Assessment Objectives And Command Words Explained

Two small things decide a surprising number of marks in First Language English: knowing exactly what each command word is asking you to do, and knowing which reading or writing skill the examiner is rewarding. Every question is built from these. 'Identify' wants something different from 'explain'; 'using your own words explain' is stricter still; 'analyse' and 'evaluate' demand whole levels of thinking above simply finding an answer. Behind the questions sit the assessment objectives, the five reading skills (R1 to R5) and the five writing skills (W1 to W5) that the mark schemes actually credit.

This is a reference note to return to whenever you practise. It gives you a table of every command word with what it demands and how to answer it, a clear account of the R1 to R5 and W1 to W5 objectives, and a guide to how the marks are distributed across the papers. Once you can read a question for its command word and aim your answer at the right objective, you stop losing the easy marks that careless reading throws away.