Reflections on GCSE English Language Component 2 Summer 2019

In this blog Nancy Hutt, the subject officer for Eduqas GCSE English Language, reflects on this summer’s Component 2 assessment, using the Principal Examiner’s report as her starting point. For a full commentary on the exam, please read the full report here. 

Section A - Reading

 Key points 

• Candidates should read the text related to questions 1.1 and 1.2 closely and carefully. They should then repeat this process for the second text before answering questions 1.3 and 1.4.
• Read the questions carefully too!
• Questions focused on a specific text are best tackled by tracking through methodically, selecting appropriate textual detail and commenting where appropriate.
• “Feature spotting” rarely results in good marks.
• The question asking for details drawn from both texts (1.5) is always best tackled by dealing with the details from each specific text before considering any details that appear in both texts.
• In the final question candidates MUST deal with what is specifically asked for in the bullet points, rather than other, general points of comparison.

Plan your time

As in Component 1, it’s very important that candidates plan their time.  There was evidence that a small minority of candidates didn’t allow enough time for the final reading question.

Read the question

Even though question 1.1 was a straightforward `search and find` question, a very small number of candidates failed to focus on the correct text and gained no reward.  Similarly, some candidates misread question 1.3.   Although there were only a small number of marks for these questions, in the end every mark can count.  For higher tariff tasks, the effects of misreading can be even more significant. It’s therefore very important to read each question very carefully, perhaps underlining key words, and ensuring that the correct text is referred to in the response. 

The same applies for any additional information given in the task, for example the bullet points in question 1.6.

Track through the text …

The best way to tackle questions like 1.2 and 1.4 is to work methodically through the text, selecting appropriate evidence.  Tracking the text carefully in this way allows candidates to comment analytically on a wide range of detail and gain good marks. 

… and comment on relevant details

Sensible comment on relevant details is often the mark of a good answer. For example, when responding to question 1.2, some candidates simply recognised that the miners had to spend most of their time in “a dark, small shelter” and listed a few details such as this in their response, but with little comment.  However, having spotted this appropriate detail, many then went on to suggest that living in such conditions would have been cramped and claustrophobic, whilst others pushed on further to explore the writer’s use of the adjectives `dark` and `small` to consider how these details made absolutely clear the harshness of their surroundings, particularly because the writer had chosen to draw a comparison of their shelter as “the size of a one-room apartment” to add emphasis to his description.  It was the quality of the exploration of such details – based solidly on the text - that marked out the most successful responses.

Don’t feature spot

As on Component 1, feature spotting is an unhelpful approach here. Simply identifying some “facts and statistics” gave candidates little reward unless the fact or statistic happened to be worthy of greater exploration.  Searching for `features` of any sort should not be the start of a candidate’s analysis.

Such an approach usually means that careful exploration of the text is the casualty.

When answering the “evaluate” question, establish and maintain a coherent stance

Question 1.4 asked candidates to consider the `Extraordinary Rescue` text in greater detail. The question was posed in a way that has been used in previous papers on this specification: candidates were presented with a statement which they had to evaluate, using evidence from the text to support their assertions.  Tackling the question successfully meant carefully tracking the order of events and where appropriate, commenting on the possible outcome. 

It is important to offer a considered initial view when answering the “evaluate” question.  Here, whilst some agreed entirely with the statement, others were more circumspect.  There was no “right” answer, but whatever view candidates had, it had to be supported by evidence. It was perfectly possible to take a fixed view, usually that the writer was suggesting the miners would not be found alive, and gain a creditable mark, but those who saw that there were some indications that the miners may have survived probably gave themselves greater opportunities to consider the details and the writer’s choice of words and phrases in arriving at an overview. 

For the synthesis question, find a range of detail from each text

When answering question 1.5, it was sensible for candidates to be completely text-specific and those candidates who began their responses, “Both texts…”  usually found themselves in difficulties as they tried to make the details in the individual texts fit a `both texts` formula.

To do well it was not necessary to produce a long response or explain the impact of particular details or comment on the writers’ choice of language.  Some candidates gained full marks with just a few sentences that captured the appropriate details from each text, while others wrote much longer responses that included details irrelevant to the question.

Address the bullet points for the comparison question

Question 1.6, asking candidates to compare across the two texts, is often viewed as presenting the greatest challenge in the reading section.  However, the two bullet points give a clear indication of what is required.  As has been the case in previous examinations, good candidates were able to gain high marks with a clear focus on these.

Unfortunately, there were candidates who ignored the bullet points and struggled to gain many marks and whilst candidates who read the question had no shortage of material from which to select and comment, there were too many who simply wrote about the articles in more general terms.

Section B - Writing

Key points

Candidates should: 

• Briefly plan their responses before they begin writing;
• Consider content and their intended audience;
• Adopt an appropriate tone based on the intended audience and formality of the task;
• Write enough to develop ideas, opinions or information effectively;
• Pay more attention to technical accuracy, especially basic spellings, sentence construction and punctuation.

Write enough!

It’s important to write enough. The minimum suggested length of these tasks is 300 words, approximately 1½ sides of writing, and significantly shorter responses on either of these tasks were often limited in terms of range, detail or development. 

On the other hand, overlong pieces often lack focus and, more importantly perhaps, leave less time for checking technical aspects and for completing the second writing task.

Plan before you write

It’s always a good idea for candidates to spend a little time planning what they are going to write and selecting the points or detail to be included.

Think about the content

For the first task, the review, weaker responses sometimes gave too few details about plot or characters for their readers to get a real sense of the action or in some cases candidates tried to give so much detail that examiners had to grapple with large numbers of characters who seemed to be engaged in a series of incidents that were not always explained with clarity.  

Don’t forget your audience and the context

For the second task, although the recipient of the letter was known, it nevertheless required a formal response and an aspect such as tone was just as important as the substance of the letter.  Most candidates were able to show some awareness of the layout of a formal letter.

Pay attention to technical accuracy

Here as in Component 1, technical accuracy remains an issue for too many candidates and as in previous examinations, many gained marks in a higher band for their communication and organisation than the band they were placed in for vocabulary, sentence structure, spelling and punctuation.

Candidates should be aware of spelling or punctuation features that cause them particular problems, and try to build in a little time at the end of the exam to check for any errors.

I hope that you have found these blogs useful.  If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to get in touch on gcseenglish@eduqas.co.uk.