Technical Accuracy in Literature

The one question that marks HOW you write ✒️

Everywhere else in this qualification, the examiner marks what you say about the text. Here, on the post-1914 play or novel, they also mark **the writing itself**. This is the **only** question in the whole of 1ET0 where AO4 is assessed. **AO4 asks for a range of vocabulary and sentence structures, used for clarity, purpose and effect, with accurate spelling and punctuation.** The essay itself - the argument, the context, the evidence - is a different job, and a different module. This one is about the marks you can win or lose without changing a single idea. And there is a complication: the exam is **closed book**. No text, no dictionary, nothing to check against.

What AO4 is actually looking at 🗂️

Four strands, plus the two error types that cost more marks than everything else combined:

What does AO4 actually reward? ❓

Which of these would gain you AO4 marks in this question?

• Varying your sentence structures on purpose and spelling your literary terms correctly
• Writing a longer essay, since more writing gives more chances to show ability
• Including as many quotations as you can remember from the text
• Writing neatly, in your best handwriting, with clear paragraph breaks

One word is wrong 🔍

An interactive activity.

Two sentences, one comma ✂️

An interactive activity.

Match each error to the fix

The words you cannot look up 📝

Four words will almost certainly appear in your essay, and none of them can be checked in a closed exam. The person who wrote a play is a _____. The main character is the _____. A speech delivered alone on stage is a _____. The mood a scene creates is its _____. Choose the correct spelling of each, because in this question they are marked by _____.

Same point, two ways of writing it ⚖️

Neither of these students knows anything the other does not. One of them is being paid for the writing as well as the idea.

Which two are technically accurate? ✅

Select the TWO sentences with no spelling or punctuation errors.

• The storm creates an atmosphere of unease; the audience senses the collapse first.
• By the final act, the family's confidence has gone, and no one is left to admire.
• The writer shows the class system is unfair, this is shown clearly through the inspector.
• The playwrite explores it's themes through the setting, which the audience notice at once.

One sentence, four drafts 🪜

An interactive activity.

You cannot look anything up 📕

This is the part candidates never plan for. The exam is closed book: no text, no notes, no dictionary. So accuracy is not something you produce in the exam. It is something you bring in. **Build a list, and it can be short.** The terms you will definitely use (playwright, protagonist, soliloquy, atmosphere, characterisation), plus the names of the three or four characters you will write about. Character names are the trap: you have read them a hundred times and written them almost never. **Then keep the last four minutes free.** Reread what you wrote, in this order: any comma joining two complete sentences, then the punctuation around your quotations, then those key spellings. **Four minutes of checking protects more marks here than four minutes of extra writing**, because this is the one question where the writing itself is marked.

Three decisions 🧭

An interactive activity.

Your turn ✍️

An interactive activity.