English Language GCSE

[m00rfarm]

I am looking at some sample papers. I consider myself to be more than adequate at both comprehension and grammar. Can you tell me what you understand from the question relating to this text. What would you put as the answer. It should only take a minute to read the text and answer. My AIBU is that I think this is a really badly worded question and I probably would have answered incorrectly.

"Inside the ship, there were noises. Deep structural groans. I stumbled and fell. No harm done. I got 2 up. With the help of the handrails I went down the stairwell four steps at a time. I had gone down 3 just one level when I saw water. Lots of water. It was blocking my way. It was surging from below 4 like a riotous crowd, raging, frothing and boiling. Stairs vanished into watery darkness. I couldn't 5 believe my eyes. What was this water doing here? Where had it come from? I stood nailed to the 6 spot, frightened and incredulous and ignorant of what I should do next. Down there was where 7 my family was. 8 I ran up the stairs. I got to the main deck. The weather wasn't entertaining any more. I was very 9 afraid. Now it was plain and obvious: the ship was listing badly. And it wasn't level the other way 10 either. There was a noticeable incline going from bow to stern. I looked overboard. The water 11 didn't look to be eighty feet away. The ship was sinking. My mind could hardly conceive it. It was 12 as unbelievable as the moon catching fire. "

Question :
Q1. Read the above paragraphs. List four things from this part of the text about the ship.

We school the children in how to answer these questions. I'm teaching poetry to year 10 ATM and the first thing I ask every single time we study a new poem is "can you tell me a list of things you know about X" to help form the habit. They are all used to looking for types of information and know what the 4 marker requires. It probably seems harder if you aren't incredibly well prepared for the format of the paper.

Thank you for your responses. The "answer" is

 There were noises inside the ship  There are stairs with a handrail  There is water at the bottom of the stairwell  The water is ‘surging from below’  It is dark at the bottom of the stairs  The narrator’s family are somewhere inside the ship

I went for the most obvious answers (to me) - handrails, stairs, stairwell, main deck

Interesting to see the responses from teachers who know how to answer these questions correctly.

Thank you for all your input on this!

And having read the question again together with the help offered from teachers on this post, I STILL think the question is totally ambiguous. Surely an English Language exam should, at the very least, have questions that are written clearly?

And having read the question again together with the help offered from teachers on this post, I STILL think the question is totally ambiguous. Surely an English Language exam should, at the very least, have questions that are written clearly?

But students going into a GCSE exam will have spent at least two years learning to answer the types of question they are going to be facing.

I teach MFL. If my students hadn't practised working to the criteria on the markscheme for the writing pieces they do in the writing exam, they would not get very good marks, because the criteria are not apparent from the question.

I agree that the phrasing of your example question is pretty clunky and rubbish, but I imagine they are used to answering exactly that kind of question.

If I'm honest, I'm surprised that the answers about the water surging were deemed acceptable! They seem less about the ship and more about the water. Can I ask where the exemplar paper came from?

To be fair, if I were marking your paper in my examiner capacity, I'd have given you full marks. The markscheme does have the option to award 'verifiably accurate' answers that are not on the list.

It is an AQA sample paper. It is used on several exam websites as a test paper.

Weird, I've not come across that one before! Gaps in my knowledge, obviously!

To be honest, there are many problems with AQA English Language, but I honestly don't think Q1 being worded ambiguously is one of them!

I have taught AQA since this spec was introduced and have never seen that paper - it wasn't one of the original samples. Is it a November paper I have missed?

No idea - I googled sample papers and this came up on several sites. And I was a little perturbed that I could not answer the first question correctly.

Wait, is it Life of Pi? I've heard of that one but never seen it!

Yes - Life of Pi

http://www.theacademycarlton.org.uk/uploads/images/file/English-Language-Paper%201%20Sample-Papers.pdf

Sorry, I'm such a nerd but I just did some research. I'm not sure it's genuine AQA. It looks like something created by a teacher. Could be wrong obviously!

If you're still interested, OP, Google 'AQA Paper 1 Rosabel' or 'AQA Paper 1 T Rex' for examples I can guarantee do come directly from the board.

I thought this year's AQA Eng Lang was an extract from Life of Pi?

@m00rfarm the first question is always the same and students will have been taught how to answer it. I agree with others, it is the more able who might look to be too clever. In your example I would have said:
Ship has stairs/handrails
Ship has a main deck
There is water coming in
The ship is listing badly

But any answer that is confirmed by reference to the text is acceptable.

Exactly this. It's an untiered paper for students aiming for grades 1-9. Q1 requires candidates simply to
list 4 things they know. No inference required.

I'm 99% sure that is not a real paper.

Yes, it was, but not the extract used in the sample the OP posted above.

This is spot on. We spend most of our time focusing on Literature and teaching them to analyse and the bright ones can’t help themselves!

First line of the OP: I am looking at some sample papers.

There's sample papers and sample papers though.

Some 'sample' papers are provided by the board.
Then others are created by teachers / companies etc.
It may make a difference as to the quality.

First line of the OP: I am looking at some sample papers.
I know. I can read. However, other posters were suggesting that it might be an exam board paper.

It may make a difference as to the quality
Exam papers go through rigorous quality checking, even the sample ones. With the best will in the world, teachers creating them are not doing that to the same degree.

Yes. There are real samples, made up samples and real papers.

This thread has mostly made me feel enormously relieved I will never have to sit another exam! (It's been a while since I had an exam dream. Maybe I've finally got all of that out of my system.)

Maths is almost certainly easier to mark than English but there's usually at least one question, worth 1 or 2 marks, which has an A4 page and a half of explanations, right, wrong or BOD, benefit of doubt, the latter can be a nightmare, a simple misplaced word can make all the difference! So often a candidate's English loses them the mark.

Tell me about it!
DD often misses the 'explain your answer' marks because she goes round the houses without being clear.