Section B: Composition Answer one question from Section B. Write about 350 to 450 words on one of the following questions. Up to 16 marks are available for ...

What this question is testing

The two Section B options carry identical marks, so the difference between them is one of construction. A description is organised by perception and holds time nearly still; a narrative is organised by consequence and must move. What the highest band asks of a story is not incident but shape: it should open where it needs to open, develop through a genuine complication, and close with control rather than simply stopping when the words run out.

Here the shaping requirement is the title. A story called The Second Signature has to make the second signature matter to the outcome, not merely mention one somewhere in the middle. The word to concentrate on is second: a signature given twice, withheld the second time, forged the second time, given by the wrong person, or required by a document that nobody expected to need signing again. Choosing which of those you mean is the single decision that determines whether the piece reaches the top bands.

Sustaining 350 to 450 words on this task

Four hundred words is one scene and one decision, not a plot. Keep the cast to two or three people and the span of time to an hour or an afternoon, so that the complication has room to develop instead of being announced. A workable five paragraph shape:

1. Opening, about 70 words. Begin close to the moment that matters, with the document already on the table and somebody unwilling. Background can be released later in a clause; it does not need a paragraph of its own.
2. Who and what, about 80 words. Make the document specific enough to have consequences: a witness line on a will, a discharge form, a delivery sheet, a tenancy agreement, a statement to be countersigned. A signature only carries weight when the reader can see who is bound by it.
3. The complication, about 100 words. The second signature is asked for and something stands in its way. Let the difficulty be human rather than procedural.
4. The turn, about 90 words. Somebody acts, and the act should surprise the reader slightly while being entirely in character.
5. Close, about 60 words. Stop on an image or a small action rather than an explanation. The highest band rewards an ending prepared for by something planted early, so put that detail into the first paragraph and do not draw attention to it.

Technique keyed to this task

• Convey character through what people do with their hands and what they choose not to say. A person who caps the pen before answering has been described more efficiently than by a sentence about their personality.
• Use dialogue sparingly and punctuate it exactly. Two or three exchanges will carry more than half a page of talk, and the accuracy strand is where careless speech punctuation is paid for.
• Plant the ending early. If the story turns on a signature that does not match, the reader should already have seen the earlier one, described in passing, without comment.
• Resist the courtroom. A legal thriller assembled from familiar television conventions is the commonest version of this task and the hardest to score well on, because none of its detail is observed. A signature witnessed in a hospital corridor, a kitchen or a school office is fresher and easier to make specific.
• Keep the reader slightly behind the characters, not slightly ahead. Withheld information is the only tension a four hundred word story has time to build.

Where responses usually lose marks on this task

• Spending most of the words on preliminaries so that the story arrives in the final paragraph, which the mark scheme identifies as a Level 3 failure however good the sentences are.
• A crowded plot with several locations and a large cast, none of them developed.
• A title bolted on: a signature mentioned once, in passing, with nothing depending on it.
• An ending that explains itself, telling the reader what the story meant instead of letting the last action do it.
• Errors in the punctuation of speech, which fall on the accuracy strand and are the most avoidable loss on any narrative task.

Content and structure: 16 marks (W1, W2)

W1 articulate experience and express what is thought, felt and imagined. W2 arrange and shape ideas so the order itself works for effect. W3 draw on varied word choices and sentence patterns that fit the situation. W4 pitch formality and tone to suit the situation. W5 spell, punctuate and use grammar accurately.

Style and accuracy: 24 marks (W3, W4, W5)

These lists are indicative, not a checklist.