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GCSE English Language Paper 1?

So in the second part of paper 1, I don't know whether i should write a description based on their picture or choose to write a story?

because I know my decision will be based on what is actually given but what if both are good/bad/ better than the other?

I was originally a lot more confident with a story as I feel like it gives me more to talk about and more freedom and so in the mocks where I did this I usually got around 32-35/40. but my teacher said he thought it was better and easier to do the description and so for one of my mocks I decided to do that and I actually felt like it didn't go as well and felt like towards the end I had nothing left to talk about (and I almost kinda turned it into a narrative) but I ended up getting 38/40 and my teacher said that it was really impressive?

so I'm not sure what to go with because based on that it seems like i'm better at the descriptive writing but I'm not sure if that mock was just like a one off thing?
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Avatar for Paccmann
Paccmann
1
It really helps if you use bullet points to help you point out your ideas and use this to link back to the question. After all it's always about the question and how many marks it's worth


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My teacher said the exact same thing as yours. I personally agree description is easier it makes it easy for the examiner to give you top marks use ambitious vocab , varied punctuation etc. Its much easy to impress the examiner with a description rather than a narrative as you can easily get side tracked into the story and not focus on the actual techniques etc. When it comes to descriptive writing think of the 5 senses and formulate your paragraphs on them. So i think descriptive writing would be the better option.
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Avatar for isaatuuu
isaatuuu
1
Original post by mem123
My teacher said the exact same thing as yours. I personally agree description is easier it makes it easy for the examiner to give you top marks use ambitious vocab , varied punctuation etc. Its much easy to impress the examiner with a description rather than a narrative as you can easily get side tracked into the story and not focus on the actual techniques etc. When it comes to descriptive writing think of the 5 senses and formulate your paragraphs on them. So i think descriptive writing would be the better option.


this is great advice, but do you have any specific techniques of what each paragraph should have and how to construct writing it eg: paragraph one should include "......" and then explain
Original post by inactive100
So in the second part of paper 1, I don't know whether i should write a description based on their picture or choose to write a story?

because I know my decision will be based on what is actually given but what if both are good/bad/ better than the other?

I was originally a lot more confident with a story as I feel like it gives me more to talk about and more freedom and so in the mocks where I did this I usually got around 32-35/40. but my teacher said he thought it was better and easier to do the description and so for one of my mocks I decided to do that and I actually felt like it didn't go as well and felt like towards the end I had nothing left to talk about (and I almost kinda turned it into a narrative) but I ended up getting 38/40 and my teacher said that it was really impressive?

so I'm not sure what to go with because based on that it seems like i'm better at the descriptive writing but I'm not sure if that mock was just like a one off thing?
Don't be too hasty in ruling out narrative. One of the most important things an examiner looks at is whether or not the piece has a sense of wholeness. In other words, does it stand alone as a piece of text, with a clear opening and a conclusion that brings it to a satisfactory end. This is easier to achieve with narrative, if you can create a story short enough to last only a couple of pages. The best Q5 answer I have read described the thoughts of someone stood on a bridge, ready to jump, when a man approached and in a few words persuaded her to step back.
The exam board guidance also states that descriptive writing is likely to have elements of narrative, while narrative writing will contain description, so the distinction is fairly blurred.

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