IGCSE First Language English Paper 1: Reading

On Text A. A series of sub-questions, including short answers testing understanding of both explicit and implicit meanings - R1 and R2. All twenty marks are reading marks.

• Answer the number of points the marks ask for. A two-mark sub-question wants two things; a third earns nothing and costs time you will want for Question 4.
• Explicit and implicit are different jobs. Some sub-questions want what the text states; others want what it implies about a person's attitude or feeling. Read the question stem for which is being asked.
• Use your own words where the question asks for them, and quote where it does not. Copying a whole sentence to answer an inference question rarely scores.
• Stay inside any line references given. They are a boundary, not a suggestion.
• Time: about 25 minutes.

On Text B, in two parts.

2(a) is a selective summary in your own words, written as continuous writing of no more than 120 words. It carries 10 reading marks (R1, R2 and R5 - selecting and using information for a specific purpose) and 5 writing marks (W1, W2 and W3).

2(b) is a short-answer question testing understanding of attitudes and opinions, worth 5 reading marks.

How 2(a) is actually won and lost

• The word limit is a limit, not a target. No more than 120 words. Going over risks the writing marks and wastes minutes.
• Continuous writing means prose, not bullet points and not a list. Five of the fifteen marks are for how it is written.
• Own words is the instruction that carries the marks. Lifting phrases from Text B loses reading marks even when the content selected is right.
• Select, do not survey. R5 is select and use information for specific purposes. Find the points that answer the question asked and leave out everything else, however interesting.
• Count the points first, then write. Most candidates who run over 120 words did not plan which points were going in.
• Time: about 20 minutes for 2(a) and 5 for 2(b).

On Text C, in two halves, each worth 10 marks and both of them reading marks.

The short-answer questions are a series of sub-questions requiring answers of different lengths, testing R1, R2 and R4 - how writers achieve effects and influence readers.

The language task asks you to write about 200 to 250 words on Text C, testing the same three objectives.

The language task is where R4 lives

• Choose fewer words and say more about each. A language answer that quotes fifteen phrases and comments on none of them scores below one that takes six and explains what each does to a reader.
• Name the effect, not the device. This is a metaphor earns nothing. This metaphor makes the crowd sound like weather - something that happens to you rather than something people are doing earns the mark.
• Take the second step. Say what the choice implies, or what it stops the reader from thinking. That step is the difference between explaining and analysing.
• Watch the length. 200 to 250 words is short. It is about four tight paragraphs or three generous ones.
• Time: about 10 minutes for the short answers, 20 for the language task.

Also on Text C. You write about 250 to 300 words, responding in one of the following text types: letter, report, journal, speech, interview or article.

It carries 10 reading marks (R1, R2, R3 and R5) and 10 writing marks (W1, W2 and the rest of the writing objectives). It is the only question on the paper that splits its marks evenly between reading and writing.

• The form is stated and it is assessed. A speech and a report do not sound the same. Open in the register you have been given, in the first sentence, not the third.
• R3 is the objective that lifts this answer: analyse, evaluate and develop facts, ideas and opinions, using appropriate support from the text. Develop is the word to notice. You are expected to go beyond the text, not merely to repeat it in a new form.
• Everything you invent must be anchored in Text C. Free invention loses reading marks; inference the text supports gains them.
• Ten writing marks is a fifth of the paper's reading half. Paragraph it, vary the sentences, and spell carefully.
• Time: about 30 minutes, and do not let Questions 1 to 3 eat it.