WRITING

Review of essay

Rating: 4 star(s)

Response to the question

For a candidate whose first language is not English, this is a very confidently written essays, whose points are expressed well and show a good level of understanding of how to construct an effective Writing to Persuade piece. The structure is good, as each paragraph is clearly defined and deals with a certain topic about the dangers of over-consumption of the delicacy of shark fin soup, and the introductory and concluding paragraph act nicely as bookends to the essay. The candidate uses a variety of discourse markers to help keep the essay interesting and succinct as is flows well from paragraph to paragraph, feeling like a cohesive body of thought rather than a potentially disjointed effort. All in all a sound essay that is indicative of a candidate working at a low B grade for GCSE.

Level of analysis

The Level of Analysis here is fairly good - the facts presented are well-thought out and expressed clearly, but where the candidate fails to achieve the A grade is because not enough rhetoric is featured here. A few rhetorical questions; statistics here and there about the decline in the numbers of sharks in Hong Kong bays; exaggeration (superlative, hyperbole). Whilst some of these devices have been used, the whole piece feels very literal and flat, and could do with a bit of life in the form of some non-literal comparative devices like similes and hyperboles. I realise this would be hard for a candidate who first language is not English, but nonetheless, these are not hugely difficult devices to implement, so I recommend the candidate acquaint themselves with these devices and how they can be effective in structuring an effective persuasive argument.

Quality of writing

The Quality of Written Communication, for a non-native English speaker, is good. The candidate's spelling throughout the essay is almost wholly accurate, though the grammar and sentence syntax might need some attention. This is not something that can be recommended by me or by any examiner, as special considerations are taken for non-native English speaking candidates, but I could confidently predict that given the possible language barriers here the candidate would not be penalised for any of these discrepancies.