understanding what the writer is saying? analysis how the writer is saying it? evaluation how...

UNDERSTANDINGWhat the writer is saying?

ANALYSISHow the writer is saying it?

EVALUATIONHow effectively he is saying it?

There are five types of questions in this section:

1. Meaning 2. Identifying Points 3. Following arguments and tracing

developments 4. Summarising a number of points 5. Links

1. Meaning Explain what the writer means by …

Explain the significance of the word …

Show how you are helped towards the meaning of…

How does the context help you to understand the meaning of…

Explain this in your own words…

1. MeaningRecently I found myself unimpressed by some visiting American who stunned me with monstrous verbosity, determined to use five words where one would do, bent on calling a canteen an ‘in-plant feeding situation’ and a spade ‘a primative earth-breaking implement’.

Show how the context of ‘monstrous verbosity’ helps you to arrive at its meaning.

2U

Answer:

“Monstrous verbosity” means an appauling number of worthless words. “Five words where one would do” shows that there were too many words ( and the phrases quoted such as “in-plant feeding station” show how pointless the words are).

2. Identifying Points

What are the three reasons for…

What four things, in their view, do they expect…

What three main reasons does the writer give for…

What other ways of looking at education are laid out…

2. Identifying PointsThe urge to write may also be the fear of death-particularly with autobiography- the need to leave messages for those who come after, saying, ‘I was here;I saw it too’. Then there are the other uses of autobiography, some more utilitarian than others – exposure, confesion, revenge. In writing my first volume of autobiography ‘Cider with Rosie’, I was moved by several of these needs, but the chief one was celebration: to praise the life I’d had and so preserve it.

QUESTION: What three main reasons does Laurie Lee give for writing autobiography in lines 1-6?

3U

Answer:

Record history or personal experinece in some way

Use the autobiography to settle old scores or to justify oneself

Tell everyone about the joyfulness of his life, and/or to remind himself about it.

3U

3. Following Arguments and Tracing Developments

Questions like this usually have the word ‘explain’ or ‘explanation’ somewhere in them, or sometimes even just ‘why?’

3. Following Arguments and Tracing Developments

In a generation, living to 100 will be common. Society is till utterly unprepared for this change. Chatter about ‘grey power’, or even the growing and admirable concern for the old and helpless who are not cared for by families, have scarcely touched the problem. The old, still veiled in outworn stereotypes and new-fangled prejudice, are the Great Excluded.

By referring to lines 1-5, explain fully the difficulties that such longevity causes.

2U

3. Following Arguments and Tracing Developments

We as a society are not ready to deal with all the old people who will be alive in the twenty-first century and although there is a vague understanding of the potential difficulties, the old are not yet catered for in the thinking of planners of our social system.

4. Summarising a Number of Points

Identify five benefits…

Outline briefly the main effects…

Briefly summarise the main points…

Summarise the main reasons…

What do you think are the key reasons…

4. Summarising a Number of Points

My childhood was not altogether a happy one. Circumstances conspired to make me shy and solitary. My father and mother died before I was capable of remembering them. I was an only child, entrusted to the care of an unmarried aunt who lived quietly in the country. My aunt was no longer young when I began to live in her comfortable old-fashioned house with its large, untidy garden. She had settled down to her local interests, seldom had anyone to stay with her and rarely left home. She was fond of her two Persian cats, busied herself with the garden and was charitably interested in the old inhabitants of the village. Beyond this, the radius of her activities extended no further than eight ot ten miles.

Question: Summarise the main reasons for his childhood being ‘not altogether unhappy’

4U

4. Summarising a Number of PointsAnswer:

5. Links

Show how the sentence…acts as a link

Show how the word…acts as a link

How does the second paragraph act as a link

5. Links

The problem here is political will rather than financial capacity. The pinch will come in other resources areas, such as health spending. People over 65 consume three times as many prescription items as other age groups. Nearly half of those with some measure of disability are over 70.

But the resource question, meeting the material needs of the old an elderly, is only half the story. The real problem lies elsewhere – in the imagination. What are the old for? Who are they, and do traditional divisions of human life into childhood, youth, middle-age and old-age still fit our experience?

QUESTION: Referring to specific words or phrases, explain how the sentence ‘But…story’ acts as a link in the writer’s line of thought.

2U

5. Links

The “resources question refers back to the problems of funding health care for the elderly, “is only half the story” points forward to the rest of the paragraph which is going to look at the other half of the story – the problems of identity in old age.

Word Choice Imagery Sentence Structure Tone, mood and atmosphere

Word ChoiceBecause of the popularity of partner dancing – as opposed to the lone experience of shuffling one’s feet and randomly jerking your arms at a club/family wedding – the BBC has decided to make a celebrity version on Come Dancing the centrepiece of its new Saturday night schedule. Fronted by Bruce Forsyth, the show will feature celebrities testing their salsa skills under the guidance of world champion ballroom dancer Donnie Burns.

Question: How does the word choice in these lines show that the writer thinks that dancing on one’s own as opposed to with a partner is not very satisfying.

Word Choice

“Shuffling” has connotations of clumsy, unskilful movements and suggests that the dancing is not very inspired. “Randomly” or “Randomly jerking” suggests that the movements of the dance have no pattern and are made up of arm movements which are not smooth and elegant, but rough and uncoordinated.

ImageryThe Thames marks the edge of things. It is what makes North London north, and south London South. Like a twisty ruler, it measures out the intricate social gradations between the east and west of the city.

Question: Show how the imagery of these lines helps to develop the statement, “The Thames marks the edge of things”.

3A

ImageryThis simile highlights the function of the Thames because it describes it as being like a “twisty ruler” A ruler is normally straight but the river bends so the ruler has to be bendy too. The ideas of “marks out” is developed by the fact that rulers allow you to measure and mark off different lengths, like different parts of the city, and the “graduations” suggest that you are measuring different levels, like different classes of people who live there. Therefore, the comparison between the river and the ruler gives more detail to illustrate the original statement about the ideas of social classes/areas.

Sentence StructureWhat overwhelms you about this man (Muhammed Ali) from such a violent trade are the goodness, sincerity and generosity that have survived a lifetime of controversy, racial hatred, fundamental religious conversion, criminal financial exploitation, martial upheavals, revilement by many of his own nation and , eventually, the collapse of his own body.

Question: Show how the writer uses sentence struture to enlist your sympathy for Muhammed Ali.

Sentence Structure

`The list of all the adversities which Muhammed Ali has to face (“racial hatred, fundamental religious conversion etc.) show the range of difficulties that he had to face, so you sympathise with his situation.

Tone, Mood and AtmosphereThe truth was that he (Ali) was dead scared of flying. Two months earlier, on his way to the U.S boxing trials, he had been violently buffeted during a turbulent flight across to California. It was the first time he had ever travelled by air and he swore he would never fly again. This was marginally inconvenient when he was one of the hottest hopes America had fro Olympic boxing gold.

Question: “This was marginally inconveinant…boxing gold”.

What tone is adopted by the writer in this sentence? Go on to explain the effect of this tone in the context.

Tone, Mood and Atmosphere

Answer:

The tone here is ironic. He says “marginally inconvenient” when he in fact means it would be very inconvenient. It makes the sentence amusing as he suggests that it is ironic that the unafraid boxer was scared of flying.

1. How effective do you find…? To what extent is…successful in…? With reference to a particular technique like imagery, word choice or tone?

2. How effective do you find…? or To what extent is …successful in…? With reference to an example/illusion, or an anecdote or a conclusion.

3. The evaluation of the merits of both passages in the Paper which you find in “Questions on both passages”

The UK is not a group of nations swamped by a tidal wave of immigration. Relatively speaking, Europe contends with a trickle of refugees compared with countries who border areas of famine, desperate poverty, or violent political upheaval.

QUESTION:

Discuss how effective you find the writer’s use of imagery (or discuss to what extent you find the writer’s use of imagery effective) in these lines making her point clear. You may refer in your answer to one or more examples.

Answer:

The imagery of “swamped”, “tidal wave” and trickle are effective in helping to illustrate the point the writer is making: That in fact there are very few immigrants or refugees. The connotations of tidal wave and swamped are to do with a mass of water rushing with unstoppable force onto the land and drowning it as if the mass of immigrants is so great that the people of Britain will be overwhelmed and unable to withstand the force of the impact, which is not true. By contrast “trickle of refugees” suggests a very small volume of water, having minimal effect on the landscape, like the refugees who are so few in number as to be almost unnoticeable. The images of “tidal wave” and “trickle” are exaggerated enough to convince the reader of the rightness of the writer’s point that the UK is not in danger.