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2.3 Content: non-fiction study and transactional text types

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Question 199

The classroom before open evening

Text: an original contemporary personal-account-style practice extract.

Before the visitors arrived, our classroom still belonged to an ordinary Thursday. Exercise books leaned in untidy towers, chairs pointed in every direction, and a strip of blue paper hung from the display board like a loose shoelace. In ten minutes, parents would be walking through the door.

We moved quickly. Sam straightened labels while I carried models to the front. The stapler snapped, chairs scraped and the clock above the whiteboard seemed to hurry us on. Then I noticed an empty space in the centre of the display: the model bridge had been left in the science room.

For a moment, no one spoke. Our teacher placed a sketchbook in the gap and opened it at the page showing the bridge's first design. When the visitors entered, they stopped there longer than anywhere else. The missing model had made room for the story of how it had been created. The classroom did not look finished in the way we had expected, but it invited questions.

Analyse how the writer uses language and structure to make this account engaging.

In your answer, you could consider:

  • words and phrases used to describe the classroom
  • how the focus and pace change across the extract
  • the effects of these choices on the reader.

Support your views with detailed reference to the extract.

[15]
Markscheme

2.3 Content: non-fiction study and transactional text types Questions

  1. GCSE
  2. /English Language
  3. /2.3 Content: non-fiction study and transactional text types

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.

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