The writer of Source C asks who we decided our streets were built for. Write your response to the writer in which you give your views about how cities shoul...

This is a Section B directed-writing task worth 40 marks, assessed on content and organisation together with vocabulary, sentence structure and technical accuracy (W1 to W4). You answer one Section B question, not both.

What the task demands

A response to a named writer, so form matters as much as argument. You are answering a person who has made a specific case, and the marks for register come from sustaining that address without becoming a letter of complaint or drifting into a general essay. The question he asked, who we decided the streets were built for, is the thing to answer.

Reaching Band 5 (33 to 40)

1. Engage with his actual argument. Source C concedes that no city is built for bicycles. A response that attacks him for ignoring that has not read him, and examiners notice.
2. Use the other sources as evidence, not decoration. Meadow Street answers the objection that businesses suffer. The electric bicycle sources supply a genuine complication. One well-deployed source beats five mentioned in passing.
3. Take a position that costs you something. Whatever you argue, concede the strongest point on the other side: that people with heavy loads, long distances or limited mobility are not served by a bicycle.
4. Keep the address consistent. Second person to the writer throughout, formal register, no rhetorical questions fired at him.
5. Vary sentence structure deliberately. A short sentence to land a concession, longer ones to develop the reasoning.

What holds a piece in Band 3 (17 to 24)

A general essay about pollution that never addresses the writer. Agreement without argument, which produces a summary of Source C rather than a response. Repetitive openings such as 'Another reason is'. And unsupported claims about accidents or costs that the sources do not contain.

Technical accuracy

One idea per paragraph with a topic sentence. Band 5 requires secure accuracy, so leave time to check sentence demarcation.