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A-LevelEnglish LanguageReading: text analysis and comparison9093/12 · Oct/Nov 2021 · Q225 Marks

Read the following text, which is an article from the Yale Daily News blog. It was written in 2012 by a graduating student of the university. We don't have a word for the opposite of loneliness, but if we did, I could say that's what I want in life. What I'm grateful and thankful to have found at Yale, and what I'm scared of losing when we wake up tomorrow and leave this place. It's not quite love and it's not quite community; it's just this feeling that there are people, an abundance of people, who are in this together. Who are on your team. When the check is paid and you stay at the table. When it's four a.m. and no one goes to bed. That night with the guitar. That night we can't remember. That time we did, we went, we saw, we laughed, we felt. The hats. Yale is full of tiny circles we pull around ourselves. A cappella groups, sports teams, houses, societies, clubs. These tiny groups that make us feel loved and safe and part of something even on our loneliest nights when we stumble home to our computers – partner-less, tired, awake. We won't have those next year. We won't live on the same block as all our friends. We won't have a bunch of group-texts. This scares me. More than finding the right job or city or spouse – I'm scared of losing this web we're in. This elusive, indefinable, opposite of loneliness. This feeling I feel right now. But let us get one thing straight: the best years of our lives are not behind us. They're part of us and they are set for repetition as we grow up and move to New York and away from New York and wish we did or didn't live in New York. I plan on having parties when I'm 30. I plan on having fun when I'm old. Any notion of THE BEST years comes from clichéd 'should haves ...' 'if I'd ...' 'wish I'd ...' Of course, there are things we wished we did: our readings, that boy across the hall. We're our own hardest critics and it's easy to let ourselves down. Sleeping too late. Procrastinating. Cutting corners. More than once I've looked back on my High School self and thought: how did I do that? How did I work so hard? Our private insecurities follow us and will always follow us. But the thing is, we're all like that. Nobody wakes up when they want to. Nobody did all of their reading (except maybe the crazy people who win the prizes). We have these impossibly high standards and we'll probably never live up to our perfect fantasies of our future selves. But I feel like that's okay. We're so young. We're so young. We're twenty-two years old. We have so much time. There's this sentiment I sometimes sense, creeping in our collective conscious as we lay alone after a party, or pack up our books when we give in and go out – that it is somehow too late. That others are somehow ahead. More accomplished, more specialized. More on the path to somehow saving the world, somehow creating or inventing or improving. That it's too late now to BEGIN a beginning and we must settle for continuance, for commencement. When we came to Yale, there was this sense of possibility. This immense and indefinable potential energy – and it's easy to feel like that's slipped away. We never had to choose and suddenly we've had to. Some of us have focused ourselves. Some of us know exactly what we want and are on the path to get it; already going to med school, working at the perfect NGO, doing research. For most of us, however, we're somewhat lost in this sea of liberal arts. Not quite sure what road we're on and whether we should have taken it. If only I had majored in biology ... if only I'd gotten involved in journalism as a freshman ... if only I'd thought to apply for this or for that ... What we have to remember is that we can still do anything. We can change our minds. We can start over. Get a post-bac or try writing for the first time. The notion that it's too late to do anything is comical. It's hilarious. We're graduating college. We're so young. We can't, we MUST not lose this sense of possibility because in the end, it's all we have. *** We don't have a word for the opposite of loneliness, but if we did, I'd say that's how I feel at Yale. How I feel right now. Here. With all of you. In love, impressed, humbled, scared. And we don't have to lose that. We're in this together, 2012. Let's make something happen to this world.

  1. Analyse the text, focusing on form, structure and language.[25]

Mark scheme

Marking points from the official mark scheme (Oct/Nov 2021). The mark or mark type is shown in brackets.

  1. [25] Form: the typical text conventions used in the blog (online form)
  2. [25] Form: the ways in which the purpose affects the content and style of the text
  3. [25] Form: the ways in which the text appeals to its intended audience, e.g. through the tone and register used in the text
  4. [25] Form: any other relevant aspect of the text's form.
  5. [25] Structure: the ways in which paragraphs are used in the text
  6. [25] Structure: the way in which the text develops the idea of having gone through, and still being on a personal journey
  7. [25] Structure: shifts in time – the writer looking back, forward and at the present moment
  8. [25] Structure: any other relevant structural feature in the text.
  9. [25] Language: use of first-person and, at times, conversational style
  10. [25] Language: reflective, thoughtful tone
  11. [25] Language: listing within sentences and the effect this has on the reader
  12. [25] Language: parenthetical expressions/ use of parenthesis
  13. [25] Language: use of repetition
  14. [25] Language: 1st and 2nd person pronouns and the effect this has on the reader
  15. [25] Language: any other relevant language features in the text (word classes, lexis, tense, sentences, etc.) and their effect on the reader.

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About this question

Topic
Reading: text analysis and comparison, A-Level English Language (syllabus 9093). Structured question, 25 marks.
Source
A-Level English Language, Oct/Nov 2021 Paper 1 Variant 2, question 2.

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