Analysing non-fiction - Sample answer – version one
The sample answer in this section is an example of an extended response to the longer type of questions in your exams.
You will also answer short response questions that might ask you to select and list key points from a text - or summariseTo give a brief statement of the main points. and synthesise Bringing together information from two (or more) sources. information from two texts.
Question
Refer to both Text 1 and Text 2.
Compare how the writers of Text 1 and Text 2 present their ideas and perspectives on food.
Support your answer with detailed references to the texts.
Both texts present ideas about school dinners.
Orwell’s description of school dinners make them sound awful, there is not enough food to eat, jam is scraped ‘so thinly’. He says that they are ‘underfed’. The boys are so hungry that they have to steal food. They only get things like ‘bread and cheese’ and ‘water to drink’. On the other hand, Jamie Oliver’s article makes school dinners sound great. The students are ‘excited’ and do lots of different things on the Food Revolution Day. The staff are ‘enthusiastic’ about the school dinners project too.
Feedback – basic
This answer:
- Does use key words from the question. This shows that their answer will focus on it.
- Does use the writers’ surnames – you should always use their surname not their first name.
- Attempts to link the texts. This is shown by the connectiveA word or phrase used to join one part of a text to another, eg 'and', 'because' or ‘additionally’. “on the other hand”.
- Does quote from the texts, eg “so thinly” and “excited”.
- Attempts inferenceReading between the lines to work out things which are not explicitly stated in the text., eg “makes school dinners sound great”.
However, it would have been better if:
- They had selected words to quote that have connotationAn idea or image which is suggested by a word, which is not its dictionary meaning, eg the connotation of 'desk' might be school. to explore eg, “stale” suggests that the bread is dry, hard and unpleasant to eat.
- They had identified methods such as metaphorA comparison made without using 'like' or 'as', eg 'sea of troubles' and 'drowning in debt'. eg, “paralysed with about equal fear” implies that the boys are so terrified that they freeze on the spot, they cannot move. The question asks you to “compare the methods used” – this answer does not do that.
- They had used a quotation, eg to support their inference that “school dinners sound great”, eg “good, fresh, real food”. As it is the analysis lacks evidence and is quite vague.
