OCR A-Level English Language: the independent language research NEA (Component 03) overview quiz quiz

Two written examinations sat under timed conditions in the hall, each marked out of forty

Task 1 the language investigation (30 marks) and Task 2 the academic poster (10 marks)

A close reading of an unseen text and a comparison of two prescribed set texts

A prepared speech delivered aloud and a transcript of a recorded spoken conversation

AO5 only

AO4 only

AO1, AO2 and AO3

All five equally

AO1

AO2 and AO3

AO4

AO5 only

2000 to 2500 words

500 to 750 words, the same as the poster

Exactly 5000 words, with no allowed margin

No fixed limit at all on the length

Title, author, date and bibliography, the front-matter details of any written document

Introduction and research question, methodology, analysis, conclusion

Hook, body, twist and ending, the shape of a piece of narrative or creative writing

Quote, comment, link and repeat, the formula used for paragraphs in a timed exam essay

It makes the title of the report shorter, which examiners tend to treat as the single most important feature of a strong investigation

It is required only because the bibliography has to be built around the wording of the question

A question too broad cannot be investigated at this length; a narrow, answerable one makes a sustained study possible

Questions do not really matter, since the marks come almost entirely from the analysis itself

They are exactly the same thing, so the two words can be used completely interchangeably when planning out the whole study

A topic is simply a shorter way of wording exactly the same idea as the research question

A research question is optional, and a study can proceed perfectly well from a topic alone

A topic is a broad area; a research question is a single, focused, answerable thing to find out within it

It suits the question, justifies its data and sampling, handles ethics, and is transparent enough to repeat

It is as long as it can possibly be, since a fuller methodology section will always earn more marks than a briefer one

It avoids explaining how the data was chosen, so that the reader concentrates on the analysis itself

It ignores the limits of the data, presenting the sample as though it were complete and representative

It is just a formality to be ticked off right at the end of the project and has no real bearing at all on how the study is actually designed

Where data involves people, consent and anonymisation are required, and the ethics shape what data can be gathered

Ethics only apply to the written examinations and never to a coursework investigation of this kind

Data never involves real people, so questions of consent and anonymity simply do not arise here

Copying chunks of the investigation directly across so the poster reproduces the report's wording

Adding still more detailed analysis on top of the investigation to demonstrate even greater technical depth

Transformation: recasting the report into a concise, accessible poster for a non-specialist audience

Using the most technical jargon possible to show off the full range of linguistic terminology

The poster carries no marks of its own, so nothing written on it can ever be credited

Analysis is forbidden in the poster, and including any will be penalised by the examiner

The poster simply repeats Task 1, so its content has already been credited once in the report

The poster is assessed for AO5 (communication) only, not the analytical objectives

Start from the data: check what can be gathered ethically, then frame a question it can answer

Write the poster first, before any part of the investigation has actually been carried out at all

Pick the broadest possible topic so that there is plenty of material to write about later on

Skip the methodology and move straight to the analysis to save time on the planning stage