Planning and Structuring Answers
Ten questions across two papers, and five different paragraph shapes between them. Knowing which shape a question wants is worth more than any amount of extra reading.
About the examples on this page
The before-and-after example below was written by RCF English and is not taken from an AQA paper or mark scheme. Marks and timings are AQA's; the paragraph shapes are RCF recommendations. RCF English is not affiliated with, endorsed by or approved by AQA.
Every question on AQA English Language has a shape that suits it, and using the wrong shape is the most common structural error at GCSE. A structure answer written as language analysis, or a comparison written as two summaries, loses marks that the student had the material to earn.
Which shape for which question
| Question | Marks | Shape | Plan for |
|---|---|---|---|
| P1 Q1 · P2 Q1 | 4 | Four short answers. No paragraphs at all. | No planning |
| P1 Q2 | 8 | Three paragraphs: quote, identify, explain, develop | 30 seconds |
| P1 Q3 | 8 | Beginning, shift, end, plus one running feature | 1 minute |
| P2 Q2 | 8 | Difference, quote A, quote B, inference - repeated | 1 minute |
| P2 Q3 | 12 | Four paragraphs: quote, identify, explain, develop twice | 1 minute |
| P1 Q4 | 20 | Position, then four paragraphs, one of them a qualification | 2-3 minutes |
| P2 Q4 | 16 | Three paragraphs, both writers in each, weighing at the end | 2-3 minutes |
| P1 Q5 · P2 Q5 | 40 | Five or six paragraphs with a deliberate shape and a chosen ending | 5 minutes |
What a plan is actually for
A plan is not a summary of what you are going to say. It is a decision about order and about where you will stop. Those are the two things students lose under time pressure, and they are the two things the content and organisation marks are looking at.
For a reading question
Three or four quotations, listed in the order you will use them, with one word beside each saying what it is for. That is the whole plan. It takes under a minute and it stops you writing three paragraphs about your best quotation and none about the rest of the extract.
For a writing question
Your last line, written first. Then three or four things that must happen before it. Knowing the destination is what prevents the drift that costs organisation marks in the fourth paragraph.
Beyond point-evidence-explain
Most students arrive at GCSE with a three-part paragraph: point, evidence, explanation. It is a reasonable floor and a low ceiling, because it stops exactly where the higher bands begin. Two additions convert it.
- A fourth move: develop. After explaining the effect, take one word further - a second reading, or a comparison with the plainer word the writer did not use.
- A zoom. Quote a phrase, then requote two words of it. "pale as bone" - and "bone" rather than "paper", so the hardness comes with the colour.
- For comparison questions, a fifth move: weigh. One sentence judging which writer's method is more effective and why.
The same point, before and after
Question: Adding the fourth move to a standard three-part paragraph.
Three moves. The writer describes the frost as "pale as bone". This is a simile. It suggests the field looks dead and colourless, which creates a bleak atmosphere for the reader.
Four moves. The writer describes the frost as "pale as bone". The simile brings death into a description of weather, so the field is not merely cold but lifeless, and the bleakness arrives before any character does. The choice of "bone" rather than a comparison with paper or with snow is what makes it work: bone is hard as well as pale, so the simile carries the surface's brittleness and its colour in a single word.
Why this answer works
- The three-move version is accurate and would earn marks. It ends at the effect.
- The four-move version does one extra thing - it names the alternative the writer rejected, and shows what that choice bought. It is about forty words longer.
- This is the cheapest available improvement in the whole paper. It requires no additional reading, no additional terminology and no additional quotation.
Planning checklist
- Have I identified which kind of question this is before choosing a shape?
- For reading: have I listed my quotations in the order I will use them?
- For writing: do I know my last line before I write my first?
- Have I decided where to stop, so the final question still has its time?
- Have I planned a qualification for Question 4 on Paper 1, and a weighing sentence for Question 4 on Paper 2?
Next
Common mistakes
What actually costs marks, question by question.
Revision strategies
How to practise these shapes.
RCF practice questions
Original tasks with model answers.