Edexcel GCSE English Language exam technique and assessment overview quiz quiz

2 hours 5 minutes, 60%

2 hours, 50%

1 hour 30 minutes, 30%

1 hour 45 minutes, 40%

2 hours 5 minutes, 96 marks, 60%

1 hour 45 minutes, 64 marks, 40% of the qualification

2 hours exactly, 64 marks, worth 50% of the qualification

1 hour 30 minutes, 40 marks, worth 20% of the qualification

They are exactly the same objective and reward the same skill in an answer

AO4 judges how successfully an effect is achieved; AO2 analyses how a method creates an effect

AO4 is the objective used for the writing tasks, while AO2 is used only for spoken language work

AO4 rewards simply listing the techniques that the writer has used in the text

Question 1, the short retrieval question

Question 3, the language analysis question

Question 7b

Question 6, an evaluation question

Spend an equal amount of time on every single question

Spend most of the time on Question 1, the first question

Keep writing on each question until the time runs out

Time should follow the marks (the tariff)

Over-writing the low-tariff retrieval questions

Reading the source texts far too quickly at the start

Spending too long planning the writing task before starting

Proofreading the writing task carefully at the very end

16 marks

32 marks

40 marks

8 marks

They are awarded for the quality and the originality of the ideas that are put forward in the writing task

They are extra bonus marks added on top of the marks for the writing task

They are awarded only for accurate writing, so a proofread converts careless errors back into marks

They are awarded simply for the length of the response that the student writes

Questions 3 and 4

Question 5 only

Question 4 only

Questions 1 and 2

Mixing AO2 (analyse) and AO4 (evaluate)

Confusing AO5 (content and organisation) with AO6 (accuracy)

Confusing AO1 (retrieval) with AO3 (comparison of texts)

Confusing AO7 and AO8, which belong to spoken language work

24 reading, 40 writing

56 reading, 40 writing

40 reading, 56 writing

48 reading, 48 writing

Reading the source texts twice over and quoting from them as often as possible

Writing as fast as you possibly can and using as many long, impressive words as possible

Planning before writing (AO5 organisation) and proofreading after (AO6 accuracy)

Memorising whole model answers in advance and reproducing them in the exam