Question 4 of English Language Paper 1 is designed to bring together some of the language analysis of Question 2 with some of the structural analysis of Question 3.
Nonetheless, I often see students default to using only language methods to support their responses to Question 4, without drawing on any of the structural analysis or vocabulary from Question 3.
It was encouraging to see one of my students experiment with this yesterday, using foreshadowing and focal shifts to respond to the statement in Question 4.
More broadly, the paper has been carefully designed to build up to the longer-response questions, each one building on what has come before. This is why it frustrates me when certain educational influencers – and even teachers – recommend that students answer the paper back to front, or jump between questions. Start at the start, then build up to the evaluative question at the end, drawing on your prior language and structural analysis.
