Responding to Your Chosen Set Brief

You cannot revise the brief

One of your two compositions answers a set brief. Here is the awkward part: on the day you read this, that brief probably does not exist yet. Pearson publishes the four briefs on 1 September for the following exam series, and the wording is not in the specification. So a student who plans to start composing when the brief comes out has given away a summer. What you can do instead is arrive knowing everything about the decision that was already settled.

Fixed, and republished

Two very different kinds of thing get called the brief, and only one of them changes.

Four briefs, four anchors

It is the middle of July

A student wants to get ahead over the summer and asks what they can do about the brief composition. What is the sensible answer?

• Guess what the brief will ask for and start writing to the guess
• Nothing useful can be done until the brief is published
• Work on the free composition, which answers no brief and can be started at any time
• Ask their teacher to find out the brief early

What waits, and what does not

Split the Composing component into the part that depends on a document you have not read, and the part that does not.

How the year actually runs

Put the four stages in the order they happen.

• Get the free composition under way, since it waits for nothing
• The four briefs are published on the first of September
• Read all four and choose the one you will answer
• Write the brief composition against the wording in front of you

The free composition

Which two of these are true about the composition that does not answer a brief?

• It has no brief to satisfy, so you can start it whenever you like
• It still has to reach at least one minute
• It has to be in a different style from your brief composition
• It can be written with other people as a group piece
• It is worth fewer marks than the brief composition

A good idea, not a rule

Here is a suggestion that a lot of students find useful: choose the brief anchored to the Area of Study you know best, because the listening you are already doing covers the same territory. Nobody requires this. Your Composing and your Appraising are assessed separately, and no rule anywhere ties your brief choice to the Areas of Study you revise hardest. It is worth considering and it is not worth obeying. Knowing which of those two a piece of advice is will save you more marks across this course than any single fact.

Which two are requirements?

Exactly two of these are things the specification requires. The rest are suggestions, however sensible. Tap the two requirements.

• One of the two compositions answers a set brief
• Pick the brief matching the Area of Study you revise most
• The two compositions together reach three minutes
• Base the free composition on a set work you enjoy
• Decide which brief you want before September
• Keep both compositions in a similar style

How short can the free one be?

A student has finished their brief composition and it runs to 1 minute 40. The two compositions together have to reach at least three minutes. What is the shortest their free composition can be, in seconds?

One decision, worked through

A student spends the summer on a free composition and gets it to about two minutes. In September they read all four briefs. They have done most of their listening on Vocal Music and find that territory the easiest to think in, so they answer Brief 2. They are clear that nothing made them choose it and that they could have taken any of the four. Their brief composition reaches two minutes. Together the pair comfortably clears three minutes and sits under the guided maximum of five. Decision made in an afternoon, because the only genuinely new information was the wording.

The composing rules

Composing asks for _____ compositions. One of them answers a set brief and the other is _____. Each one has to reach at least one _____, and together they have to reach _____ minutes. The briefs are published on the first of _____ each year.

Rule, or good idea?

Five statements. Is each one a rule you must follow, a strategy worth considering, or simply not true?

Say the choice out loud

A decision you can explain is a decision you can defend. Choose the option in each gap.

Three questions across the year

Somebody in your class asks you about Composing three times between June and the spring. Answer them.

• June. They want to start their brief composition now so they are ahead.
• September. They have read all four briefs and ask which one they are supposed to take.
• Spring. The brief composition runs to one minute forty and the free one to one minute ten.

Write the advice

It is July. Somebody a year below asks how they should get ready for the Composing component over the summer. Write what you would tell them.

• Say what can be worked on now and what cannot, and why
• Name what is already fixed about the briefs, without pretending to know the wording
• Mention the lengths both pieces have to reach
• If you pass on any advice about choosing, say plainly that it is advice and not a rule