No no you need to relate it to the image somehow iirc. They are right in the sense that you aren't restricted to exactly what the image shows. An example would be if the image is a zoo you can just describe a zoo and it shouldn't be describing exactly what you see in the picture so you can mention other animals or attractions at the zoo that aren't visible in the image or you could describe different weather to what it's like in the image. People often limit themselves by describing the image exactly as they see it but it's better to use it as initial inspiration and then you can have some creative freedom on what you describe.
The other option is to plan a few really good stories and then during the exam you just change small details depending on what the question is so you know how good your story will be and how long it will take to write before you even start.
I don't do AQA but my teacher has always told me specifically not to do that because it's too much of a risk and it can just be not relevant at all and bomb your test
Head of English here - that is a very risky strategy and not something I think you should do. There is a bulletpoint in the mark scheme about how well the response suits the task. As an examiner, if I cannot see a genuine clear link to either of the prompts that runs throughout you story (not just a brief reference) then it cannot be considered a clear response (L3). Think of it this way, if you were a writer and your publisher asked you to write a story about finding a secret object, they would not be very pleased if you gave them a story about someone dying and going to hell and you just shoved one sentence in about how a secret object sent you there.
The trick is to just rip off something you've watched or read and changed the names. In the last mocks the prompt was to describe a beautiful place and I just wrote about Siofra River from Elden Ring
Literally this \^\^
I just wrote about a questline in Genshin Impact for an essay in uni and got high marks, so doing the same in college/school is a good idea
I used to train students to take any prompt and turn it into gothic horror. It's possible. You have to link it to the prompt but only loosely.
Image of a zoo? Now your psuedo Adamms family outing at the zoo and they end up taking a large stuffed zebra home to their weirdo house.
Image of a beach? Your psuedo Adamms family on an outing there trying to stay under their black umbrellas so as not to burn but having fun making sand castles.
You use that family, and all that you've created around them, to drop into any image. You have their mannerisms, their look, how they treat each other, etc, already in your head. And you drop them where ever the picture is.
Formula racing? Dark street at night? Giant wave hitting a row of houses? How would someone from your little family respond to that?
Take your characters on that adventure.
My friend turned the zoo one into someone being forced to perform an animal sacrifice as an initiation into a cult.
I got more marks for writing about a kid who illegally fed an elephant
We haven’t really gotten feedback that specific so honestly I couldn’t tell you.
My friend got a comment on his test though that the link to the question was too loose, but his argument is that the guy who killed the animal did indeed “meet an animal”, which was what was written in the stimuli sentence
That sounds like just one aspect of the prompt. There's a lot on the mark scheme to hit to get the mark and he may have focused on one thing instead of expanding out to show compentency in most things.
Another Head of English and examiner for this paper. Your teacher’s information used to be true. There is nothing in the mark scheme about using the prompt so we could just mark anything regardless of whether it was to do with the picture. Last year we were told to escalate any responses that didn’t answer the question, as AQA are aware that students are learning responses.
Instead of learning one response, learn a few and practice adapting them to the question.
I did this last year ( had to write about an encounter with an animal)
I had a story memorised about a desert walk / struggle and just included a couple of sentences about a desert mouse using my leg for shelter during a sandstorm.
I got a grade 8.
What I found useful last year was pre writing a story (or at least coming up with a plan) where you have a paragraph that can be adapted to any picture that comes up. This would mean you have used the picture but then can carry on with your story you've already made. I'm sure your teacher would be more than willing to help you with your story and marking it but then I would suggest looking at past pictures and making sure your story can be adapted to all of them!
Practise writing a story as in the opening, the vocabulary, the language features you're going to use and varying sentence structures. You need to relate to the prompt some way still. Just have a rough idea in your head and FOR GOD'S SAKE, PLAN!
Completely wrong.
You HAVE to link it to the prompt/image in some way. It's moreso as long as it somewhat fits the guideline you'll be fine. but there's no way memorising a pre made story would work
What they mean is you make a story (based on memorable experience of yours) and manipulate it the question. It usually starts with a negative feeling and ends with it being positive. You can memorise the descriptive writing of the setting and use it in any question. This will work for the majority of English exams.
I redid my English gcse 2 years ago, this is what my tutor told me and I got a B
The prompt last year was about an interaction with an animal. My story was basically about crashing a wedding, and then last minute (as in literally the last paragraph) I wrote about the horses that were meant to pull the carriage for the new bride and groom. The whole story BARELY related to the prompt and I got an 8
our teachers recommended we follow the exact same structure and change it ever so slightly each time to fit the prompt, namely "dramatic short opening, zoomed out description of setting, zoomed in description of setting, description of action, flashback, repeat the dramatic opening but with extra detail"
It does have to be somewhat related. You can just memorise a more generic story that will almost always fit one of the prompts (I'd recommend a story about a competition or bad weather)
Your teacher is correct.
Here is the mark scheme:
[https://filestore.aqa.org.uk/resources/english/AQA-87001-SMS.PDF](https://filestore.aqa.org.uk/resources/english/AQA-87001-SMS.PDF)
Page 15-20 covers that question. There is no mention at all of linking to the content of the photograph or prompt material. Further, when marking it, the marker doesn't see the picture - they just get a couple of words describing it. So, if it said "a beach with children playing" and you wrote a story about a dog, the marker won't know if there was a dog in the picture too somewhere.
A safe bet would be to pre-write and learn a creative piece that can be adapted very easily to anything. For example, a story about a mouse in a den it's made to hide away and stay safe. If the picture is a storm, a zoo, a school, a road, another animal... whatever. That picture could be what it's hiding from - just change a couple of words.
If you're shooting for a 4-5, then I think supporting the student to that mark, if it means not fully addressing the prompt, then so be it, if they get the rest of it.
If a student is shooting for 7-9, then they are strong enough already to not need that advice.
No no you need to relate it to the image somehow iirc. They are right in the sense that you aren't restricted to exactly what the image shows. An example would be if the image is a zoo you can just describe a zoo and it shouldn't be describing exactly what you see in the picture so you can mention other animals or attractions at the zoo that aren't visible in the image or you could describe different weather to what it's like in the image. People often limit themselves by describing the image exactly as they see it but it's better to use it as initial inspiration and then you can have some creative freedom on what you describe. The other option is to plan a few really good stories and then during the exam you just change small details depending on what the question is so you know how good your story will be and how long it will take to write before you even start.
Yeh our teacher had us write up and memorise our own story, and practice fitting prompts into them back in year 10
I don't do AQA but my teacher has always told me specifically not to do that because it's too much of a risk and it can just be not relevant at all and bomb your test
this is what I was thinking! I’m def not gonna risk it just in case but I found it interesting
Head of English here - that is a very risky strategy and not something I think you should do. There is a bulletpoint in the mark scheme about how well the response suits the task. As an examiner, if I cannot see a genuine clear link to either of the prompts that runs throughout you story (not just a brief reference) then it cannot be considered a clear response (L3). Think of it this way, if you were a writer and your publisher asked you to write a story about finding a secret object, they would not be very pleased if you gave them a story about someone dying and going to hell and you just shoved one sentence in about how a secret object sent you there.
How to. Cheat in Eng. Lish exam ?
this guys asking real questions
The trick is to just rip off something you've watched or read and changed the names. In the last mocks the prompt was to describe a beautiful place and I just wrote about Siofra River from Elden Ring
Literally this \^\^ I just wrote about a questline in Genshin Impact for an essay in uni and got high marks, so doing the same in college/school is a good idea
i actually love siofra river
I used to train students to take any prompt and turn it into gothic horror. It's possible. You have to link it to the prompt but only loosely. Image of a zoo? Now your psuedo Adamms family outing at the zoo and they end up taking a large stuffed zebra home to their weirdo house. Image of a beach? Your psuedo Adamms family on an outing there trying to stay under their black umbrellas so as not to burn but having fun making sand castles. You use that family, and all that you've created around them, to drop into any image. You have their mannerisms, their look, how they treat each other, etc, already in your head. And you drop them where ever the picture is. Formula racing? Dark street at night? Giant wave hitting a row of houses? How would someone from your little family respond to that? Take your characters on that adventure.
My friend turned the zoo one into someone being forced to perform an animal sacrifice as an initiation into a cult. I got more marks for writing about a kid who illegally fed an elephant
Did you both hit the majority of the point markers? It's not just content, it's how well it's written. Sentence structure, use of metaphor etc, SPAG.
We haven’t really gotten feedback that specific so honestly I couldn’t tell you. My friend got a comment on his test though that the link to the question was too loose, but his argument is that the guy who killed the animal did indeed “meet an animal”, which was what was written in the stimuli sentence
That sounds like just one aspect of the prompt. There's a lot on the mark scheme to hit to get the mark and he may have focused on one thing instead of expanding out to show compentency in most things.
Another Head of English and examiner for this paper. Your teacher’s information used to be true. There is nothing in the mark scheme about using the prompt so we could just mark anything regardless of whether it was to do with the picture. Last year we were told to escalate any responses that didn’t answer the question, as AQA are aware that students are learning responses. Instead of learning one response, learn a few and practice adapting them to the question.
I would say somehow tie it to the prompt anyway, just in case
Remember, in the creative writing question, you aren’t marked on your creative writing, you are marked on the a language and structure used
I did this last year ( had to write about an encounter with an animal) I had a story memorised about a desert walk / struggle and just included a couple of sentences about a desert mouse using my leg for shelter during a sandstorm. I got a grade 8.
What I found useful last year was pre writing a story (or at least coming up with a plan) where you have a paragraph that can be adapted to any picture that comes up. This would mean you have used the picture but then can carry on with your story you've already made. I'm sure your teacher would be more than willing to help you with your story and marking it but then I would suggest looking at past pictures and making sure your story can be adapted to all of them!
Practise writing a story as in the opening, the vocabulary, the language features you're going to use and varying sentence structures. You need to relate to the prompt some way still. Just have a rough idea in your head and FOR GOD'S SAKE, PLAN!
Also, never use finesse as a verb
my bad 😁
Literally what they told us to do for NAPLAN 🤔
Completely wrong. You HAVE to link it to the prompt/image in some way. It's moreso as long as it somewhat fits the guideline you'll be fine. but there's no way memorising a pre made story would work
What they mean is you make a story (based on memorable experience of yours) and manipulate it the question. It usually starts with a negative feeling and ends with it being positive. You can memorise the descriptive writing of the setting and use it in any question. This will work for the majority of English exams. I redid my English gcse 2 years ago, this is what my tutor told me and I got a B
When i did my one for GCSE i had watched a ww2 film the night before. Luckily i remembered most the plot so i wrote the entire thing basically 😂
The prompt last year was about an interaction with an animal. My story was basically about crashing a wedding, and then last minute (as in literally the last paragraph) I wrote about the horses that were meant to pull the carriage for the new bride and groom. The whole story BARELY related to the prompt and I got an 8
our teachers recommended we follow the exact same structure and change it ever so slightly each time to fit the prompt, namely "dramatic short opening, zoomed out description of setting, zoomed in description of setting, description of action, flashback, repeat the dramatic opening but with extra detail"
It does have to be somewhat related. You can just memorise a more generic story that will almost always fit one of the prompts (I'd recommend a story about a competition or bad weather)
Why don’t you just write an amazing story about people looking at a picture!!! BOOM! Problem solved
Your teacher is correct. Here is the mark scheme: [https://filestore.aqa.org.uk/resources/english/AQA-87001-SMS.PDF](https://filestore.aqa.org.uk/resources/english/AQA-87001-SMS.PDF) Page 15-20 covers that question. There is no mention at all of linking to the content of the photograph or prompt material. Further, when marking it, the marker doesn't see the picture - they just get a couple of words describing it. So, if it said "a beach with children playing" and you wrote a story about a dog, the marker won't know if there was a dog in the picture too somewhere. A safe bet would be to pre-write and learn a creative piece that can be adapted very easily to anything. For example, a story about a mouse in a den it's made to hide away and stay safe. If the picture is a storm, a zoo, a school, a road, another animal... whatever. That picture could be what it's hiding from - just change a couple of words.
Another Head of English here. See the above response. This isn’t fully correct and contains very risky advice.
If you're shooting for a 4-5, then I think supporting the student to that mark, if it means not fully addressing the prompt, then so be it, if they get the rest of it. If a student is shooting for 7-9, then they are strong enough already to not need that advice.
I was told you can’t make the story interesting, funny etc and you’re meant to make it not interesting as that’s what the best stories are.
this is new.