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A-Level Spanish Essay Help D:

Has anyone got any pointers on the best way to answer the Spanish essay questions? I recently wrote an essay for the film Volver in class (admittedly very fast and with slight panic, as our teacher kind of sprung it on us) and I got a D on it, which I was lowkey horrified about because I'm an overachiever.
The comments said that my points became unclear sometimes, (partly because of my **** grammar lmao rip) but also because my syntax is too 'english' and it gets in the way. I study english literature, so I was wondering if perhaps I overcomplicate this essay? Should I just abandon my literature essay habits and writing style (as much as it hurts me :/) if it gets me better marks?
Hey! I'm doing volver too, are you with aqa?

With my essays, I always start my introduction with something along the lines of " 'Volver' es una película de Pedro Almodóvar y es sober una mujer que se llama Raimunda. En la película..." and then I include something about the steer. For example, if the question was "Analiza los factores que motivan las acciones de Raimunda", I would say something like "La maternidad y el dinero son factores may relevantes para Raimunda, porque en la película asume la culpa por la metre de Paco y tiene tres trabajos". Basically, my introduction is just a brief summary of what will feature in the main body.

For my main body I usually do 2 paragraphs, as mine tend to be quite long because I waffle a lot, and each paragraph is about a different criteria. Using the example above, I would do one paragraph on la maternidad and one on el dinero. My teacher says the key thing with the main body is to follow a simple PEE structure, like you would with English or History GCSE. I would outline my point (very simple) "Un factor que motiva las acciones de Raimunda es la maternidad". Then I would include an example - this would either be a scene in the film or an actual quote, eg: "Está claro que la maternidad es un factor may importante porque Raimuna asume la culpa por la muerte de Paco". (my example would be a lot longer and more developed but this is just an example). Then I would analyse how that means that la maternidad is a key factor: "el hecho de que Raimunda asuma la culpa sugiere que la maternidad es importante porque Raimunda quiere proteger a su hija."

In the conclusion, I normally outline briefly what I have spoken about, and in this case, I would say what the most important factor is. I would also try to include some context here too, eg: "Raimunda es una mujer típica en Madrid, porque las mujeres tienen trabajos en la ciudad", or maybe something about the context of Almodóvar.

Personally, I think the key thing is to keep it simple. If your grammar is as bad as you say it is (although I'm sure its not) keep it simple. You'd rather have simple sentences and vocab that are right than complex grammatical structures that are wrong. I don't do English Lit but I would guess yes, abandon that structure because it's probably too complex for Spanish (I don't actually know what the structure is though so don't take my word for it). The simple PEE structure is best I think - I tend to get around 35/40 in my Volver essays - as it allows you to get your point across clearly and you can show the examiner that you know what you're talking about. This is what my teachers have said anyway...

Apologies for the long post, as I said, I tend to waffle a lot 😂.. but I'm happy to help if you need anything else <3
Reply 2
yes, I should have said-- I'm on AQA. Thank you, because, by the sound of it, I've been making things way too complicated for myself! I'll try this out next time I'm doing an essay and I'll see how it goes. The bit about the conclusion was especially helpful, I've been wondering where I'm supposed to get the stuff about the context in...

Again, thank you so much! <3

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