How to get full marks on Question 6! ALL YOU EVER NEEDED TO KNOW. By Ollie, Daniel, Callum and Olivia

Time Keeping The key to success in the exam is time keeping. Provided you accurately time keep, you will give yourself enough time to plan your answer, then write it, based on your plan. You will get 35 minutes for question 6, we suggest spending 5 minutes minimum and 10 minutes maximum on a plan for your writing. You must plan your answer. This will then give you minutes of writing time, to answer the question. Provided you follow your plan, this will be more then enough time to write your answer and then read it over a few times to make any final improvements, before the end of the exam.

Planning Planning is a crucial aspect of the exam, that is vital in achieving success. Planning ahead and sticking to it, is the No. 1 tip for achieving successful exam results. There is no point in using 5-10 minutes of your exam time planning, if you do not follow your plan. Planning is important for developing ideas, it allows you to think about the question in depth, enabling you to think outside of the box and gain extra marks for innovative ideas. By writing down your ideas/points, it’s easier to see how many you have, in relation to how many you need, to gain full marks in the question It shows the examiner that you can be organised and think ahead. If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.

What do I include in my plan? Literary devices- The more you use the more marks you will achieve, including them in your planning will help you to include them. Vocabulary- What vocabulary are you going to use? The wider the range that you use in the exam, the more marks you are likely to get. Punctuation- Use a wide range of punctuation, the more that you use, means that you are widening your chance of achieving full marks. Sentences- What sentence lengths are you going to include? Don’t plan the length of every sentence, but consciously make the effort to include a variety of lengths Paragraphs- Remember to paragraph your work! You will not achieve more that a grade U if you fail to paragraph. Including the type of paragraph will help, the type will depend on your point, do you want to exaggerate your point? Do you want to explain it? Etc…

How can I plan? Make a list: A simple way of planning is by making a list, you can make a list of everything you need to include in your writing. By making a list of everything you need to include like punctuation, vocabulary, your points, you can tick them all off as you go, which will ensure that you include everything, also with a list you can double check at the end that have you included everything, by re-ticking the points on your list. Make a mind map: By having different headings and subheadings, you can include everything that you need to in your writing. You can even tick them off as a list, which is another way of ensuring that you include everything you need to. Find a planning method that is easiest for you to understand. By finding a method, that is best for you, you will find it more interesting and easier to plan and follow, and if you follow your plan you are more likely to achieve success.

Structuring For you introduction introduce a few of your points, state what you are going to be talking about, posing a question is always a great way of getting the examiner thinking and involved. Remember to explain and include the points you mentioned in your introduction, in your writing. In paragraphs, use a mixture of sentence structures; simple, compound, complex, questions and exclamations. Plus ambitious vocabulary, punctuation and your point/points of the paragraph. A piece of writing should always have a clear purpose e.g. to discuss or express ideas, usually from a particular point of view. You should also consider layout, in terms of the number of paragraphs you are going to use for your points, is it a point a paragraph? Etc.. Also if you need an introduction and a conclusion; the likelihood being you will need both. Your final paragraph/conclusion should always leave the examiner with a clear impression of your ideas and your point of view. It should link back to the introduction to round off your writing. Answer the question you posed in the introduction and conclude your points.

A few points to remember… Every new paragraph must have a new topic sentence, but the remainder of the paragraph must include the idea/point, in much more detail. Talk (use colloquialisms), about what you are going to include in your paragraphs, to inform the examiner. When changing the subject use connectives to make the it smoother, but avoid simple connectives, use longer more sophisticate ones like ‘for instance as’ or ‘consequently’. Punctuate! Read over your writing and make sure you have used a wide range of punctuation, in the correct places. It’s easy to lose marks by not punctuating. Before the exam, choose at least 5 words that you wouldn’t normally use, (make sure you know what context to use them in) and try to include them into your work, using a wide range vocabulary will improve your grade. Clarify (by looking at the question), what tense your answer needs to be in, it’s easy to get tenses mixed up. Most importantly, make it interesting! The examiner has hundreds of papers to mark, make yours stand out! Make it innovative and engaging, make the examiner interested, directly address them and pose rhetorical questions, to get them thinking.

Check through your work Check you have followed your plan, that you have included all you points, that you have an introduction and a conclusion. Check that your writing is fit for purpose, does it answer the question? Do you explain your points? Check your punctuation, make sure you have commas when necessary and that you have used any semi-colons, brackets and apostrophes correctly, it’s easy to lose marks by not punctuating correctly. Check your answer is in the correct tense, by looking at the question. Check that you have used ambitious vocabulary. Check your paragraph and sentence lengths, are they varied? Read your work three or four times, as mundane as you my find it, you will regret it if you don’t achieve the grade that you were hoping for, because you didn’t thoroughly, check through your work.

Time keep- check the time you start your exam and make sure you follow your planning and writing times. Plan- find a method that you find easy to understand and plan your answer. Follow your plan. Include ambitious vocabulary, punctuation, all your points as well as explaining them and varying your paragraph and sentence lengths. You will get full marks. Provided you:

Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts. “Winston Churchill”