RCF Model Paper 1: Marking Guide
Indicative content for the four reading questions, band descriptions in plain English, and a full model answer for the 40-mark writing task.
Unofficial original RCF practice material
This marking guide accompanies RCF Model Paper 1, an original practice paper written by RCF English.
It is not an AQA mark scheme. The band descriptions below are RCF English's own plain-English account of how marks divide on this kind of question; no AQA mark scheme wording is reproduced. For the authoritative standard, use AQA's specimen mark schemes and examiner reports, linked on the papers page.
RCF English is not affiliated with, endorsed by or approved by AQA.
Question 1: four things about the harbour (4 marks)
One mark each, to a maximum of four. Accept any four separate points drawn from lines 1 to 7. Do not credit a fifth answer, and do not credit material from later in the source.
- There were two cranes.
- There was a yellow chandlery.
- The chandlery's shutters were down.
- Three boats were hauled out on the slipway.
- The boats had weed drying on their keels.
- Nothing had been repainted.
- Nothing had been taken away.
- The ferry came in past a breakwater.
Question 2: language, lines 8 to 14 (8 marks)
AO2. Reward what a candidate says about the effect of the writer's choices, not the number of features named. A top-band answer analyses effects, selects a judicious range of short quotations and uses terminology accurately.
Indicative content
- "steeper than she remembered, which she knew was not the road's doing" - the aside concedes her own ageing without stating it, so the reader infers what Ines will not say.
- "ostensibly to change hands on the bag" - a single adverb admits the pretence; she is hiding the pause from herself as much as from anyone watching.
- "salt, diesel, and underneath both of them something green and rotting" - the triple, moving from clean to unpleasant, mirrors the movement from surface memory to something less welcome.
- "she had never been able to name and had never smelled anywhere else in her life" - the parallel clauses make the smell simultaneously unknowable and unique to this place.
- "her body had recognised it before she had" - the split between body and self is the central idea of the paragraph, and it is delivered flatly, without imagery.
- "the way you are angry at a door that sticks" - a deliberately small simile that reduces a large emotion to a domestic irritation, which characterises Ines as someone who scales her feelings down.
Bands, in plain English
- 7-8 Detailed, perceptive analysis of effects; judicious short quotations; accurate terminology used where it helps.
- 5-6 Clear explanation of effects; relevant quotations; terminology mostly accurate.
- 3-4 Some understanding; features identified with simple comment on effect.
- 1-2 Simple identification; effect asserted rather than explained.
- 0 Nothing to reward.
Question 3: structure (8 marks)
AO2, structure only. Do not reward language analysis here, however good. Reward what a candidate says about the order and shape of the whole extract.
Indicative content
- Opens outside and in motion - the ferry, the harbour - before Ines is given any interior life, so the reader meets the place before the person.
- A steady inward movement across the extract: harbour, road, house, room, bed. Each paragraph narrows the frame.
- The focus shifts from what she sees to what she cannot answer. The stopped clock at line 20 turns an inventory of the house into a question about time.
- Withheld information - twenty-two years, the grandmother, the reason for leaving - is released in fragments and never explained, which sustains interest.
- The wind and the shutters return at line 27 as a sound from childhood, linking the end of the extract to a past the reader has not been shown.
- The final paragraph reverses the direction of the whole piece. Everything has been about leaving and closing up; the last sentence is a decision to stay, and it arrives without warning or explanation.
- The last line is structurally two clauses in tension - a mistake acknowledged and a decision made - so the extract ends by opening rather than resolving.
Bands, in plain English
- 7-8 Detailed, perceptive understanding of structural features and analysis of their effects on the reader.
- 5-6 Clear understanding; explains the effect of structural choices.
- 3-4 Some understanding; identifies structural features with simple comment.
- 1-2 Simple identification, or language analysis mistakenly offered as structure.
- 0 Nothing to reward.
Question 4: evaluation, line 15 to the end (20 marks)
AO4. Reward a clear position, developed judgements about how the writer creates the impressions, and references that support them. Agreement, disagreement and a qualified position are all equally acceptable.
Indicative content: agreeing with the student
- Ines notices the cold "in the walls" but records no feeling about it - observation is used where emotion is expected.
- The stopped clock provokes a factual question rather than grief, and the writer calls it "a serious question", which is comically inadequate to the situation and therefore affecting.
- "decided she would deal with it tomorrow, and then went on standing there" - the sentence contradicts itself, showing feeling through behaviour rather than statement.
- The legal vocabulary - "hers now in the flat legal sense that meant nothing at all" - holds the loss at arm's length by describing it administratively.
- The final decision arrives "quite clearly and without any distress", and the absence of distress where the reader expects it is the extract's strongest effect.
Indicative content: qualifying or disagreeing
- The detachment is not total: "she found she was angry about that" and "it seemed to her suddenly a serious question" both admit feeling directly.
- The narration is close third person, so the reader is inside her perception throughout - a genuinely detached telling would not report her thoughts at all.
- Some readers may find the flatness distancing rather than affecting, and a well-argued case that the writer withholds too much is entirely creditable.
Bands, in plain English
- 16-20 Perceptive, detailed evaluation; a clear critical position developed with judicious references.
- 11-15 Clear, relevant evaluation; a position taken and supported.
- 6-10 Some evaluative comment; a position stated with limited support.
- 1-5 Simple, limited comment; description of the text rather than judgement of it.
- 0 Nothing to reward.
Question 5: writing (40 marks)
24 marks for content and organisation (AO5) and 16 for technical accuracy (AO6). Mark the two separately, and mark content first.
Content and organisation, 24 marks
- 19-24 Convincing and compelling; tone, style and register matched to the task; a deliberate structure with varied paragraph lengths used for effect.
- 13-18 Consistent and clear; the piece holds together; some conscious structural choices.
- 7-12 Some success; a recognisable shape, with lapses.
- 1-6 Simple, limited; little organisation.
- 0 Nothing to reward.
Technical accuracy, 16 marks
- 13-16 A wide range of sentence forms and vocabulary used for effect; punctuation, including the more demanding forms, used accurately; spelling secure.
- 9-12 A range of sentence forms; mostly accurate punctuation and spelling.
- 5-8 Some variety; errors present but meaning clear.
- 1-4 Limited range; errors impede the reader.
- 0 Not enough evidence to assess.
Model answer: Question 5, narrative option
Question: Write the opening part of a story about someone returning to a place they left long ago. (Original RCF practice task.)
The bus put Yusuf down at the crossroads because the village stop had been discontinued, and the driver said this apologetically, as though it were a bereavement. It was, in a way. Yusuf said it was no trouble and stood in the road with his case until the bus had gone and the diesel had thinned out of the air.
Then there was only the sound of the wires.
He had forgotten the wires. They ran from the crossroads down the length of the lane on poles that leaned at various angles, and in any wind at all they made a low humming, not quite a note, that he had spent the whole of his childhood not hearing. He heard it now. He stood and listened to it for longer than a man ought to stand listening to overhead cables, and thought: this is the sound I have been trying to remember for eleven years, and I did not know it was a sound.
The lane was narrower than it had been. That was the trees, which had gone on growing while he had been elsewhere, doing that quietly and without asking anyone. The hedges had closed in until two people could not have passed without one of them turning sideways, and he found he minded this out of all proportion, as though the lane had been asked to wait and had failed to.
At the bend he could see the roof of the house. He had rehearsed this on the bus - had decided he would look at it steadily, take it in, and go on walking - and he did none of those things. He put his case down in the road and looked at the roof and thought about nothing at all for some considerable time, and a woman he did not recognise came past with a dog and said good afternoon, and he said good afternoon, and neither of them stopped.
When she had gone he picked up the case. The gate was shut. Of course it was shut; he had shut it himself, on a Tuesday, in the rain, and had not once in eleven years thought about the fact that a gate he closed had stayed closed the entire time without him.
Why this answer works
- Content and organisation, top band. One change only - a man walks from a crossroads to a gate - and the whole interest is in what he notices. There is no plot and no twist, which is exactly what the opening part of a story invites.
- Deliberate structure. Six paragraphs of markedly different length. The second is one sentence: Then there was only the sound of the wires. It is the shortest thing on the page and it turns the piece from arrival into memory.
- A shape that returns. The case is put down in paragraph five and picked up in paragraph six, which closes the passage without ending the story.
- Range and accuracy (AO6). Sentence forms vary from six words to fifty. The dash, the semicolon and the parenthetical dashes in paragraph five are all used correctly. Vocabulary is precise rather than elaborate - discontinued, thinned, out of all proportion - which is what range means at this level.
- Emotion carried by behaviour, not statement. He minded this out of all proportion; he did none of those things; the final sentence measures eleven years by a closed gate. Nowhere does the piece say that he is sad.
- The last line opens. He has picked up the case and the gate is still shut. The reader knows exactly what happens next and is not shown it.
Total marks
| Section | Marks |
|---|---|
| Question 1 (reading, retrieval) | 4 |
| Question 2 (reading, language) | 8 |
| Question 3 (reading, structure) | 8 |
| Question 4 (reading, evaluation) | 20 |
| Question 5 (writing) | 40 |
| Total | 80 |
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RCF Model Paper 1
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