Text: an original contemporary personal-account-style practice extract.
After parents’ evening, I returned to my classroom for the notebook I had left beneath my desk. The main corridor was empty. Its lights came on one section at a time as I walked, while the section behind me quietly became dark again. In the glass panels of the classroom doors, my reflection kept appearing beside me.
My classroom door was slightly open, although I remembered closing it. Inside, a chair faced the whiteboard with a dark coat hanging over its back. For a second, the shoulders of the coat made it look as though somebody was sitting there.
‘Hello?’ I said.
The radiator clicked. One sleeve of the coat lifted and fell. Then I noticed that the window had been left open and a narrow stream of cold air was moving across the room. I found my notebook and turned towards the corridor. The nearest light had gone out.
As soon as I stepped through the doorway, it came on again. I pulled the classroom door shut and walked away. After a few steps, I returned to check the handle.
The writer aims to make an ordinary school building feel unsettling.
Evaluate how successfully this aim is achieved. Support your views with detailed reference to the extract.
In your answer, you may consider:
834 exam-style questions on Edexcel GCSE English Language 2.3 Content: non-fiction study and transactional text types, covering 2.3.9 Write an article, 2.3.10 Write a letter, 2.3.11 Write a review, 2.3.12 Write a text for a speech, and 2.3.13 Write a section for a guide, textbook, leaflet or booklet. Each one has a worked solution and a mark scheme showing where the marks go.