english language 40/40 Q5?

I assume you are doing Edexcel? That's what i'm doing and in paper 1 q5 its a 40 marker.

So, speaking as someone who has gotten 40/40 in that q untimed, and 38/40 under timed conditions, I feel that I may be slightly prepared to advise you on this, though u should probably speak to ur teacher.

There are two components to the total mark: content (24 marks) and SPaG (16 marks). With the Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar bit I can't really help you that much because its just a matter of know the rules of English, but I might be able to help with the content mark.

You can either do your story as a narrative or a description. Personally, I find that it is a little easier to do a narrative than a description, as I have read more stories than I have descriptions of places, but I many things I am going to say apply to descriptive also. That being said, when I experiemented with descriptive pieces I was getting decent marks also.

Firstly for narratives, in general 1st person is easier and you are writing a short piece and will not need to show different character perspectives, like you would if you were writing a novel.

Now you need to think about your opening sentence(s). You want this to be as engaging and gripping as possible. In the previous section you will have analysed techniques used you make an extract engaging, and now you want to be using those techniques you spotted in your writing. A couple of decent examples:

"The fear grips me still, tightening its hold around my throat and sealing off the words screaming to tumble out. The audience waits."

"Dashing through the woods, I am out of sight before the leaves even settle."

"4. I kick, and my muscles scream towards the surface.
3. Lungs still burning, my arms pump even faster than my heartbeat. I dare not look down, only up, to the light.
2. I feel the nose brush my foot and I force myself to resist the urge to open my mouth in sheer terror, determined to save what little air I have left.
1. I burst through into the air and gasp and scream and -

I attempt to kick once more, but my legs are unnaturally light, unnaturally small, unnaturally bloody. The world fades away."

Now these examples are just off the top of my head and may not be insanely fantastic, but notice how the techniques in them create tension or emotion, engaging the reader. You also need to set the scene without giving too much away. Make them ask: "why are they running? what is chasing them? what is this neoscientific dystopia?"

Whatever you do, make it tense or emotional. Make the reader care. You are not appealling to them just as an examiner, but also on a purely human level as well!

Now you need to make sure you have a range of sentence structures and lengths, and a good vocabulary shown, but really, the hard thing imo is the tone. This starts with the very first sentence, and honestly, once you get going, once you write that sentence it does get easier, and as long as you keep up the tension, drip feeding ("show don't tell") the information, you will be fine. It's alright not to have told them everything by the end, as long as the ending has somekind of closure. In fact, the ending, by revealing information can actually make them ask even more questions although you need to be careful not to make over-cliche your writing.

Also, the tone doesnt just come from the words you use, but also the structure of the paragraphs and sentences. E.g. polysyndeton makes the reader know that the character is panicking, or a one sentence paragraph slows the pace and draws out the information until it can be almost painfully slow.

There is a little bit more to it, but honestly I don't have all day to write this, and I think that with practice (and reading lots of short stories and seeing what the authors do well) is a surefire way to improving your mark! Good luck

I assume you are doing Edexcel? That's what i'm doing and in paper 1 q5 its a 40 marker.

So, speaking as someone who has gotten 40/40 in that q untimed, and 38/40 under timed conditions, I feel that I may be slightly prepared to advise you on this, though u should probably speak to ur teacher.

There are two components to the total mark: content (24 marks) and SPaG (16 marks). With the Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar bit I can't really help you that much because its just a matter of know the rules of English, but I might be able to help with the content mark.

You can either do your story as a narrative or a description. Personally, I find that it is a little easier to do a narrative than a description, as I have read more stories than I have descriptions of places, but I many things I am going to say apply to descriptive also. That being said, when I experiemented with descriptive pieces I was getting decent marks also.

Firstly for narratives, in general 1st person is easier and you are writing a short piece and will not need to show different character perspectives, like you would if you were writing a novel.

Now you need to think about your opening sentence(s). You want this to be as engaging and gripping as possible. In the previous section you will have analysed techniques used you make an extract engaging, and now you want to be using those techniques you spotted in your writing. A couple of decent examples:

"The fear grips me still, tightening its hold around my throat and sealing off the words screaming to tumble out. The audience waits."

"Dashing through the woods, I am out of sight before the leaves even settle."

"4. I kick, and my muscles scream towards the surface.
3. Lungs still burning, my arms pump even faster than my heartbeat. I dare not look down, only up, to the light.
2. I feel the nose brush my foot and I force myself to resist the urge to open my mouth in sheer terror, determined to save what little air I have left.
1. I burst through into the air and gasp and scream and -

I attempt to kick once more, but my legs are unnaturally light, unnaturally small, unnaturally bloody. The world fades away."

Now these examples are just off the top of my head and may not be insanely fantastic, but notice how the techniques in them create tension or emotion, engaging the reader. You also need to set the scene without giving too much away. Make them ask: "why are they running? what is chasing them? what is this neoscientific dystopia?"

Whatever you do, make it tense or emotional. Make the reader care. You are not appealling to them just as an examiner, but also on a purely human level as well!

Now you need to make sure you have a range of sentence structures and lengths, and a good vocabulary shown, but really, the hard thing imo is the tone. This starts with the very first sentence, and honestly, once you get going, once you write that sentence it does get easier, and as long as you keep up the tension, drip feeding ("show don't tell") the information, you will be fine. It's alright not to have told them everything by the end, as long as the ending has somekind of closure. In fact, the ending, by revealing information can actually make them ask even more questions although you need to be careful not to make over-cliche your writing.

Also, the tone doesnt just come from the words you use, but also the structure of the paragraphs and sentences. E.g. polysyndeton makes the reader know that the character is panicking, or a one sentence paragraph slows the pace and draws out the information until it can be almost painfully slow.

There is a little bit more to it, but honestly I don't have all day to write this, and I think that with practice (and reading lots of short stories and seeing what the authors do well) is a surefire way to improving your mark! Good luck

Omg!
This tip is ssooo useful-i'm definitely using this!!
you're such an amazing writer..
i'm gonna write like this from now on.! - i'm doing AQA but there both literally the same!
is it okay if i message you sometimes for help or checking my work?
THANKYOU!!!

I assume you are doing Edexcel? That's what i'm doing and in paper 1 q5 its a 40 marker.

So, speaking as someone who has gotten 40/40 in that q untimed, and 38/40 under timed conditions, I feel that I may be slightly prepared to advise you on this, though u should probably speak to ur teacher.

There are two components to the total mark: content (24 marks) and SPaG (16 marks). With the Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar bit I can't really help you that much because its just a matter of know the rules of English, but I might be able to help with the content mark.

You can either do your story as a narrative or a description. Personally, I find that it is a little easier to do a narrative than a description, as I have read more stories than I have descriptions of places, but I many things I am going to say apply to descriptive also. That being said, when I experiemented with descriptive pieces I was getting decent marks also.

Firstly for narratives, in general 1st person is easier and you are writing a short piece and will not need to show different character perspectives, like you would if you were writing a novel.

Now you need to think about your opening sentence(s). You want this to be as engaging and gripping as possible. In the previous section you will have analysed techniques used you make an extract engaging, and now you want to be using those techniques you spotted in your writing. A couple of decent examples:

"The fear grips me still, tightening its hold around my throat and sealing off the words screaming to tumble out. The audience waits."

"Dashing through the woods, I am out of sight before the leaves even settle."

"4. I kick, and my muscles scream towards the surface.
3. Lungs still burning, my arms pump even faster than my heartbeat. I dare not look down, only up, to the light.
2. I feel the nose brush my foot and I force myself to resist the urge to open my mouth in sheer terror, determined to save what little air I have left.
1. I burst through into the air and gasp and scream and -

I attempt to kick once more, but my legs are unnaturally light, unnaturally small, unnaturally bloody. The world fades away."

Now these examples are just off the top of my head and may not be insanely fantastic, but notice how the techniques in them create tension or emotion, engaging the reader. You also need to set the scene without giving too much away. Make them ask: "why are they running? what is chasing them? what is this neoscientific dystopia?"

Whatever you do, make it tense or emotional. Make the reader care. You are not appealling to them just as an examiner, but also on a purely human level as well!

Now you need to make sure you have a range of sentence structures and lengths, and a good vocabulary shown, but really, the hard thing imo is the tone. This starts with the very first sentence, and honestly, once you get going, once you write that sentence it does get easier, and as long as you keep up the tension, drip feeding ("show don't tell") the information, you will be fine. It's alright not to have told them everything by the end, as long as the ending has somekind of closure. In fact, the ending, by revealing information can actually make them ask even more questions although you need to be careful not to make over-cliche your writing.

Also, the tone doesnt just come from the words you use, but also the structure of the paragraphs and sentences. E.g. polysyndeton makes the reader know that the character is panicking, or a one sentence paragraph slows the pace and draws out the information until it can be almost painfully slow.

There is a little bit more to it, but honestly I don't have all day to write this, and I think that with practice (and reading lots of short stories and seeing what the authors do well) is a surefire way to improving your mark! Good luck