about loss than I would likely understand in a lifetime.

Daniel, these memories explain some of the fierce protectiveness I feel for you, the tenderness and the occasional
moments of blind terror when I imagine anything happening to you. But there is something more, a story from long
ago that I will tell you face to face, father to son, when you are older. It's a very personal story but it's part of the
picture. It has to do with the long lines of blood and family, about our lives and how we can get lost in them and, if
we're lucky, find our way out again into the sunlight.

Extract from ‘Letter to Daniel’ by Fergal Keane, broadcast on BBC radio 1996

– Comment on the use and effect of stylistic devices, such as language and voice.
– How do you understand the purpose and nature of this letter?

8
Text 4

Flying into Australia, I realized with a sigh that I had forgotten again who their Prime Minister is. I am forever doing
this with the Australian PM - committing the name to memory, forgetting it (generally more or less instantly), then
feeling terribly guilty. My thinking is that there ought to be one person outside Australia who knows.

But then Australia is such a difficult country to keep track of. On my first visit, some years ago, I passed the time on
the long flight from London reading a history of Australian politics in the twentieth century, wherein I encountered
the startling fact that in 1967 the Prime Minister, Harold Holt, was strolling along a beach in Victoria when he
plunged into the surf and vanished. No trace of the poor man was ever seen again. This seemed doubly astounding
to me - first that Australia could just lose a Prime Minister (I mean, come on) and second that news of this had never
reached me.

The fact is, of course, we pay shamefully scant attention to our dear cousin Down Under - though not entirely
without reason, I suppose. Australia is, after all, mostly empty and a long way away. Its population, about 19 million,
is small by world standards - China grows by a larger amount each year - and its place in world economy is
consequently peripheral; as an economic entity, it is about the same size as Illinois. From time to time it sends us
useful things - opals, merino wool, Errol Flynn, the boomerang - but nothing we can't actually do without. Above all,
Australia doesn't misbehave. It is stable and peaceful and good. It doesn't have coups, recklessly overfish, arm
disagreeable despots, grow coca in provocative quantities or throw its weight around in a brash and unseemly
manner.

But even allowing for all this, our neglect of Australian affairs is curious. As you might expect, this is particularly
noticeable when you are resident in America. Just before I set off on this trip I went to my local library in New
Hampshire and looked up Australia in the New York Times Index to see how much it had engaged attention in my
own country in recent years. I began with the 1997 volume for no other reason that it was open on the table. In that
year, across the full range of possible interests - politics, sport travel, the coming Olympics in Sydney, food and wine,
the arts, obituaries and so on - the New York Times ran 20 articles that were predominantly on or about Australian
affairs. In the same period, for purposes of comparison, it found space for 120 articles on Peru, 150 or so on Albania
and a similar number on Cambodia, more than 300 on each of the Koreas, and well over 500 on Israel. As a place
that attracted American interest Australia ranked about level with Belarus and Burundi. Among the general subjects
that outstripped it were balloons and balloonists, the Church of Scientology, dogs (though not dog sledding), and
Pamela Harriman, the former ambassador and socialite who died in February 1997, a calamity that evidently
required recording twenty-two times in the Times. Put in the crudest terms, Australia was slightly more important to
Americans in 1997 than bananas, but not nearly as important as ice cream.

As it turns out, 1997 was actually quite a good year for Australian news in the United States. In 1996 the country was
the subject of just nine news reports and in 1998 a mere six. Elsewhere in the world the news coverage may be more
attentive, but with the difference of course, that no one actually reads it. (Hands up, all those who can name the
current Australian Prime Minister or say in which state you will find Melbourne or answer pretty much any
antipodean question at all not involving cricket, rugby, Mel Gibson or Neighbours.) Australians can't bear it that the
outside world pays so little attention to them, and I don't blame them. This is a country where interesting things
happen, and all the time.

An extract from Down Under by Bill Bryson (2001)

– Comment on the features of language and style used to present the writer’s attitudes and experiences.
– Comment on the importance of context, audience and purpose to your understanding of this text

9
Text 5
North and South

A slag-heap1 is at best a hideous thing, because it is so planless and functionless. It is something just dumped on the
earth, like the emptying of a giant's dust-bin. On the outskirts of the mining towns there are frightful landscapes where
your horizon is ringed completely round by jagged grey mountains, and underfoot is mud and ashes and over-head
the steel cables where tubs of dirt travel slowly across miles of country. Often the slag-heaps are on fire, and at night
you can see the red rivulets of fire winding this way and that, and also the slow-moving blue flames of sulphur, which
always seem on the point of expiring and always spring out again. Even when a slag-heap sinks, as it does ultimately,
only an evil brown grass grows on it, and it retains its hummocky surface. One in the slums of Wigan, used as a
playground, looks like a choppy sea suddenly frozen; 'the flock mattress', it is called locally. Even centuries hence when
the plough drives over the places where coal was once mined, the sites of ancient slag-heaps will still be distinguishable
from an aeroplane.

I remember a winter afternoon in the dreadful environs of Wigan. All round was the lunar landscape of slag-heaps,
and to the north, through the passes, as it were, between the mountains of slag, you could see the factory chimneys
sending out their plumes of smoke. The canal path was a mixture of cinders and frozen mud, criss-crossed by the
imprints of innumerable clogs, and all round, as far as the slag-heaps in the distance, stretched the 'flashes'–pools of
stagnant water that had seeped into the hollows caused by the subsidence of ancient pits. It was horribly cold. The
'flashes' were covered with ice the colour of raw umber, the bargemen were muffled to the eyes in sacks, the lock
gates wore beards of ice. It seemed a world from which vegetation had been banished; nothing existed except smoke,
shale, ice, mud, ashes, and foul water. But even Wigan is beautiful compared with Sheffield. Sheffield, I suppose, could
justly claim to be called the ugliest town in the Old World: its inhabitants, who want it to be pre-eminent in everything,
very likely do make that claim for it. It has a population of half a million and it contains fewer decent buildings than
the average East Anglian village of five hundred. And the stench! If at rare moments you stop smelling sulphur it is
because you have begun smelling gas. Even the shallow river that runs through the town is-usually bright yellow with
some chemical or other. Once I halted in the street and counted the factory chimneys I could see; there were thirty-
three of them, but there would have been far more if the air had not been obscured by smoke. One scene especially
lingers in my mind. A frightful patch of waste ground (somehow, up there, a patch of waste ground attains a squalor
that would be impossible even in London) trampled bare of grass and littered with newspapers and old saucepans. To
the right an isolated row of gaunt four-roomed houses, dark red, blackened by smoke. To the left an interminable vista
of factory chimneys, chimney beyond chimney, fading away into a dim blackish haze. Behind me a railway
embankment made of the slag from furnaces. In front, across the patch of waste ground, a cubical building of red and
yellow brick, with the sign 'Thomas Grocock, Haulage Contractor'.

from ‘North and South’ an extract of an essay by by George Orwell (1937)

- Comment on the writer’s use of language and imagery to present place

- Comment on what you consider to be the purpose and nature of this essay.

1
Pile of waste matter produced by mining
10
Text 6

Massive Hindu Pilgrimage Melting Sacred

Glacier
Hundreds of thousands of participants in the Amarnath Yatra in
Kashmir are impacting a fragile Himalaya environment, scientists say.

The last camp on the Amarnath Yatra, an annual pilgrimage that brings hundreds of thousands of worshipers to a
remote mountain cave. Gray snow and trash mar the scene.

Between June and August each year, Hindu pilgrims complete the Amarnath Yatra, an arduous trek to a
holy cave high up in the Himalayan glaciers near the border with Pakistan, in Indian-controlled Kashmir.
In the past five years, the number of people making the trip has nearly doubled. (See a map of the
region.)

In 2011, more than 650,000 people visited the cave. The increased human traffic is threatening the
environment in this fragile ecosystem, a major source of water for the Indus River. Scientists are now
grappling with how to protect the headwaters of the Indus, while giving reverence to religion, culture,
and politics.

Hindu Holy man Swami Rama Krishna's bright orange robes stand out like a flame against the throngs of
Hindu pilgrims who've come from across the globe to go on the Amarnath Yatra. Undeniable anticipation
registers on Swami Krishna's otherwise tranquil face.

Now in the third and final day of his 30-mile journey, he will soon see what Hindus consider to be one of
the most holy places on Earth. The pilgrims believe that over 5,000 years ago Lord Shiva, one of the
religion's most revered deities, revealed the secret of immortality and creation of the universe in an
enormous cave high up in these snowcapped peaks. The ultimate goal of their journey is to go inside the
sacred cave to see an ice stalagmite or ice lingam they think is the mark of Lord Shiva.

While this is a journey of a lifetime for many of the worshipers, it's an annual voyage for Swami
Krishna. He's been making this passage from his home in New Delhi for more than two decades and says
it's his faith that drives him.

"Lord Shiva is my everything," says Krishna, pausing for a moment to chant "Bum Bum Bhulee"—or hail
Shiva—as pilgrims clamber by. "I don't want to know the history of the Himalaya or the difficulty of the
route. I will go. I want to see him."
11
It's not hard to see the pilgrims' commitment to faith. Virander Singh, whose legs are shriveled from polio,
hobbles to the cave on crutches. At times his frail body hovers dangerously close to the edge of the trail,
which drops off hundreds of feet.

"In the name of God, I keep going, despite my burden," he says, fixing his eyes in the direction of the cave,
a vertical opening that spans over 100 feet in the mountain face. Last year, over a hundred pilgrims died
during the perilous trek to the divine site.
From Crutches to Helicopters

While some pilgrims like Singh and Swami Krishna still choose to take traditional modes of transportation, tens of
thousands of others are finding less strenuous approaches.

Besides people who are hoisted up the mountain in carriers lifted by men and thousands of horses, there are now
some 300 helicopter flights whizzing wealthy pilgrims to the cave each day. The booming Indian economy and
subsidized helicopter flights, which cost about $200 round trip, make flying to the cave possible for pilgrims who
don't want to spend days trekking to the hallowed spot.

Swami Krishna says the deafening sound of helicopters roaring through the Himalaya is very different from how
the yatra, or pilgrimage, was just a few years ago.

"I've been coming since very few people were coming," he says, looking nostalgically at the mega-city of yellow and
blue tents temporarily constructed at the mouth of the cave. "There was no road. There was no track. There were no
tents."

With lax restrictions on pilgrims, their numbers continue to rise. And as the number of people increases, so do trash
and contamination.

The snowcapped mountains along the trail are now black with the pollution generated from hundreds of thousands
of people. To reach the cave, pilgrims walk through piles of garbage, water bottles, gas cylinders, human feces, and
occasional horse carcasses. The increased traffic worries Shakil Romshoo, a professor of science at Kashmir
University.

"A glacier is sub-zero, but thousands of people emit radiation at 37 degrees centigrade, whether it is yatri [pilgrims]
or anybody," he says. "Start a helicopter and there is a big radiation and temperatures rise. So, definitely that
encourages the melting of snow and glacier resources in the region."

Extract from National Geographic News (2012)

– Comment on the features of language and style used to present an issue.

– Comment on the importance of context, audience and purpose to your understanding of this text.

12
A1 Language and Literature Assessment Criteria STANDARD LEVEL Written Paper 1: Textual Analysis

Level 1 Level 2 Level 3 Level 4 Level 5 Level 6 Level 7

0-2 3-4 5-7 8-10 11-13 14-16 17-20

Criteria 0 1 2 3 4 5
A The work does not Little understanding Some understanding Adequate understanding Good understanding Very good understanding
reach a standard There is little There is some understanding There is adequate There is good There is very good
Understanding described by the understanding of the text of the text and context; understanding of the text understanding of the text understanding of the text and
of the Text descriptors and context; Comments are sometimes and context; and context; context;
Comments are not supported by references to Comments are mostly Comments are consistently Perceptive comments are
supported by references to the text supported by references to supported by references to supported by consistently well-
the text the text the text chosen references to the text
B The work does not Little awareness Some awareness and Adequate awareness Good awareness Very good awareness
Understanding reach a standard There is little awareness or understanding There is adequate There is good awareness of There is very good awareness of
of the use and described by the understanding of the use of There is some awareness awareness of the use of the use of stylistic features; the use of stylistic features;
effects of descriptors stylistic features and understanding of the stylistic features; Adequate understanding of Good understanding of their
stylistic features use of stylistic features Some understanding of their their effects effects
effects

C The work does not Little organisation Some organisation Adequate organisation Well organised Effectively organised
Organisation reach a standard Little organisation is Some organisation is The analysis is adequately The analysis is well The analysis is effectively
and described by the apparent with reliance on apparent; some coherence organised in a generally organised and mostly organised and coherent;
development descriptors paraphrase and summary but may contain elements of coherent manner; coherent; Well developed argument
rather than analysis paraphrase, summary and Some development of Adequately developed
simple explanation; argument argument
Little development of
argument
D The work does not Rarely clear and Sometimes clear and Clear and carefully chosen Clear and carefully chosen Very clear and effective
Language reach a standard appropriate carefully chosen Language is clear and Language is clear and Language is very clear, effective,
described by the Language is rarely clear and Language is sometimes clear carefully chosen; carefully chosen ; carefully chosen and precise;
descriptors appropriate; and carefully chosen; Adequate degree of Good degree of accuracy in High degree of accuracy in
Many errors in grammar, Grammar, vocabulary and accuracy in grammar, grammar, vocabulary and grammar, vocabulary and
vocabulary and sentence sentence construction are vocabulary and sentence sentence construction; sentence construction;
construction; fairly accurate although construction despite some Register and style are Register and style are effective
Little sense of register and errors and inconsistencies lapses; consistently appropriate to and appropriate to the task
style are apparent; Register and style are mostly the task
Register and style are to approprate to the task
some extent appropriate to
the task

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