Higher English Close Reading The Last Question

Before you start the paper… Read the last question.

It may seem a struggle… But the last question is an OPPORTUNITY to gain several marks. You have to COMPARE or CONTRAST the ideas of both passages.

Tough Task It is really a test of your understanding of both passages and your ability to identify the author’s key ideas and arguments.

Read the Question 2013 Consider the attitude displayed by each writer towards shopping. Identify key areas on which they disagree. You should support the points you make by referring to important ideas in the passages. You may answer this question in continuous prose or in a series of developed bullet points. 5 U/E 2012 Consider the attitude displayed by each writer towards the Olympic Games. Identify key areas of agreement and disagreement in their points of view. You should support your answer by referring to important ideas in the passages. You may present your answer to this question in continuous prose or in a series of developed bullet points.

Ideas So how do you identify a writer’s ideas? Today, we will practise the following strategies: Making a bullet point list of ideas after you have read the passage 2. Using topic sentences to provide an overview of a passage

Here is our sample question: Consider the attitude displayed by each writer towards jury duty. Identify key areas on which they agree and/or disagree. You should support the points you make by referring to important ideas in the passages. You may answer this question in continuous prose or in a series of developed bullet points. 5 U/E

Strategy 1 – Let’s bullet point! We will now read through this article together as a class. When we finish reading, try to write a bullet point list of the key ideas or arguments the writer makes about jury duty. 25/11/13 Evaluating Passage 1 - Bullets

Strategy 2 – Topic what? Now, we will try a different approach. Very often, writer’s use a topic sentence at the beginning of a paragraph to summarise/introduce the key idea of that paragraph. This means, by reading the topic sentences, you can often get an overview of what the passage is about. 1. Highlight the topic sentences in the passage. 2. Summarise each one Passage 1 – Topic Sentences

COMPARE Which strategy provided you with the most bullet points?

Now, we will try to identify the key ideas of Passage 2!

Back to the question Consider the attitude displayed by each writer towards jury duty. Identify key areas on which they agree and/or disagree. You should support the points you make by referring to important ideas in the passages. You may answer this question in continuous prose or in a series of developed bullet points. 5 U/E

What is the marker looking for? The mark for this question should reflect the quality of the response in two areas:   identification of the key areas of agreement and/or disagreement in attitude/ideas   reference to/treatment of the ideas which inform the writers’ attitudes A response which clearly identifies three key areas of agreement and/or disagreement in attitude will score a minimum of 3 marks.

Where a candidate has identified satisfactorily at least three key areas, then the decision to award 3, 4 or 5 marks will depend on the sophistication of her/his treatment of the ideas which inform each writer’s attitude. The following guidelines should be used: 5 marks – identification of key areas of disagreement, with an intelligent use of supporting evidence 4 marks – identification of key areas of disagreement, with sound use of supporting evidence 3 marks − identification of key areas of disagreement 2 marks − identification of only two key areas of disagreement 1 mark – identification of just one key area of disagreement 0 marks – failure to identify any key area of disagreement and/or complete misunderstanding of the task.

STRUCTURING YOUR ANSWER   Identify an idea the writers agree or disagree on (depending on q.) 1. Summarise what passage 1 says about this idea and back-up your summary with short quotations. 2. Summarise what passage 2 says about this idea and back-up your summary with short quotations Try to identify at least 4 areas on which they agree/disagree and back each up with evidence from both passages. POINT EVIDENCE 1 EVIDENCE 2

The effect of gaming on intelligence: Here is an exemplar answer which gained full marks from the 2011 past paper:   Answer 3 The effect of gaming on intelligence: Passage 1 states that video games improve players’ intelligence as they exercise the brain. Passage 2 states that video games reduce players’ intelligence as they prevent them from reading and do not exercise the brain The difficulty of gaming: Passage 1 describes games as “maddeningly hard” and as such require and develop problem solving skills, thus making games beneficial to the player Passage 2 describes the players as “spoon-fed” so offer no challenge to the player so do not develop any skills POINT EVIDENCE 1 EVIDENCE 2 POINT EVIDENCE 1 EVIDENCE 2

Be convincing… Don’t write “I thought passage one was simply marvellous. It had fabulous ideas and argumetns to die for. The writer was so clever to discuss the true human cost of the Qatar world cop and his ideas helped emphasises his strength of feeling on something which was, may I say, absolutely fascinating.” ZERO MARKS

Summary Read the question carefully (before you start the exam!) Make bullet point notes after reading each passage for the first time Ensure you answer on what the question demands Don’t gush unconvincingly. Refer to BOTH passages Back it up with at least 3 PEE chains