Spotlight on GCSE English Language is a series of videos to help you develop your understanding of the key questions in both GCSE English Language exam papers, by looking at:
- What the question is asking you to do
- What you should include in your answer
- Common mistakes to avoid
- Top tips
In this episode we’ll be covering Paper 1, Question 4.
00:00 Intro
00:44 What the question is asking you to do
02:44 What you should include in your answer
07:16 Common mistakes to avoid
07:58 Top tips
Student response
I agree that Hartop is hard and cruel, and I also agree that the reader has sympathy for Alice in the text. The writer tells us that Alice ‘accepted’ the journey and the rain and her father’s words and that she ‘walked without hurrying’, in spite of the wind and the rain smashing her ‘full in the face’ and the van being driven off. The writer’s portrayal of Alice here, and the use of such violent verbs to convey the attacking weather, suggests that she is used to the harshness of life and to her father’s ways and that she has learned to live with them. Hartop seems more cruel and hard on her when he over-reacts to her saying ‘Only a bunch of chrysanthemums’. This makes the reader feel real sympathy for Alice because it is obvious that Hartop is regularly unpleasant to Alice and this makes us want a better life for her. The use of direct speech, and the fact that he ‘raised his voice’, is effective in creating sympathy for her in the reader. We can imagine him putting his face right up to hers and shouting, so that she just ‘walked away and vanished’ without understanding why he was so angry.
