RCF Model Paper 2: Edexcel Marking Guide
Answers for the six short marks, indicative content for the three big questions, and a full model answer for Question 7(b) and the writing task.
Unofficial original RCF practice material
This marking guide accompanies RCF Model Paper 2, an original practice paper written by RCF English.
It is not a Pearson Edexcel mark scheme. The band descriptions below are RCF English's own plain-English account of how marks divide; no Edexcel mark scheme wording is reproduced. For the authoritative standard, use Pearson's mark schemes and exemplar scripts, linked on the papers page.
RCF English is not affiliated with, endorsed by or approved by Pearson Edexcel.
The short questions
| Q | Marks | Acceptable answers |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | Any two: her mother packed for her; three of everything was packed; a jar of damson jam was included; the jam jar broke; the jam stained the whole case; she stood on the platform holding it |
| 2 | 2 | That she would start at four o'clock; that if she was late he would not shout but would give the job to somebody else |
| 4 | 1 | Baked bread (on Tuesdays), or took the long walk (on Sundays). Either is acceptable; only one is required. |
| 5 | 1 | That the hard part would be the silence |
Question 3: language and structure in Text 1 (15 marks)
AO2. Reward analysis of effect, supported by short quotations. Both language and structure must be covered for the higher bands.
Indicative content: language
- "made a purple map of the whole case" - a domestic accident turned into an image of territory, which quietly introduces the idea of a journey into unknown country.
- "nobody here knew who my father was" - stated flatly, with no comment, so the reader supplies the mixture of fear and freedom the writer does not name.
- "Four o'clock in a bakery is not the middle of the night. It is a different country." - a short denial followed by a shorter assertion; the metaphor of a country returns and links back to the map of jam.
- "held its heat like a stone left in the sun" - a simile that makes warmth feel stored and patient rather than active.
- "The dough does not care." - four blunt words placed after a long sentence, giving the paragraph's central idea the force of a conclusion.
- "so entirely indifferent to you" - the writer chooses comfort in indifference, which reverses what a reader expects loneliness to need.
Indicative content: structure
- Opens with the mother packing, not with the arrival, so the reader leaves home with the writer.
- Moves in clear stages: journey, employer, the ovens, homesickness, understanding, and the return home at Christmas.
- The homesickness paragraph is placed after the description of the heat, so warmth and loneliness sit side by side.
- Time shifts in the fifth paragraph - "could not have told anyone at seventeen, and can say easily enough now" - separating the girl who lived it from the woman writing.
- Ends on the parents' silence rather than on the writer's feelings, which leaves the reader to judge.
Bands, in plain English
- 13-15 Perceptive analysis of how language and structure work together; judicious short quotations; terminology accurate and used only where it helps.
- 10-12 Detailed analysis; both language and structure covered; effects explained.
- 7-9 Clear explanation of effects; some analysis; both areas touched, one more thinly.
- 4-6 Some comment on effect; features identified; structure may be neglected.
- 1-3 Simple identification; effect asserted rather than explained.
- 0 Nothing to reward.
Question 6: evaluation of Text 2 (15 marks)
AO4. Reward judgement supported by reference. A candidate who only analyses method, without saying how successfully the writer achieves the stated purpose, cannot reach the higher bands.
Indicative content: agreeing that it is successful
- The writer names the expected answer and refuses it - "They are hoping for something about the vastness of the sky" - which makes the change he does report more believable.
- The change is defined precisely: solitude experienced not as "an absence of people" but as "a presence of time".
- It is dated and staged - week nine, two months, one more - so the reader watches it happen rather than being told about it.
- The refusal of a happy ending, "I would not do it again", protects the account from sounding like an advertisement.
- The spreadsheet returns at the end, and its meaning has changed since paragraph one, which shows the change rather than asserting it.
Indicative content: qualifying
- The writer admits the phrasing sounds like the answer he mocked - "that sounds like the sky-and-poetry answer" - so a reader may feel the insight is thinner than the build-up promised.
- The costs are listed but not examined: the missed birthday and the friend's bad year get one sentence between them.
- "Better at being by himself" is deliberately small, and a reader may judge that the piece proves a minor change rather than an unexpected one.
Bands, in plain English
- 13-15 Perceptive evaluation; a clear judgement sustained and supported by well-chosen references.
- 10-12 Detailed evaluation; judgements made and supported.
- 7-9 Clear evaluative comment; a position taken with some support.
- 4-6 Some judgement, largely descriptive.
- 1-3 Analysis or summary with no evaluation.
- 0 Nothing to reward.
Question 7(a): synthesis (6 marks)
AO1. Similarities of content, with evidence from both texts. Do not reward analysis of method here - that belongs to 7(b).
- Both found the work harder emotionally than practically. Text 1: homesickness "came at odd hours". Text 2: "the hard part was that nothing I did mattered to anyone".
- Both were changed by being needed, or not needed, by the work itself. Text 1: comfort in being needed by something "so entirely indifferent". Text 2: "I had never in my life done work that nobody was waiting for".
- Both imposed or accepted a strict routine. Text 1: starting at four, never once late in three years. Text 2: readings at six, ten, two, six and ten; the Sunday walk "never once broke".
- Both withhold the emotional conclusion a reader expects. Text 1 ends on the parents not asking whether she was happy. Text 2 states plainly "I would not do it again".
- Three developed similarities, each with evidence from both texts, is a full answer.
Question 7(b): comparison (14 marks) - model answer
Question: Compare how the writers of Text 1 and Text 2 present ideas and perspectives about what work gave them.
Both writers believe their work gave them something they had not gone looking for, but they present that discovery very differently. The writer of Text 1 arrives at it late and states it plainly: "the work saved me". The verb is enormous and it is used without any softening, and because the paragraph before it has been about standing in a yard with a mug of tea, the plainness lands as honesty rather than exaggeration. The writer of Text 2 refuses that kind of statement entirely. He offers the reader a deflating joke instead - "the honest answer is that I made a spreadsheet" - and only allows his real claim to appear once he has apologised for it in advance. Where Text 1 trusts a large word to carry a large meaning, Text 2 distrusts every large word it uses, and both methods work, because each suits the person speaking.
The two also differ in how they explain what the work did. Text 1 locates the value outside the writer, in the dough that "rises at its own rate" and "does not care", and the short blunt sentences give that indifference a kind of solidity. The comfort is in being subordinate to something real. Text 2 locates the value inside the writer, in "a presence of time" that belonged to nobody, and the abstract phrasing shows a man who has thought about his experience for a long time rather than one who lived it and moved on. Text 1 presents work as a structure imposed on a lonely girl; Text 2 presents solitude as a space a man eventually learned to occupy.
Finally, both writers withhold the ending the reader expects, but they withhold different things. Text 1 closes on the parents, not on the writer: "neither of them asked whether I was happy", and the emotion is left entirely in the reader's hands. Text 2 closes on the writer alone with the spreadsheet, and states the refusal directly - "I would not do it again" - before offering the quiet final image. Text 1 is the more moving because it says less; Text 2 is the more convincing because it has already admitted what the experience cost.
Why this answer works
- Both writers appear in every paragraph. No paragraph could be split in half without collapsing, which is the single most important requirement of this question.
- Ideas and presentation are handled together. Each paragraph names the difference in perspective, then analyses the writing that conveys it - the assessment objective asks for both.
- Comparative connectives do real work: Where Text 1 trusts... Text 2 distrusts; Text 1 locates... Text 2 locates.
- Each paragraph ends by weighing. The final sentence of each judges the two against each other rather than summarising them.
- Quotations are short and embedded, which leaves room for analysis in about eighteen minutes.
- Length. Three developed paragraphs. A fourth thin paragraph would score lower than these three.
Section B: transactional writing (40 marks)
Mark communication and organisation separately from vocabulary, sentence structure, spelling and punctuation. Mark content first - it is the mark most often given too generously.
Communication and organisation
- Top band. Form, purpose and audience are unmistakable from the opening lines and sustained throughout. A single line of argument, deliberately structured, with paragraph lengths varied for effect.
- Middle band. Form is recognisable and the argument is clear, but the structure is even and the audience is addressed only generally.
- Lower band. The form is uncertain or abandoned; points are listed rather than developed.
- A concession answered - it is true that..., but - is the most reliable single lift from middle to top.
Vocabulary, sentence structures, spelling and punctuation
- Top band. A wide range of sentence forms used for effect; ambitious vocabulary used accurately; demanding punctuation correct.
- Middle band. Some variety; mostly accurate; errors do not obscure meaning.
- Lower band. Limited range; errors slow the reader.
- An error-free piece with no range belongs in the middle band, not the top.
Question 9: model answer
Question: Your local college has asked former students to write to next year's intake about living away from home for the first time. Write a letter to those students giving your advice.
Dear next year's students,
I have been asked to tell you what living away from home is like, and I want to start by warning you that most of the advice you are about to receive this summer is wrong. You will be told it is the best year of your life. It was not the best year of mine. It was, however, the year I became somebody I could rely on, and that turned out to be worth more.
The first thing nobody mentions is that homesickness does not arrive when you expect it. It will not come on the first night, when you are too busy and too frightened. It arrives about three weeks in, on an ordinary Tuesday, for no reason at all. When it does, please understand that there is nothing wrong with you and nothing wrong with your decision. Everyone on your corridor is having the same Tuesday. Almost none of them will say so.
My second piece of advice is duller and more useful: give your week some edges. At home the shape of your day is made by other people - somebody calls you down for a meal, somebody wants the bathroom, somebody expects you back. Alone, all of that disappears at once, and a week with no fixed points in it is a surprisingly bleak thing. So fix some. One class you never miss. One evening you always cook properly. One walk you take on Sundays whatever the weather. They sound trivial. They are what stops the term becoming a long grey corridor.
Third: be careful about the friendships of the first fortnight. You will meet people in a state of mild panic and mistake relief for affection. Some of those friendships will last thirty years; most will not survive until Christmas, and that is not a failure. Keep the door open, keep meeting people in October and November as well as September, and do not decide who you are in your first week and then spend two years defending it.
It is true that some of you will find this easier than I am making it sound. A few of you will step off the train entirely at home in yourselves, and I was envious of those people at the time. What I did not know then is that they had simply arrived at the difficult part earlier or would arrive at it later. Nobody skips it.
One last thing. Ring home more often than you feel like ringing home, and less often than they would like you to. Somewhere in that gap is a person who is managing.
You will manage. Most of what you need you already have, and the rest of it you will build out of ordinary Tuesdays.
With every good wish,
A former student
Why this answer works
- Form is unmistakable. A salutation, sustained direct address to a named audience, and a formal sign-off. An examiner identifies the form from the first line.
- Audience is specific throughout - not "young people" but the students who will step off that train, addressed as you.
- Communication and organisation, top band. One line of argument held from opening to close: this will be harder than you are being told, and that is survivable. Three numbered pieces of advice, then a concession, then a short closing turn.
- The concession does real work. It is true that some of you will find this easier is answered rather than dismissed, which is what lifts a piece out of the middle band.
- Range and accuracy. Sentence lengths vary sharply; the shortest sentence, Nobody skips it, is placed at the argument's turn. The semicolon, the dash and the colon are all used correctly.
- Concrete detail instead of invented statistics - the ordinary Tuesday, the corridor, the Sunday walk - which persuades further than a percentage would.
- The ending returns to the opening image, so the letter finishes rather than stopping.
Total marks
| Section | Marks |
|---|---|
| Question 1 | 2 |
| Question 2 | 2 |
| Question 3 (language and structure, Text 1) | 15 |
| Question 4 | 1 |
| Question 5 | 1 |
| Question 6 (evaluation, Text 2) | 15 |
| Question 7(a) (synthesis) | 6 |
| Question 7(b) (comparison) | 14 |
| Section A total | 56 |
| Question 8 or 9 (transactional writing) | 40 |
| Total for paper | 96 |
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