OCR English Language Q4 Full Marks Sample
OCR English Language Question 4 is one of the paper’s hardest questions — if not the hardest.
Read on to find out on how to approach this tricky 18 mark question so you can show off your evaluative skills, a method I worked on providing tutoring for 5 boys from Reading Grammar.
Also look below for a sample Grade 9 answer that puts this advice into practice.
How do I make sure I’m evaluating?
The fact this question focuses on evaluation, not analysis of the author’s devices, is really important.
Evaluation means balancing up how far the statement is right about each extract you’re given. Some helpful questions you can ask yourself to get yourself evaluating include:
Which extract is closer to what the statement describes?
Which extract presents the character who struggle more?(as statements often focus on something to do with struggling)
Which extract presents the character whose feelings are more justified?
Does the statement go too far? Is it a bit dramatic? Or does it not go far enough?
Asking these questions is often enough to figure out your argument.
What phrases should I weave into my answer?
I advise that my students practice writing with certain phrases, each targeting a different requirement of the question, to get them making evaluative comparisons. There are 3 types of phrases you should use:
Evaluative phrases (how accurate is the statement for both text?)
‘Extract 1/2 is more/ less aligned with the statement as…’
‘The statement is correct/ incorrect as…’
‘This aligns with the statement since…’
‘Adds credence to the statement because’
‘The statement is true/ untrue as…’
Phrases of partial dis/agreement (but also work for comparison)
‘Partially’/ ‘a degree of’/ ‘somewhat’
‘Much more/less’, ‘slightly more/ less’ , ‘greatly’
Comparative phrases
‘By contrast’, ‘Contrastingly’, ‘On the other hand’
‘Similarly’, ‘Also’, ‘Comparatively’, ‘Likewise’
A sample Grade 9 Response to OCR Question 4
If you’d like to discuss OCR Question 4 together, have your answers marked, or write an answer together, get in touch.
‘Both writers give a vivid description of a challenging and unpleasant job.’
How far do you agree with this statement?
In your answer you should:
Discuss what they find challenging and unpleasant about their jobs
Explain how far each job is challenging and unpleasant
Compare the ways the writers present their jobs as challenging and unpleasant.
Support your response with quotations from both texts.
[18]
Find the extracts written about here. See if you agree with this analysis and consider how the helpful phrases mentioned above are woven into it.
I partially agree with the statement. Chew’s letter exemplifies it greatlybut the toil of her work goes far beyond ‘challenging’ and ‘unpleasant’: it is soul crushing exhaustion. By contrast, the anonymous fast food letter presents a much less unpleasant role. While not pleasant, it has its benefits. This means extract 2 is less aligned with the statement than extract 1.
Extract 1 better exemplifies the statement where Chew calls her work a ‘great grievance’, creating a tone of deep frustration. The adjective ‘great’ implies the scale of this work’s emotional toll on her, while ‘grievance’ suggests that the pain lingers, as a grievance is a lasting annoyance, ‘unpleasant’ in extreme.Contrastingly, extract 2’s fast food worker claims that his ‘expectations’ of the role ‘were the same as the reality’, which implies less shock and hurt since his experience matches the image he had of the role in his head.
Extract 1 also shows more alignment with the statement’s claim of an unpleasant and challenging role where Chew claims their salary is not enough to ‘keep body and soul together’. The assertion their salary is not enough to ‘keep body’ together isarguably expected, suggesting they’re starved. However, adding ‘soul’ suggests the starvation goes deeper, as it implies hurting what’s supposed to be unaffected by bodily needs, something immortal. More than unpleasant, this implies malnutrition of the spirit. Similarly, the speaker of extract 2 also discusses his job in relation to food, however contrastingly he discusses an excess of food causing him to ‘pile on the pounds’. This suggests an overabundance of what his body needs since he gains weight. While the fact the food is ‘greasy’ may imply a degree ofunpleasantness, this isa far cry from the utter starvation Chew describes, meaning the statement is not completely correct since extract 2 shows a job with some pleasant benefits.
However, extract 2 also focuses on the hardships and challenges of work to an extent, adding credence to the statement. The fast food worker describes an ‘ache’ in his ‘legs’ that contributes to a tone of tiredness in this part of the extract because it suggests bodily pain. Having pain in the ‘legs’ sounds especially unpleasant, as it implies long hours standing up and no chance to rest. Yet though extract 1 is similar in its complaint of exhaustion, the exhaustion Chew faces is contrastingly of much greater severity: the anaphoric, asyndetic structure of ‘we eat, we sleep, we work’ creates a repetitive, relentless rhythm that mirrors their unrelenting work. Therefore, the statement is true in that both extracts focus on the challenges of work, but Chew’s work is so difficult that ‘challenging’ falls short in describing it.
Finally, the idea that Chew’s extract exemplifies the statement better than the fast food worker’s is shown with her reference to pay as a ‘dying, lingering wage’. This pun where ‘living’ is switched with its antithesis ‘dying’ ironically implies the factory workers are paid with something contributing to their deaths as if it’s not really pay at all. ‘Lingering’ worsens this unpleasantness because it suggests a slow, drawn out death. By contrast, however, extract 2 implies fair, even good pay is possible — he explicits states he receives a ‘living wage’, contrasting to the ‘dying wage’ of Chew, and even suggests a ‘sizeable raise’ could be possible. This creates a tone of optimism for the future since it suggests his earnings could further increase, showing the statement’s is less aligned with his experiences.
