REALLY URGENT HELP PLEASE English Language Paper 1 Question 5

i have my exam tomorrow first period and really need some tips for how to to do the descriptive writing. im doing the desciption task
- do you write in the first, second or third person
- how do you use the show dont tell technique
- where do you even start to look at the picture
- any other tips would be really useful i genuinely need all the help i can get plsss

Reply 1

Wallflower011

Hey! First of all, I know it's so stressful but you've got this, so take a deep breath!

Do you know which exam board you are? I was AQA for my GCSE English, and we were given a picture as a stimulus or a sentence, and we had to base our creative writing on that. I wouldn't recommend writing in second person, or present or future tense, as these are the hardest to do and maintain. I would stick with either first or third person, and past tense. If it is a picture of a person, you could write in first person from that person's perspective; similarly, if it is a picture of a place, you could write in first person from the perspective of someone visiting that place. It would most likely be easiest to write in third person if you're describing a setting, and third person would allow you to describe a person's appearance.

The easiest way to write in the 'show don't tell' technique is to focus on the five senses. (Smell, taste, touch, sight and hear). Describe how something is making a character feel - if the picture is of a spooky wood, don't say how it was 'scary' or 'spooky,' say how it made goosebumps rise on their skin, or how shivers went down their spine, how they felt cold and sweaty etc. You could also use literary techniques to convey this, like describe the weather for pathetic fallacy (if something is spooky, maybe you could describe overcast clouds or thunder and lightning).

For the picture, when you look at it, look for small details, like the colours (I can't remember if they give you a picture that's in colour but I'm assuming so lol), details on a person's face, and then start to imagine what the place would sound like, smell like etc. For example my picture was of an old man, and he had lots of wrinkles so that's something I wrote about when I did mine, I made up a story for him, why he looked so tired in the picture etc. Have you looked at any past papers? Have a look at some of the pictures that have come up before and see if you can come up with things you could say about them.

Another tip I would use is to make sure you vary your sentence length and punctuation, and to make sure you use paragraphs when you write. Break up each new idea into a new paragraph, and use punctuation other than commas and full stops to show the examiner you know how to use them. You don't need to use loads, just one or two to show you know how they work.

Something else I would say is make sure you make a plan! It sounds a bit silly but honestly they work, even if you just scribble an interesting word you want to use somewhere, or if you make a mind map of everything you can see in the picture that you want to write about, and you can tick them off as you go along.

If you have time, try and skim through what you've put so you can check it makes sense and there's no spelling mistakes you can find.

Anyways, I didn't mean for this to be so long! Your piece of writing doesn't need to be genius, as long as you're showing the examiner you can describe what's in the picture in an interesting way (so basically techniques and varying punctation) you'll do fine. Have a look at some exemplar responses, and at the mark scheme, so you know what the examiner is looking for when they mark your work. I hoped I helped lovely, you'll do great tomorrow <3