'People should change their surroundings to suit the climate rather than change themselves to put up with it.' To what extent do you agree with this stateme...

What is being tested

Thirty marks in two columns. Twenty are for AO4, which covers communication and adaptation to purpose, form and audience: whether the argument is developed, whether the examples are chosen for effect, and whether a reader is held from the first line to the last. Ten are for AO5, which covers organisation, vocabulary, sentence variety and accuracy. Nothing is awarded for reading here, so there is no source to lean on and no credit for retelling one. The whole of the content mark rests on the quality of your own thinking about the proposition.

What the question is actually asking

The proposition sets adaptation of the surroundings against adaptation of the person: build differently, or learn to live with the conditions. To what extent invites a measured answer, not a verdict, and the strongest responses treat the statement as something to be tested rather than as a side to be joined. Notice the word should, which makes this a question about what is right and affordable, not only about what works.

Building the argument

• The case for changing the surroundings. Design, engineering and planning solve at scale what personal habit can only manage one household at a time. Shutters, shade, insulation, drainage and a building code apply to everybody in a street, including those who are asleep, elderly, ill or at work, whereas a habit protects only the person who has learnt it. Develop one example properly, such as roof colour, street trees or window shading, rather than listing five.
• The case against. Adaptable people and inherited local knowledge are cheaper, quicker and often more reliable than a building programme. Knowing when to close a shutter, when not to travel, which fields flood first and who in a street lives alone costs nothing and arrives immediately, while a retrofit programme takes a decade and may never reach the people who need it most. A good response also notices that habits survive a power cut and a budget cut, and buildings do not.
• The distinction that raises the level. Climates differ, and so do circumstances. A household with money can fit shutters or move; a household without can only adapt itself. Once that distinction is made, the proposition stops being a general truth and becomes a question about who is being asked to bear the cost, which is the most productive line available in this question.
• Cost, feasibility and unintended consequence. Changing surroundings can mean energy used to cool a building that was badly designed in the first place, materials with their own footprint, and displacement when an improved district becomes unaffordable. An argument that admits this is stronger, not weaker, than one that presents building as a clean solution.
• A qualified conclusion. The most convincing position is usually that both are necessary and that the balance depends on resources and on how extreme conditions become: personal adaptation is a floor that everyone needs, and structural change is the only thing that raises the ceiling. Whatever you conclude, conclude it, and let the reader see that you reached it by argument rather than by preference.

Shaping and voice

AO4 rewards a piece that behaves like a considered essay: an opening that engages the proposition directly rather than restating it, a clear line of argument, a counter-argument taken at its strongest, and a conclusion that follows from what came before. Signpost with the logic rather than with labels; a paragraph that begins with the objection itself reads better than one that announces that this paragraph will consider the other side. Register should be measured and adult, and the personal pronoun is allowed provided it carries an argument rather than a mood.

AO5 is marked separately, which means accuracy is not a bonus for good ideas. Vary sentence length deliberately, because a run of long complex sentences flattens emphasis just as a run of short ones does. Use precise vocabulary for this subject, such as adaptation, retrofit, mitigation, resilience and infrastructure, but only where the word is doing work. Paragraph by stage of argument, and proofread for the small errors that accumulate under time pressure: agreement, tense consistency, apostrophes and the boundary between two sentences joined by a comma.

What a weak answer does instead

The commonest weak response agrees in the first sentence and then repeats the agreement in four different ways, so that the piece grows longer without becoming stronger. A second lists examples without an argument, offering air conditioning, then insulation, then wearing lighter clothes, with no claim connecting them. A third mentions the other side only to dismiss it in a phrase such as Of course some people disagree, but they are wrong, which is not a counter-argument and gains nothing. A fourth writes a narrative about a hot day, which the task does not ask for and which the AO4 descriptors cannot reward at the higher levels.

AO4 (20 marks), for communication and adaptation to purpose, form and audience

• Level 1 (1-4 marks): the response is thin or drifts from the task, with little sense of the chosen mode.
• Level 2 (5-8 marks): the task is addressed in a straightforward way, with some appropriate material and an uneven hold on the mode.
• Level 3 (9-12 marks): the task is clearly addressed, the mode is sustained and the content is developed with some detail.
• Level 4 (13-16 marks): a convincing and well developed response, with material selected for effect and a consistent voice.
• Level 5 (17-20 marks): a compelling and sophisticated response, with original handling of the task and sustained control of effect on the reader.

AO5 (10 marks), for organisation, vocabulary, sentence variety and accuracy

• Level 1 (1-2 marks): little structure, very limited vocabulary and errors that impede meaning.
• Level 2 (3-4 marks): simple sequencing, plain vocabulary and frequent errors, though the meaning is usually clear.
• Level 3 (5-6 marks): a clear structure, some varied vocabulary and sentence forms, with errors that do not obscure meaning.
• Level 4 (7-8 marks): purposeful paragraphing, precise vocabulary and controlled variety of sentence structure, with few errors.
• Level 5 (9-10 marks): assured shaping of the whole piece, ambitious and accurate vocabulary and a wide range of sentence structures used for effect.

Examination reminder: approximately 400 words is enough for an introduction, two developed paragraphs, a genuine counter-argument and a conclusion, which is roughly one idea per paragraph. Depth beats coverage here: a single example carried through, with its cost and its limit acknowledged, scores far higher than four examples mentioned and abandoned.