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Could somebody give me some feedback on my GCSE CA?

Could someone give me some feedback on my CA Plan? (ONLY FIRST 3 PARA + INTRO!!! PLANNING 5-6 PARA + INTRO CONCL)

This is about how MP's adapt their spoken language in House of Commons. Specifically, Hague vs Harman (transcript video on YouTube). If I am aiming for 16/20 (80% or A, high band 4) or higher, what must I add to my argument? I am fairly stuck on public attitudes, and if I need to add it, but I think I have done OK.

Attached is the document. Thanks for reading :smile:

[[Controlled Assessment Plan.docx17.0KB

Reply 1

crashMATHS

Original post by TheKevinFang

Hi there,

I'm going to do this paragraph-by-paragraph, simply because some are really good, while others are not of the same standard.

Your opening seems quite scientific, rather than anything related to the question - which is probably phrased something like 'explore how the MPs use spoken language in the transcript and explain public attitudes to the different types of spoken language', I'm assuming. However, you then start to push your argument up to a really high level and start to focus on spoken language. I like the hypothesises, and your clearly presenting yourself as a Band 4 - and perhaps low Band 5 - candidate, but I'd suggest including a little more detail so that you can remove any areas of vagueness. For example, when you say "masculinity" - what exactly do you mean? It could be referring to his choice of lexis, pronunciation or body language, so you just want to include those finer details. This is an introduction, so I wouldn't worry too much about changing it because it is very good. You might want to try and look over your punctuation again, though - you sometimes use semi-colons, instead of colons or commas, and so on.

The beginning of this paragraph is not as strong as the introduction, but it is still showing slight confidence. The main downfall in this paragraph is that the beginning section is a bit too descriptive and not analytical enough, even though you later become quite perceptive. Also, the phrasing of your sentences can be improved to make you sound more perceptive. For example, "Hague then follows with a direct comparison of Harman with Margaret Thatcher, implying that she’s too late; a woman has already answered the PMQ’s upwards of 30 years ago. He says, “She must be proud three decades on, to be following in the footsteps of Margaret Thatcher.” can be replaced with something like this:

Hague then subtly critiques Harman by directly comparing her to Margret Thatcher, since, although it initially seems complimentary, the "three decades" is, in fact, a pragmatic way of Hague criticising the ability of Harman.

That's almost condensing your seven - or so - long sentences into three more concise ones. However, that's just an example of how you can rephrase it. Additionally, I don't really understand what you mean by "she's too late" because it is quite ambiguous: is she too late to the House of Commons or are her manifesto points - if that is what they're arguing over - too outdated? At the end, you link back to the argument you established in your introduction - which is great - but you need to specify what his masculine traits are: his pitch, lexis, etc.?

I don't have much time to comment about the other two paragraphs in such detail, but, in general, this essay is going really well. After you have made those changes, you can always PM your essay, and I'll be happy to take another look over it.

With regards to the mark scheme, you are definitely "confident" and "assured", and there is some forms of "sophistication" within your essay. Your analysis is what is pushing you towards Band 5, suggesting a mark of 15/16, so far. I think the public attitudes are letting you down, at this stage, but they're not too hard to include: write about the ways this MP speaks and comment on how we perceive that type of speech, and then write about how you might speak and how public attitudes are different to your type of speech.

I think this is a brilliant essay that has the potential to obtain full marks. Just make those changes and include information of the attitudes to the spoken language used to secure your 16 marks. At the moment, I would award it 15 marks. Good luck!

(edited 10 years ago)

Reply 2

TheKevinFang

Thank you for the lovely feedback kingaaran! Yes, I do seem to ramble on a bit, I should really be more concise (since I have a good amount of relevant points to fit in 1200 words!)

I am definitely aiming for high band 4/5, and your feedback is really relevant to my goals; the first paragraph will need some working on. I think I should outline what his masculine traits are, and the technique that MP William Hague is using to gain power in parliamentary debate.

I have wrote another paragraph regarding Hague's techniques (his lexis, pronunciation, and his general speech):

"HHowever, Hague does use his trademark deep voice, along with received pronunciation to further gain power. Hague doesn’t use any colloquialisms in his speech either, he remains serious throughout. The public attitude to MP’s therefore, is that they are almost like robots – they don’t use much clichés or colloquialisms to show that they are as laid back as the general public. Even when Hague looks to denigrate Harman jokingly, he remains serious and still uses the received pronunciation similar to before. Hague's word choice is interesting, in that his lexis is more indirect. For example, Hague says “She's had a--She has had a difficult week. And she had to explain yesterday that she dresses.” The public would usually find this lexis quite rude, as you are not addressing her by her name; it is as if you are describing Harman as an object – and that she should be regarded as the one with less power, and Hague has more power. My hypothesis is truer now; Hague relies on his low pitch throughout along with his lexis to show that he is the more powerful MP. Although these are masculine traits, they do not portray Hague of over aggressive, he doesn’t shout or raise his volume to bring his point forward, but he uses received pronunciation to make him seem more serious, so that we wouldn’t need to raise his voice."

Hopefully in this paragraph I am not as vague as more, and I have included some of our public attitudes in my paragraph.

If anybody else would like to give me feedback, you are more than welcome.

Just a quick question as well, as a generalisation, how many paragraphs do I have to do for a controlled assessment? Since I am aiming for high band 4/low-med 5, I will have a lot more to say for my analysis and techniques, and my teacher (who is experienced) says intro + concl AND 6 paragraphs (about 150 words each). I think that is too many paragraphs, and that I think 4 good, well structured and analysed paragraphs of about 200-250 words with a fairly strong intro + concl will get me a higher mark overall. Do keep in mind that it is about 1,200 words as a general limit, so what do you think? Cut down my paragraphs or make a stronger point with less paragraphs?

Attached is another draft of mine, please read if you have the time :smile: