1. For questions testing literal comprehension, answers can be lifted fromthe text as long as they answer the question precisely. However,candidates should focus on the precise question being asked and shouldbe careful not to copy a long section of the passage in the hope thatexaminers will do all the work to pick out the relevant answer (markscheme refers to this as 'excess denied').
2. Questions testing inferential comprehension will require candidates toextract the meaning from (or, as the mark scheme often says, 'distill' theinformation from) the text.
3. Candidates should also be aware of questions which require an answer' in your own words'. If candidates give a correct answer which is not inown words, they will not achieve the mark.
4. For comprehension questions on the passage, examiners do not penalise minor language errors (e.g. spelling) if the right word or phrase is given,because this is a test of comprehension. However, for the final summaryquestion, the accuracy of the writing IS taken into account when arriving atthe mark for Use of English (see 6. below).
5. For the vocabulary question, candidates are required to show theirunderstanding of the word in the context of the passage, not simply indirect synonyms, of five words or expressions from a choice of eight.Candidates are therefore advised to examine the word from the passagein context before suggesting a synonym.
6. The summary question has 15 marks for Content and 10 marks for Style(Own Words and Use of English). Candidates are asked to summarize therequired points in the given passage concisely and accurately - not to usetheir own ideas. Style is assessed according to how well the candidatesare able to use their own words and the extent to which they are able towrite error-free, continuous prose, using a variety of sentence structures.See the mark scheme for a detailed description of how the summary ismarked. A word limit is given - accuracy in the summary word count isimportant and word counts will be checked by the Examiner.
2. Questions testing inferential comprehension will require candidates toextract the meaning from (or, as the mark scheme often says, 'distill' theinformation from) the text.
3. Candidates should also be aware of questions which require an answer' in your own words'. If candidates give a correct answer which is not inown words, they will not achieve the mark.
4. For comprehension questions on the passage, examiners do not penalise minor language errors (e.g. spelling) if the right word or phrase is given,because this is a test of comprehension. However, for the final summaryquestion, the accuracy of the writing IS taken into account when arriving atthe mark for Use of English (see 6. below).
5. For the vocabulary question, candidates are required to show theirunderstanding of the word in the context of the passage, not simply indirect synonyms, of five words or expressions from a choice of eight.Candidates are therefore advised to examine the word from the passagein context before suggesting a synonym.
6. The summary question has 15 marks for Content and 10 marks for Style(Own Words and Use of English). Candidates are asked to summarize therequired points in the given passage concisely and accurately - not to usetheir own ideas. Style is assessed according to how well the candidatesare able to use their own words and the extent to which they are able towrite error-free, continuous prose, using a variety of sentence structures.See the mark scheme for a detailed description of how the summary ismarked. A word limit is given - accuracy in the summary word count isimportant and word counts will be checked by the Examiner.
