CAMBRIDGE IGCSE

COURSEWORK BOOKLET: INDEPENDENT STUDY

Name:

Class:

The will to win, the desire to succeed, the urge to reach your full potential... these are the
keys that will unlock the door to personal excellence.
2014-2015 IGCSE Timetable

Component Independent Study Websites

June Coursework: 2 Reading for Pleasure www.englishbiz.com

Descriptive writing draft book 1 www.enhancemyvocabulary.com
completed by Friday 20th June (expressive phrases) – make
2014 notes of useful phrases)

July Coursework 2: descriptive Reading for pleasure www.englishbiz.com

writing : final Friday 11th July book 2 www.enhancemyvocabulary.com
2014 (expressive phrases) – make
notes of useful phrases)

Summer GCSE Reading Project

September Coursework 1:informative/ Reading Non- fiction www.bbcbitesize.com

analytical/ argumentative (newspapers/ www.englishbiz.com
writing articles/texts)

October Coursework 3 :informative/ Reading Non- fiction www.bbcbitesize.com

analytical/ argumentative (newspapers/ www.englishbiz.com
writing articles/texts)

November Extended Paper practice Reading for pleasure www.extremepapers.com

(coursework redrafts) book 3

December Extended Paper Practice Past papers www.extremepapers.com

Mock Exam

January Extended Paper Question 1 Paste paper question 1 www.extremepapers.com

2015

February Extended Paper Question 2 Past paper question 2 www.extremepapers.com

2015
Coursework folders in
Speaking and Listening
Preparation

March * Extended Paper Question 3 Past paper question 3 www.extremepapers.com

2015
Speaking and Listening Exam

April Extended Paper Question – Timed Essay practice www.extremepapers.com

2015
practice

May IGCSE Exam

2015

*There will be Literature intervention for students who did not sit the exam in May 2014
Vocabulary used to write about thoughts and feelings.
Task: Tick the words that you know. Use the grid at the bottom to create a table of new words. Think of headings
for each column

Happiness Admiring Incomplete Hurt Lame Incomplete

Delighted Affectionate Meagre Abused Overwhelmed Meager
Ebullient Attached Puny Aching Small Puny
Ecstatic Fond Tenuous Anguished Substandard Tenuous
Elated Fond of Tiny Crushed Unimportant Tiny
Energetic Kind Uncertain Degraded Adrift Uncertain
Enthusiastic Kind-hearted Unconvincing Destroyed Ambivalent Unconvincing
Euphoric Loving Unsure Devastated Bewildered Unsure
Excited Partial Weak Discarded Puzzled Weak
Exhilarated Soft on Wishful Disgraced Blurred Wishful
Overjoyed Sympathetic Anxious Forsaken Disconcerted Anxious
Thrilled Tender Careful Humiliated Disordered Careful
Tickled pink Trusting Cautious Mocked Disorganized Cautious
Turned on Warm-hearted Disquieted Punished Disquieted Disquieted
Vibrant Caring Goose-bumpy Rejected Disturbed Goose-bumpy
Zippy Cherishing Shy Ridiculed Foggy Shy
Adoring Compassionate Tense Ruined Frustrated Tense
Ardent Crazy about Timid Scorned Misled Timid
Zealous Devoted Uneasy Stabbed Mistaken Uneasy
Medium Doting Unsure Tortured Misunderstood Unsure
Aglow Fervent Watchful Terror-stricken Mixed up Watchful
Buoyant Idolizing Worried Wrecked Perplexed Worried
Cheerful Infatuated Distracted Baffled Troubled Distracted
Elevated Passionate Uncertain Befuddled Annoyed Uncertain
Gleeful Wild about Uncomfortable Chaotic Belittled Uncomfortable
Happy Worshipful Undecided Confounded Cheapened Undecided
In high spirits Appreciative Unsettled Confused Criticized Unsettled
Jovial Attentive Unsure Dizzy Damaged Unsure
Light-hearted Considerate Let down Flustered Depreciated Let down
Lively Friendly Minimized Rattled Devalued Minimized
Merry Interested in Neglected Reeling Discredited Neglected
Riding high Kind Put away Shocked Distressed Put away
Sparkling Like Put down Shook up Impaired Put down
Up Respecting Rueful Speechless Injured Rueful
Light Thoughtful Tender Startled Maligned Tender
Contented Tolerant Touched Stumped Marred Touched
Cool Warm toward Unhappy Stunned Miffed Unhappy
Fine Yielding Bugged Taken-aback Mistreated Bugged
Genial Humble Chagrined Thrown Resentful Chagrined
Glad Meek Dismayed Thunderstruck Troubled Dismayed
Gratified Regretful Galled Trapped Used Galled
Keen Reluctant Grim Confusion Wounded Grim
Pleasant Awful Impatient Ailing Afraid Impatient
Pleased Blue Irked Defeated Apprehensive Irked
Satisfied Crestfallen Petulant Deficient Awkward Petulant
Serene Demoralized Resentful Dopey Defensive Resentful
Sunny Devalued Sullen Feeble Fearful Sullen
Remorse Discouraged Uptight Helpless Fidgety Uptight
Blah Dispirited Blue Impaired Fretful Blue
Disappointed Distressed Detached Imperfect Jumpy Detached
Down Downcast Discouraged Incapable Nervous Discouraged
Funk Downhearted Distant Incompetent Scared Distant
Glum Fed up Insulated Incomplete Shaky Insulated
Low Lost Melancholy Ineffective Skittish Melancholy
Moody Melancholy Remote Inept Spineless Remote
Morose Miserable Separate Loneliness Taut Separate
Sombre Regretful Withdrawn Abandoned Threatened Withdrawn
Subdued Rotten Bashful Black Troubled Bashful
Uncomfortable Sorrowful Blushing Cut off Wired Blushing
Unhappy Tearful Chagrined Deserted Dejected Chagrined
Dry Upset Chastened Destroyed Despondent Chastened
Anger Weepy Crestfallen Empty Estranged Crestfallen
Affronted Irritated Embarrassed Forsaken Excluded Embarrassed
Belligerent Offended Hesitant Isolated Left out Hesitant
Bitter Ratty Humble Marooned Leftover Aggravated
Burned up Resentful Meek Neglected Lonely Annoyed
Enraged Sore Regretful Ostracized Oppressed Antagonistic
Fuming Spiteful Reluctant Outcast Uncherished Crabby
Furious Testy Rejected Apologetic Cranky
Heated Ticked off Shunned Ashamed Exasperated
Incensed Alienated Abashed Contrite Fuming
Infuriated Alone Debased Culpable Grouchy
Intense Apart Degraded Demeaned Hostile
Outraged Cheerless Delinquent Downhearted Ill-tempered
Provoked Companionless Depraved Flustered Indignant
Seething Disgraced Guilty Irate
Storming Evil Penitent
Truculent Exposed Regretful
Vengeful Humiliated Remorseful
Vindictive Judged Repentant
Wild Mortified Shamefaced
Shamed Sorrowful
Sinful Sorry
Wicked
Wrong
Creating metaphors

Feeling Metaphor

Feeling Metaphor

Feeling Metaphor

Feeling Metaphor

Feeling Metaphor

Describing my strongest feeling

Different emotions: one event

The event:

Emotion 1 Emotion 3

Emotion 2

Emotion 4 Emotion 5
Writing about a rollercoaster of emotions based on the clip
 Lashin’ Techs by Courttia Newland

It was all so smooth. Travis and Mikey spotted the handbag dangling from
the women's shoulder like a pendant - loose, unheeded, yet valued.
Mikey pointed this out to Stern, who confirmed she was the one.
They followed her up Kensington High street in a tight v formation, rubbing their hands
together; this would be easy.
From behind, they could see the woman was white, and quite old, though not too old. None of
them wanted a heart attack victim on their hands.
Travis always wondered if Stern, being mixed-race, felt a way that all their victims were white,
but he'd never had the balls to ask outright.
Judging by his friend's actions, he didn't give a toss, and neither did they.
No more time for idle thoughts. They nodded at each other.
Stern made the move, quick as a greyhound. One quick tug and she was on the floor.
Another and the strap broke with a thin crack. They ran as fast as they could, until her voice
penetrated Stern's ears.
It stopped him as surely as a brick wall, while the others fled.
"Nicholas? Nicholas that can't be you, can it?" she cried from the floor.
Stern turned around to face her and dropped the bag. Ice cold fear dissolved in his belly. He
managed to utter one word before some hero rushed in.
"Gran?"

Task: Choose a devices that the writer has used. Write an extended PEE/PEA
paragraph to explain why it is effective.
Extract from Oliver Twist

Task: Annotate the text to gain an understanding of the thoughts and

feelings of the protagonist.

London!—that great place!—nobody—not even Mr. Bumble—could ever find

him there! He had often heard the old men in the workhouse, too, say that no lad
of spirit need want in London; and that there were ways of living in that vast city,
which those who had been bred up in country parts had no idea of. It was the very
place for a homeless boy, who must die in the streets unless some one helped him.
As these things passed through his thoughts, he jumped upon his feet, and again
walked forward.
He had diminished the distance between himself and London by full four miles
more, before he recollected how much he must undergo ere he could hope to
reach his place of destination. As this consideration forced itself upon him, he
slackened his pace a little, and meditated upon his means of getting there. He had
a crust of bread, a coarse shirt, and two pairs of stockings, in his bundle. He had a
penny too—a gift of Sowerberry’s after some funeral in which he had acquitted
himself more than ordinarily well—in his pocket. ‘A clean shirt,’ thought Oliver,
‘is a very comfortable thing; and so are two pairs of darned stockings; and so is a
penny; but they are small helps to a sixty-five miles’ walk in winter time.’ But
Oliver’s thoughts, like those of most other people, although they were extremely
ready and active to point out his difficulties, were wholly at a loss to suggest any
feasible mode of surmounting them; so, after a good deal of thinking to no
particular purpose, he changed his little bundle over to the other shoulder, and
trudged on.
Oliver walked twenty miles that day; and all that time tasted nothing but the crust
of dry bread, and a few draughts of water, which he begged at the cottage-doors
by the road-side. When the night came, he turned into a meadow; and, creeping
close under a hay-rick, determined to lie there, till morning. He felt frightened at
first, for the wind than he had ever felt before. Being very tired with his walk,
however, he soon fell asleep and forgot his troubles.
He felt cold and stiff, when he got up next morning, and so hungry that he was
obliged to exchange the penny for a small loaf, in the very first village through
which he passed. He had walked no more than twelve miles, when night closed in
again. His feet were sore, and his legs so weak that they trembled beneath him.
Another night passed in the bleak damp air, made him worse; when he set forward
on his journey next morning he could hardly crawl along.
He waited at the bottom of a steep hill till a stage-coach came up, and then begged
of the outside passengers; but there were very few who took any notice of him:
and even those told him to wait till they got to the top of the hill, and then let
them see how far he could run for a halfpenny. Poor Oliver tried to keep up with
the coach a little way, but was unable to do it, by reason of his fatigue and sore
feet. When the outsides saw this, they put their halfpence back into their pockets
again, declaring that he was an idle young dog, and didn’t deserve anything; and
the coach rattled away and left only a cloud of dust behind.
In some villages, large painted boards were fixed up: warning all persons who
begged within the district, that they would be sent to jail. This frightened Oliver
very much, and made him glad to get out of those villages with all possible
expedition. In others, he would stand about the inn-yards, and look mournfully at
every one who passed: a proceeding which generally terminated in the landlady’s
ordering one of the post-boys who were lounging about, to drive that strange boy
out of the place, for she was sure he had come to steal something. If he begged at
a farmer’s house, ten to one but they threatened to set the dog on him; and when
he showed his nose in a shop, they talked about the beadle—which brought
Oliver’s heart into his mouth,—very often the only thing he had there, for many
hours together.
In fact, if it had not been for a good-hearted turnpike-man, and a benevolent old
lady, Oliver’s troubles would have been shortened by the very same process
which had put an end to his mother’s; in other words, he would most assuredly
have fallen dead upon the king’s highway. But the turnpike-man gave him a meal
of bread and cheese; and the old lady, who had a shipwrecked grandson
wandering barefoot in some distant part of the earth, took pity upon the poor
orphan, and gave him what little she could afford—and more—with such kind
and gentle words, and such tears of sympathy and compassion, that they sank
deeper into Oliver’s soul, than all the sufferings he had ever undergone.
Early on the seventh morning after he had left his native place, Oliver limped
slowly into the little town of Barnet. The window-shutters were closed; the street
was empty; not a soul had awakened to the business of the day. The sun was
rising in all its splendid beauty; but the light only served to show the boy his own
lonesomeness and desolation, as he sat, with bleeding feet and covered with dust,
upon a door-step.

Great Expectations and Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens The Scholar and Society Within by Courttia Newland
Extended Writing: Write about an emotional rollercoaster
Vocabulary to describe a place

cold quiet magnificent pungent blaring serene petrifying putrid

glorious enormous smooth deafening grand tiny bland loud
soft opulent rancid reeks aroma inaudible bumpy silky
lavish rough shrill bustling spacious
dense magical majestic gloomy

Task: Write about a place you know well.

 My London

London

Semantic circles
Research Project: Telling Stories
My journey to London
Interview your parent/carer to discuss how they feel about living in
London.
Possible questions to ask?
Have you always lived in this part of London? If not where else have
you lived? Why did you come to London? What were your hopes for
living in London? What do you like about it? What would you
change? Describe what life is like for you in London. If you could
sum London up in one word what would it be?
Task: Annotate these two poems
Poems about London
London by William Blake
I wandered through each chartered street,
Near where the chartered Thames does flow,
A mark in every face I meet,
Marks of weakness, marks of woe.

In every cry of every man,

In every infant's cry of fear,
In every voice, in every ban,
The mind-forged manacles I hear:

How the chimney-sweeper's cry

Every blackening church appals,
And the hapless soldier's sigh
Runs in blood down palace-walls.

But most, through midnight streets I hear

How the youthful harlot's curse
Blasts the new-born infant's tear,
And blights with plagues the marriage-hearse

Island Man by Grace Nichols

Morning
and island man wakes up
to the sound of blue surf
in his head
the steady breaking and wombing

wild seabirds
and fishermen pushing out to sea
the sun surfacing defiantly
from the east
of his small emerald island
he always comes back groggily groggily

Comes back to sands

of a grey metallic soar
to surge of wheels
to dull North Circular roar

muffling muffling
his crumpled pillow waves
island man heaves himself

Another London day

 Answer the following questions about ‘London and ‘Island Man’
1. How does William Blake feel about ‘London’? Explain your response.
2. How does the writer use language to achieve effects? Use PEE in your response.
3. Which of the 5 senses have been used in ‘London’? Find evidence.
4. How does Grace Nichols show the differences between the two places in ‘Island Man’?
5. Which of the 5 senses have been used in ‘Island Man’? Find evidence.
Extension
1. What structural devices has Nichols used to show ‘Island Man’s feelings about London?

Composed Upon Westminster Bridge, September 3 1803

Earth has not anything to show more fair:

Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty:
This City now doth, like a garment, wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky;
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
Never did sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill;
Ne’er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!

William Wordsworth

What do you notice about the structure of this poem?

Why has the writer chosen this structure?
The London Riots

Pick out a simile, a metaphor, a personification and connotation.

How many different kinds of sentences can you identify? What effect
would they have on the reader?

I just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. You don’t think that something like
this will ever happen to you, do you? How wrong I was…
BANG! The flare whizzed past my head. It was like I was in a war zone! All around me, people
were yelling and throwing bricks, stones, anything they could get their hands on. Some kid had
a graffiti can and was spraying ‘Death to pigs’ in blood red paint across the front of a shop’s
shutters, ignoring the wall of police that were advancing from behind.
To my left, a wall of riot shields. To my right, several shops that were just begging me to enter.
Perspectives
I am writing from the point of view of the protesters/ the police/ the residents (circle)

Notes while watching

Writing perspectives task

 Adjectives to describe people Hair

Eyes

Complexion

Lips Build

Shape of face
Make notes of interesting words or phrases from the model descriptions

Notes
Writing about a person from a picture
Task: what do you learn about the people in the following texts? Make notes underneath each one.

It was the middle of the day. Nazneen had finished the housework. Soonshe
would start preparing the evening meal, but for a while she would let the time pass.
It was hot and the sun fell flat on the metal window frames and glared off the glass.
A red and gold sari hung out of a top-floor flat in Rosemead block. A baby's bib
and miniature dungarees lower down. The sign screwed to the brickwork
was in stiff English capitals and the curlicues beneath were Bengali. No dumping.
No parking. No ball games. Two old men in white panjabi-pyjama and skullcaps
walked along the path, slowly, as if they did not want to go where they were going.
A thin brown dog sniffed along to the middle of the grass and defecated.
The breeze on Nazneen's face was thick with the smell from the
overflowing communal bins.

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“It have people living in London who don’t know what happening in the
room next to them, far more the street, or how other people living. London is a
place like that.
It divide up in little worlds, and you stay in the world you belong to and you don’t
know anything about what happening in the other ones except what you read in
the papers.”

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Squeezed between an almighty concrete cinema complex at one end and a giant intersection at the
other, Cricklewood was no kind of place. It was not a place a man came to die. It was a place a man
came in order to go other places via the A41. But Archie Jones didn't want to die in some pleasant,
distant woodland, or on a cliff edge fringed with delicate heather. The way Archie saw it, country
people should die in the country and city people should die in the city. Only proper. In death as he
was in life and all that. It made sense that Archibald should die on this nasty urban street where
he had ended up, living alone at the age of forty-seven, in a one-bedroom flat above a deserted
chip shop. He wasn't the type to make elaborate plans -- suicide notes and funeral instructions --
he wasn't the type for anything fancy. All he asked for was a bit of silence, a bit of shush so he could
concentrate. He wanted it to be perfectly quiet and still, like the inside of an empty confessional
box or the moment in the brain between thought and speech. He wanted to do it before the
shops opened.

Overhead, a gang of the local flying vermin took off from some unseen perch, swooped, and
seemed to be zeroing in on Archie's car roof -- only to perform, at the last moment, an
impressive U-turn, moving as one with the elegance of a curve ball and landing on the
Hussein-Ishmael, a celebrated halal butchers. Archie was too far gone to make a big noise
about it, but he watched them with a warm internal smile as they deposited their load, streaking
white walls purple. He watched them stretch their peering bird heads over the Hussein-Ishmael
gutter; he watched them watch the slow and steady draining of blood from the dead things --
chickens, cows, sheep -- hanging on their hooks like coats around the shop. The Unlucky.
These pigeons had an instinct for the Unlucky, and so they passed Archie by. For, though he
did not know it, and despite the Hoover tube that lay on the passenger seat pumping from the
exhaust pipe into his lungs, luck was with him that morning. The thinnest covering of luck was
on him like fresh dew. Whilst he slipped in and out of consciousness, the position of the planets,
the music of the spheres, the flap of a tiger-moth's diaphanous wings in Central Africa, and a whole
bunch of other stuff that Makes Shit Happen had decided it was second-chance time for Archie.
Somewhere, somehow, by somebody, it had been decided that he would live.

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He had risen from his chair and was standing between the parted blinds
gazing down into the dull neutral-tinted London street. Looking over his
shoulder, I saw that on the pavement opposite there stood a large
woman with a heavy fur boa round her neck, and a large curling red
feather in a broad-brimmed hat which was tilted in a coquettish Duchess
of Devonshire fashion over her ear. From under this great panoply she
peeped up in a nervous, hesitating fashion at our windows, while her
body oscillated backward and forward, and her fingers fidgeted with her
glove buttons. Suddenly, with a plunge, as of the swimmer who leaves
the bank, she hurried across the road, and we heard the sharp clang of
the bell.
"I have seen those symptoms before," said Holmes, throwing his
cigarette into the fire. "Oscillation upon the pavement always means an
affaire de coeur. She would like advice, but is not sure that the matter is
not too delicate for communication. And yet even here we may
discriminate. When a woman has been seriously wronged by a man she
no longer oscillates, and the usual symptom is a broken bell wire. Here
we may take it that there is a love matter, but that the maiden is not so
much angry as perplexed, or grieved. But here she comes in person to
resolve our doubts."
As he spoke there was a tap at the door, and the boy in buttons. entered
to announce Miss Mary Sutherland, while the lady herself loomed behind
his small black figure like a full-sailed merchant-man behind a tiny pilot
boat. Sherlock Holmes welcomed her with the easy courtesy for which he
was remarkable, and, having closed the door and bowed her into an
armchair, he looked her over in the minute and yet abstracted fashion
which was peculiar to him.
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Planning or your first draft –

Storyboard of your clip - include colours in your sketches and write in detail below each frame
Notes/ brainstorm/ planning for your draft
Getting it Right!

To improve your writing further:

• Learn, finally, those little things you’ve always got wrong and never bothered to work out why e.g. the difference between it’s (it
is/it has) and its (belonging to it); who’s (who is/who has) and whose (belonging to who); continuous (without stopping) and
continual (with stops); uninterested (without interest) and disinterested (without prejudice); lay (with object) and lie (without
object).

• Remind yourself of any punctuation marks of which you have never been sure.

• You could revise the rules for the use of the apostrophe (missing letter or possession) or the hyphen (using two words as one) or starting a
new paragraph (change of time, place or topic). Lack ofparagraphing is particularly detrimental to your mark as it is evidence of lack of
planning and/or inability to sequence material.

• Even if you’ve always had trouble knowing where to put full-stops, it’s never too late to learn and now is the time, as your writing marks will
be seriously reduced if you are unable to form proper sentences use commas where you should use full-stops. If there is no connective you
must use either a full-stop or a semi-colon at the end of a group of words containing a verb, before starting another one.

Practise joining simple sentences into complex sentences, using a range of connectives and participles. Above all avoid using ‘and’, ‘but’ and
‘so’.

• Practise varying your sentences to develop your own style. You don’t want your sentences all to follow the same formula and start in the
same way. Try writing some of the sentence types here:

i) main clause followed by one or more subordinate clauses e.g. ‘The cat fell asleep, after it had eaten, although someone had switched on
loud music.’

ii) subordinate clause(s) followed by main clause e.g. ‘After it had eaten, the cat fell asleep.’

iii) subordinate clause followed by main clause followed by another subordinate clause e.g. ‘After it had eaten, the cat fell asleep, although
someone had switched on loud music.’

iv) main clause containing embedded subordinate clause e.g. ‘The cat, which had been sleeping all day, fell asleep again.’

v) main clause containing embedded subordinate clause, followed by another subordinate clause e.g. ‘The cat, which had been sleeping all
day, fell asleep again, even though there was loud music playing.’

To improve your own writing you should also:

• Learn the correct version of commonly misspelt words which you know you are likely to need to use

e.g. separate, definitely, business, opportunity, surprise, privilege. The best way to learn them is to:

i) stare at them and try to ‘photograph’ them; cover them while you write them from the imprint on your memory; check back to see if you
were correct. This is the Look, Cover, Write, Check method. Copying words letter by letter does not fix the ‘letter-strings’ in your mind
successfully.

ii) remember the rule: ‘i’ before ‘e’ except after ‘c’, if the sound you are making is long double ‘ee’.

(The only known exception, apart from in names, is ‘seize’.)

iii) if in doubt whether a word has a single or double consonant apply the generally sound rule that if the vowel is short the consonant is
double, but if the vowel is long the consonant is single e.g. ‘hopping and hoping’, ‘sitting and siting’, ‘dinner and diner’, ‘writing and written’.
Create mnemonics, little sayings and rhymes which, however silly, actually work e.g. ‘necessary’ is spelt with one c and two s because ‘one
coat has two sleeves’; ‘possesses’ possesses five eases

v) be aware of prefixes, so that you can work out which words have double letters and which

don’t e.g. ‘dis-satisfied’ as opposed to ‘dismay’, and the spelling of words like ‘extra-ordinary’ and ‘con-science’.

vi) be aware of suffixes, so that you can work out which adverbs end in ‘ly’and which in ‘lly’ (i.e. only those which already have an ‘l’ at the
end of the adjective, like ‘beautiful – beautifully’).vii) think about how the word is spelt in other languages you know e.g. the French verb
‘separer’ will remind you of how ‘separate’ is spelt in English.

viii) break difficult words down into syllables in your mind, so that you can hear how ‘in-ter- est-ing’ must be spelt
IGCSE Assessment criteria

Grade descriptions for Writing (Assignments 1–3)

Band 1 (36–40): Confident and stylistic completion of challenging tasks throughout the
Portfolio.
• W1: Candidates describe and reflect effectively upon experience, give detail and analyse
thoughtfully what is felt and imagined. Arguments are cogent and developed in mature,
persuasive thought.

• W2/5 (paragraphing): Facts, ideas and opinions are ordered logically, each stage in the
argument or narrative carefully linked to the next. Paragraphing is a strength, and candidates are
confident in experimenting where appropriate in the structure of expressive writing.

• W3/5 (sentence structures): Candidates write with assurance, using a wide range of effective
vocabulary and varied, well-constructed sentences.

• W4: Candidates vary their style with assurance to suit audience and context in all three
assignments.

• W5 (spelling, punctuation and grammar): Candidates write accurately. They use punctuation
and grammatical structures to define shades of meaning. They spell simple, complex and
technical words with precision.

Band 2 (31–35): Frequent merit and interest in the choice of content and the manner
of writing.
• W1: Candidates describe and reflect upon experience and analyse with occasional success what
is felt and imagined. Some argument is well developed and interesting, although the explanation
may not always be consistent.

• W2/5 (paragraphing): Facts, ideas and opinions are often well ordered so that the construction
of the writing is clear to the reader. Sentences within paragraphs are mostly well sequenced,
although some paragraphs may finish less effectively than they begin.

• W3/5 (sentence structures): Candidates write with some confidence, demonstrating an

emergent range of varied vocabulary and some fluency in the construction of sentences.

• W4: Candidates give evidence of understanding the need to write appropriately to audience
and context even if there is not complete consistency in the three assignments.

• W5 (spelling, punctuation and grammar): Candidates show some signs of understanding how
punctuation and grammatical structures can be used to aid communication. Errors of spelling,
punctuation and grammar are minor, and rare at the top of this band.

Band 3 (26–30): Competent writing with some development of ideas.

• W1: Candidates express clearly what is felt and imagined and supply some detail, explanation
and exemplification for the benefit of the reader. Arguments are expressed in a competent series
of relevant points and a clear attempt is made to develop some of them.

• W2/5 (paragraphing): A clear attempt is made to present facts, ideas and opinions in an orderly
way, although there may be some insecurity in the overall structure.

• W3/5 (sentence structures): Candidates write competently, using appropriate if sometimes

unadventurous vocabulary and writing sentences that mostly link ideas successfully.
• W4: Candidates make a clear attempt in at least one assignment to write with a sense of
audience and there may also be some evidence of adapting style to context.

• W5 (spelling, punctuation and grammar): Candidates use punctuation and grammar

competently although the range is not strong. There may be a number of minor errors especially
at the bottom of this band and even occasional errors of sentence separation .

Band 4 (21–25): Satisfactory content with brief development and acceptable

expression.
• W1: Candidates express with some clarity what is felt and imagined. Arguments are relevant to
the topic and are developed partially with some brief effectiveness.

• W2/5 (paragraphing): There is evidence of overall structure, but the writing may be presented
more carefully in some sections than in others. There may be examples of repetition and the
sequence of sentences within paragraphs may be insecure in places.

• W3/5 (sentence structures): Candidates write with occasional competence, using a mixture of
effective and straightforward vocabulary and some complex and some simple sentences.

• W4: Candidates show occasional evidence of writing with some understanding of audience and
context, but this is not sustained.

• W5 (spelling, punctuation and grammar): They use a limited range of punctuation and
grammatical structure with some care, although occasionally grammatical error will cause the
reader some difficulty. There may be quite numerous errors, particularly of sentence separation
and the misuse of commas.

Band 5 (16–20): Simple writing, the meaning of which is not in doubt.

• W1: Candidates express intelligibly what is felt and imagined. Arguments are expressed with
variable relevance, logic and development.

• W2/5 (paragraphing): Facts, ideas and opinions are presented in paragraphs which may be
inconsistent. The overall structure is unsound in places.

• W3/5 (sentence structures): Candidates use simple straightforward vocabulary. Simple

sentences are correctly used and there may be an attempt to write complex sentences which
have a slight lack of clarity.

• W4: Candidates make slight variations of style according to audience and context, although this
does not seem deliberate.

• W5 (spelling, punctuation and grammar): Candidates show knowledge of simple punctuation

and grammar, but the amount of error, especially of tense and the use of prepositions, is
sometimes considerable. Sentences separation is often poor, but error does not prevent the
reader from understanding what is written.

Band 6 (11–15): Writing can be followed despite difficulties with expression.

• W1: Candidates make a simple attempt to express what is felt and imagined. Arguments are
expressed very simply and briefly.

• W2/5 (paragraphing): Facts, ideas and opinions may appear in partially formed paragraphs of
inappropriate length and some attempt is made to provide a beginning and an end.

• W3/5 (sentence structures): Candidates use simple, mainly accurate vocabulary. Attempts to
write complex sentences may involve repetition of conjunctions and some blurring.
• W4: Candidates may show occasional, brief acknowledgement of the possibility of writing for
different audiences and contexts, but overall there is little variation of style.

• W5 (spelling, punctuation and grammar): Candidates occasionally use appropriate punctuation

and can spell simple words, but the reader is not convinced that their understanding, especially
of grammar, is adequate.

Band 7 (6–10): Some of the writing can be followed.

• W1: Candidates occasionally express what is felt, thought and imagined, but they are
hampered by their command of language.

• W2/5 (paragraphing): Inadequate presentation of facts, ideas and opinions creates blurring,
although there may be some signs of an overall structure.

• W3/5 (sentence structures): Candidates demonstrate a narrow vocabulary and there are
unlikely to be more than a few accurate sentences.

• W4: Candidates occasionally write inappropriately or their command of language is not strong
enough to acknowledge audience or context.

• W5 (spelling, punctuation and grammar): Weaknesses in spelling, punctuation and grammar

are persistent, but the reader is able to follow at least part of the writing.

Band 8 (0–5): Writing does not communicate adequately.

• W1: Very simple meanings are attempted, but most of the work is too inaccurate and blurred
to make sense.

• W2/5 (paragraphing): An absence of overall structure and paragraphing leads to confusion.

• W3/5 (sentence structures): Very simple meanings are attempted, but the candidate’s
knowledge of vocabulary and sentence structures is too slight to make adequate sense.

• W4: There is insufficient evidence of audience or context to reward.

• W5 (spelling, punctuation and grammar): The amount and breadth of error prevents sufficient
communication of meaning.