Hello everybody,
Now that we know the summer 2022 AQA English Language Paper 2 question 5 will require you
to write an article, what can we learn from looking back at past exams where that was
also the form you had to write in?
Well on the one hand, the answer is not a lot.
That’s because the mark scheme for paper 2 question 5 is the same whatever form you’re
given.
So the mark scheme is no different when the exam asks you to write a letter, a speech,
an article etc etc.
However, we can glean some useful points by looking at the exam report comments for those
article specific questions, and that’s what we are going to focus on today.
What’s so interesting to me is that there are a couple of ways your exam article will
perhaps need to be different to a real-life article.
The first ever exam on this spec, in the summer of 2017, required students to write an article,
and the exam report made two important points which it would go on to echo in future years.
I’ll link that report in the description for you to look at yourself.
The first is about the use of statistics and experts.
If you read a real news article, you’ll almost always find quotations from ‘experts’
on the topic.
Journalists will interview a range of experts and include short quotations of theirs in
the finished piece.
Let me just give you a quick example.
Keeping it relevant to what’s happening right now, here’s an article from this week
about the changes being made to GCSEs (such as the fact that we’ve been told you’ll
be writing an article for the exam).
It’s a web article from inews, which I’ll also link in the description.
As you can see, we have the form elements we expect from an article: a title or headline
which draws you in, a strapline which summarises the whole article in one or two sentences,
and a number of subheadings which summarise each section.
What we also have is expert opinion.
So in this one piece we have quotations from: the Education Secretary and the Chief Regulator
of Ofqual.
And then there are statistics in here: how analysis from the Liberal Democrats suggests
that more than 90,000 pupils could lose out on top grades, for example.
Now obviously these expert opinions and statistics are REAL.
They are not made up by the writer.
But in your exam, you won’t have an opportunity to research statistics or to interview experts.
And this brings us to the first difference between a real article and an exam article:
you need to be very careful with the inclusion of expert opinions and statistics.
Whilst real life articles use these in a highly effective manner, it’s difficult to use
them effectively if you’ve got to make them up.
This was first pointed out in the summer of 2017 exam report, which said that the constant
use of statistics, fake surveys, fake experts, and made up stories were not very effective
in supporting a clear argument.
The same point was echoed in the November 2020 exam report, which suggested that over
use of statistics didn’t help, and that writing about made up experts was a feature
that should be avoided.
And it makes a lot of sense.
Let’s give a specific example.
Imagine you are writing an article for your school magazine in which you argue for the
abolition of school uniform.
Can a statistic really help here?
Can an expert opinion really help?
You can add suggestions in the comments section if you think yes, but something like this:
7/10 students say they do not want to wear school uniform.
Or
80% of students in schools where there is no uniform go on to earn higher wages in their
adult life.
Really don’t help.
The first is pointless and the second is unrealistic / unquantifiable and disregards a whole heap
of other relevant factors that affect future wages.
Similarly, what expert would you have on this topic?
‘Dr Babble from Oxford University said…’ said what exactly?
That school uniforms are bad?
So it seems clear that, whilst you might find statistics and expert opinions in real life
articles, you need to be very careful if you’re going to use them in your own exam article
- simply because they won’t be real statistics or expert opinions, and so are unlikely to
strengthen your line of argument.
It doesn’t mean they can’t ever be used, but I think you need to at least ask yourself
first: is this really going to make my line of argument more convincing?
And that’s very important for those of you aiming for top marks, because that word ‘convincing’
is one of the mark scheme descriptors of level 4 (which is the highest band).
We often overlook this, but that really does mean: am I convinced by what I am reading?
And the historic exam reports suggest that it’s rare for made up experts and statistics
to help make your presented viewpoint truly convincing.
The second point where your exam article might differ from a real life article is around
the importance of not arguing both sides.
In many real life articles, to avoid showing a journalistic bias to one viewpoint or another,
the writer will present both sides of an argument.
So let me give you another example, I was involved in a TES article about Youtube being
used in education.
Grainne Hallahan, the journalist interviewed me, interviewed Shaun Donnelly, interviewed
the head of Youtube, and of course we were all FOR using Youtube in education, but then
for the sake of balance Grainne also interviewed some people who disagreed, and included that
viewpoint too.
Now three times when the question has been an article based question, the exam report
has pointed out how students need to provide an argument on one side or the other, taking
one perspective and following it through to the end, in a single identifiable argument.
You must not argue both sides, even though that’s what we sometimes see in some real
life articles.
The November 2021 exam report pointed out that flipping backwards and forwards, disagreeing
then agreeing with different parts of the statement in the question often ended up in
an unclear argument.
What we’re looking for is a ‘coherent overarching idea’ in your article, and that
comes through presenting a single identifiable line of argument.
A lot of this comes down to the nature of the exam paper itself: writers’ viewpoints
and perspectives.
In section A you analyse how writers present their own viewpoints.
In section B, question 5, you present your OWN personal view-point on the topic.
So that’s what you have to do.
You don’t have to present an unbiased viewpoint of all sides of the argument: you have to
present your own viewpoint.
And let’s pin this down in the mark-scheme for a second.
If an argument keeps shifting from one side to another, this is likely to be placed within
level 2 (half marks at best) described in the mark scheme as ‘some successful communication’.
So those are two surprising things you often find in real life articles that you might
not want to use in your own exam article.
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