This question assesses your ability to:

• AO5: Communicate clearly, effectively and imaginatively, selecting and adapting tone, style and register for different forms, purposes and audiences. Organise information and ideas, using structural and grammatical features to support coherence and cohesion of texts

• AO6: Candidates must use a range of vocabulary and sentence structures for clarity, purpose and effect, with accurate spelling and punctuation.

This question is worth half of the Language Paper (40 Marks), requiring students to apply their knowledge of language and structural techniques to a non-fiction writing piece. In this part of the exam, students will be given a written prompt, and will be asked to create a piece of non-fiction, such as an article, essay, editorial, letter, etc. To be successful, students need to demonstrate their command of mechanics (SPaG), language techniques, and structural techniques.

Suggested time: 45-50 minutes

Top tips:

• Plan first! Students are most successful if they do a quick plan of their work so that it can be structured appropriately.

• Make sure you have read the question carefully and understand what the focus of your work should be, the tone (appropriate for your viewpoint and your audience), and the format.

• Pack it with techniques! You'll be assessed on how well you can use language and structure features in your work, so use them often (but appropriately).

• Use ambitious vocabulary. You get more marks from attempting to use ambitious words and spelling them incorrectly, than you do if you only use basic vocabulary and spell it correctly.

• Take care in your technical accuracy - it's worth 40% of this section- and don't forget to show off your ability to use a variety of punctuation!

You can structure in any way you wish, but consider this form as one way in which you can layout your ideas:

• Introduction paragraph - Introduce your topic in a way that engages readers. What is the big issue at hand that will be discussed and what is your opinion on it?

• Idea 1 paragraph - Develop your first supporting idea.

• Idea 2 paragraph - Develop your second supporting idea.

• Idea 3 paragraph - Develop your third supporting idea.

• Prolepsis - What is the opposing view? How can you acknowledge and defeat that point of view?

• Suggestions and solutions - Suggest a reasonable solution that would be easy (and potentially affordable) to implement.

• Conclusion - Restate your most important points in a new way.