Reading: Understand And Respond To Written Language

The Reading section is the one place in this qualification where your English is not being judged at all. The specification says it in a single sentence: the appropriate marks will be awarded if the student has satisfactorily communicated his or her understanding, even though the response may contain some errors in the quality of language used. Spelling, grammar and elegance earn nothing here and cost nothing. Forty-two marks are available for understanding four passages, and nothing else.

That should make it the easiest thirty-five per cent of the qualification, and for most candidates it is where the largest number of marks are left on the table. This lesson explains why. It sets out the four strands of AO1 and which of the four texts assesses which, names the six question families the specification's own descriptions imply, and then works the three types that decide the grade: the multi-select collation, the listing question, and the inference item.