11 Plus Exams Forum

The 'structure' questions appear to be the ones most folk are finding difficult. Here is my checklist of possible features to identify and comment on:

- impact of opening sentence: does it raise questions? is it provocative or mysterious? (eg "last night I dreamt I went to Manderlay"). Perhaps the piece opens with something dramatic and / or unusual (eg "Hale knew by midday that they meant to murder him"). Doe the narrative unfold gradually or are we thrust into the midst of the action?

- chronology: does the extract unfold chronologically or are there flashbacks/forwards in time?

- time markers : " ten minutes later I was doing xyz.......an hour later nothing had changed" and so on. They provide a time context. There are also indirect time markers, such as 'suddenly / immediately / gradually / a little later 'and so on.

- narrative voice: who is the speaker? what tense is the piece written in? what can you say about this?

- the interplay of long multiclause sentences (very typical in pre 20th C lit so that's EDEXCEL paper 1) and short, 'staccato' sentences.

- certain punctuation features such as rhetorical questions, hyphens and ellipses.....also very common in pre 20th c.

-Use of direct speech rather than reported speech: normally it makes the characters more convincing and realistic.

-Motifs: a repeated image or symbol. This is tricky because it's arguably a language feature, but if it recurs and is positioned several times in a text it has structural importance too and provides emphasis. It could be the repetition of a slogan or phrase too.

- perspective: whose is it? if there is more than one it's definitely worth a comment.

- movement from beginning to end: how have things changed by the end? or are we back to where we started?

Hope this helps all the Y11s If anyone has any generic questions about language, structure or perspective and so on please feel free to ask.

Thanks for this, I’ve just shown Miss Tinkers, who asked for it to be copied and sent to her. (So I am guessing she thinks it very helpful. )

Glad to be of service Ma'am.

Thanks, piggys.

Thank you, piggys. I think this is a very practical approach and could see it being a really helpful checklist. Thank you, again - advice is always easier to receive when given from outside the family!

I am going to post a few ideas and suggestions for each of the literature and language papers in the couple of days leading up to the exams as well.

Thanks, looking forward to your post.

piggys wrote:I am going to post a few ideas and suggestions for each of the literature and language papers in the couple of days leading up to the exams as well.

Many thanks.

Will definitely look out for those, piggys!

Obviously it pales compared to Y11 woes, but my Y10 has just told me she has some sort of English exam on Monday that COUNTS! And has been treated with complete derision and rudeness all day by dd1 who is taking HER Very Important A levels and so it cannot POSSIBLY MATTER, it was a piece of cake 3 years ago. But dd2 says, yes maybe it was then but it’s harder now, no notes or spoon feeding or being led by the teacher, like dd1 seems to have got.

Any tips for that? I don’t even know what it’s called, some kind of coursework assessment.