ENGB1 Categorizing Texts re-sitters & ENGB3 January!

Hey all,
So, I love AQA that much I'm resitting AQA ENGB1 Categorizing Texts exam in January

I got a low B, and ended up with 4 UMS from an A overall. I'm resitting as I've been told it's easier than the A2 exam, which we're also sitting in January (so we can resit in June ), so it's my backup.

Hope is not lost - I am in love with the child language acquisition section of the A2 course, so hopefully I can get an A*. Long shot, yep, but any tips appreciated

I made this to see if any of the ENGB1 resitters had any tips for gaining high marks, and if the ENGB3 re-sitters or first sitters have any tips for gaining high marks

Cheers
Kins

Hi,
I have no clue how this website works but i read your post and i'm practically in the same boat as you! except I was 5 marks away from an A (damn you! ha) and i'm most definitely going to flop child acquisition in June! Um, i read some sample essays and there isn't really a set way of constructing the essay. There's PAFFL (purpose, audience, form, formality & lang) and you could do a paragraph for each of them, try to shove in as many language terms as possible. I think that's what i'm going to do. But, in saying that, I did read an A grade essay which had no apparent structure but was jam packed with terminology and discussion so... Oh gawd i'm gonna fail!

Louise =]

Hi, i am also resitting ENGB1 on monday... I got a C overall last year, but only because my coursework was a really strong A + my exam really let me down. I'm getting worried about the resit because originally i thought i had done really well and all my mock marks in college were B/A's, so i obviously went really wrong somewhere along the line!

In the categorizing texts section, I did 3 groupings with 6 diff texts + talked lots about some of the relevent linguistic methods: grammar, graphology, pragmatics, phonology, lexis, semantics + discourse + linked all my points to context, also using Purpose, audience, form. I've read the mark scheme and thats not helped much. Can anyone help me as to how is best to structure my answer- say i grouped 3 texts as they are both have the audience aimed at children... how should i then structure my response? Also does anyone know the minimum requirement of groupings + number of different texts you need to use, as im starting to think i may have used too little? I'm aiming for a B overall at least, so i'd really appreciate the help!
Thank Youuuuuu :-)

Hey everyone, im resitting on monday aswel [got a c last year and was hoping to budge it up] ... ive forgotten so much and cant remember how to structure the anwsers, when people say u need to talk about audience, context and purpose should u ALWAYS talk about them with EVERY text u use? say mention it at the start? .. then go into the linguistic features blah blah... then comment on them at the end and link it to another text?

Also :/... is it true what the person said above? that the main marks are gained when you find the differences?

FML im gnna fail .. help pwease?

I am re-sitting ENGB1 on monday and the way my teacher taught us on how to start was to look at the 5 W's and the 1 H:

Who - who is the text aimed at? young people? old people? certain age's?
What - what is the texts topic? about holidays? about food?
Where - where is the text set about? its location (normally only good for books etc..)
When - when is the text set? past? present? future?
Why - Why has the text been written? to inform? persuade?
How - how has the text been addressed? written? spoken?

Once you have answered all of them for the texts you can then go on answer GRASP for the texts:

Genre - is it a letter, leaflet, booklet? etc..
Register - how formal is the text? does it use RP? is there signs of non standard english?
Audience - who is the text aimed at? once you know this you will be able to help link it to other texts aimed at similar audiances and compare
Style - how is the text presented? speech? written? etc..
Purpose - to inform? to entertain?

Once you have all of the information from this you can then see which ones are linked by their certain points so its easier to make points on them, so you can go through systematically listing say all the pragmatical points for texts A and D and then all the points for E and C, so you are not losing marks from AO2 or 3 i think it is.

Hope this helped, if you want to ask anything else just ask

so just say you group together text A and B grammatically, would you mention other features aswell? like colloquial language (lexis) or would you just stick to grammar for that particular group?

yes you need to talk about audience, genre and purpose with each text u mention, I would put it at the begining of each group, and then link back to them when referring to the linguistic features which will give you contextual marks

Thank u , another question - for contextual marks in the 2nd question [language and gender] does reffering to studies gain these marks? or are they just 'useful' to back up your points :/ ?

This is a different assessment objective.
You are given up to 32 for context, which is how the text works in real life etc.

Then a further up to 16 for teminology being accurate and relevant, choosing quotes that support your points and using the theories.

-Kins.

Hey, thanks for the reply again. About crappy context, i always find after writing my comments on it, that there really weak like: 'Text A uses simple sentances for eg... text B on the other hand employs many complex sentances eg... [now for the contextual
comment]...this is because text A is a leaflet and therefore to attract readers it will have to use quick and effective techniques to achieve its purpose of persuading, also,
there is probally not enough space to write lengthy sentances on the leaflet. Text B
however, is a story and so it is assumed they have taken the time and effort to read the book, therefore lengthy sentances to entertain are employed.

Dyu think this will do as a good contextual comment?
Thanks for the help again, well appreciated.

There isn't anything wrong with that comment. You need to make sure though that after you've said that, you put something like "That said, because the purpose is different, the use of sentences is bound to vary." - you need to know about purpose & audience