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OCR · GCSE · English Literature · Higher

Young people's ideas about love and relationships

Q01.1 20 marks

Section A: Modern prose or drama. Anita and Me by Meera Syal and Trigger Warning by Neil Gaiman. Read the two extracts below and then answer both part a) and part b). For part a), focus only on the extracts rather than referring to the rest of the studied text.

Compare how young people's ideas about love and relationships are presented in these two extracts. You should consider: the situations and experiences faced by the characters; how the characters react to these situations and experiences; how the writers' use of language and techniques creates effects.

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Study the marking See what earns credit and compare it with a full-mark answer.

Marking points

  1. 1 Responds directly to young people's ideas about love and relationships in both extracts.
  2. 2 Uses relevant references from both extracts to support interpretation.
  3. 3 Develops explicit comparison between the two extracts.
  4. 4 Analyses writers' language and techniques rather than only retelling events.
  5. 5 May discuss relationship pressures, expected behaviour codes, fantasy relationships, real versus invented relationships, capitalisation/paragraphing, or spontaneity versus studied nonchalance.

Full-mark answer

A strong answer would compare both extracts throughout, showing that both young people are shaped by expectations around romance but react differently. It would use precise references to Meena's fantasy of a 'Boyfriend', her romantic cliches and the physical barrier of hospital glass, and compare them with the Gaiman narrator's invented Cassandra, peer pressure from Scallie and Rob, and the careful performance of being experienced. It would analyse methods such as capitalisation, paragraphing, repetition, apposition, antithesis and word choice, and would connect these methods to ideas about adolescent identity, pressure and fantasy.

Why this answer loses marks

Meena and the narrator both want relationships, and Meena writes notes in hospital.

This starts the topic but mostly retells content instead of comparing both extracts through writers methods.