6pm
2012.
Smoke was accumulating, there were only a few minutes left till it would drown me. Searching the perimeter for any exits, there were none, only a chair in an empty room.
* * *
Dawn was upon me, only a confused bird soaring in the dark sky lost in the chaos behind it. The blazing sun had closed its thick, gloomy curtain. Wide awake, staring at the sky, concentrating on the mysterious milky way that was gobbling up our planet. Feet riveted to the soft smooth concrete like a cat hanging to its death. They needed to kill me; however, they had failed once again. Limping. Struggling to reach the door, blood pouring out. Still smelling the dense smoke. They had a secret, the cops would never believe, someone needed to stop them. That someone was me.
The clock was ticking. I needed a plan and I needed it quickly, questions gushing, but no answers. They called themselves “The Tiger’s Paw”, ranked top of the most dangerous terrorist groups in the world; they would kill anyone who would get in their way. Waving my hand in the thin frosty air, catching the taxi drivers’ attention, the tires screeching, staining the ground below them. A few minutes later I had reached my destination. Bold colorful words caught my attention “HEATHROW AIRPORT”. The board, the flight numbers were rapidly changing, flicking before my eyes. Recalling the flight attendants voice rang in my ears “London to Panama, departing in 15 minutes, please depart to gate 5”. Sprinting on the shining recently polished tiles, passing the duty free shops, smelling the fruity perfume of the fresh fragrance of the rich. Finding my seat I struggled to pass the disabled passenger, the faces of the passengers were all telling different stories. Finally I had found my seat, sitting down; relaxing the stiff shoulders, there was a glow in the distance alerting me to fasten the seat belt. My eyes had seen enough today, slowly closing them.
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Peer Reviews
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Quality of writing
The Quality of Written Communication is also poor, barely scraping GCSE standard. There is frequent comma splice, and a suggestion that the candidate either has not proof-read their answer (if they had they'd see how poorly some of the sentences read) or are simply unaware of the standard requirement of a basic sentence, with an object, subject and and a command. This needs to be addressed a s this poor quality compromises the consistency of the answer.
Level of analysis
The candidate displays a fair understanding of literary devices such as repetition of sound and rule of three. They also use long vs. short sentences to create suspense as well as leaving plenty to the imagination of the reader, as not all is explicitly stated. However, one could argue that there is too much implicit meaning, resulting in an answer that lacks cohesion or any real insight as to what's actually going on, and very little appears to happen during course of the story. We learn very little about any characters and there is next to no dialogue between anyone. Playing this game in Writing to Describe can elicit some fantastically creative responses, particularly if candidate adhere to a certain style, but I feel this one isn't one of them because it has been hindered by a poor story that doesn't appear to know where it's going. The narrative skips and often contradicts reality - would a man bleeding profusely be allowed through an airport and get no stares from other passengers on a plane? Consistency within reality must be adhered to if the candidate chooses not to set their story in any sort of fantasy (e.g. mythical beasts), because this shows an awareness of how to construct a coherent and cohesive piece of creative story writing, which is what the examiners are looking for. The opening sentence is often key to creating suspense and a desire for readers to continue, and this candidate's opener is very good at attracting the attention of the reader, but it trails off and quite soon it is clear that the story is going nowhere, even if the protagonist appears to be. What is the room he's found in at the beginning? Why is it important? Why bother even mentioning the chair if the protagonist is not strapped to it? This description is quite irrelevant and does not score any marks because it does not contribute to the rest of the answer.
Response to question
This is a Writing to Describe task that primarily orientates around creative writing. In it, the candidate uses a fair range of literary devices to create suspense and intrigue in their creative writing coursework. There could be more emphasis on what actually happen during the story, as there is almost no development other than real-time description of seemingly incoherent surroundings. In creative writing that would receive a higher mark than this candidate's, the reason for this attention to detail would be that it reveals something about the character, but this is not established at all throughout the answer, and this lowers that extent to which this answer is coherent.
