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how to get an A*

Click to access A*-Farewell-fun-pack.pdf

READING AND OUR RESPONSE

Well if we show the potential of being an A* student then he will answer the question with rich and vivid language and not with the usual boring language that we would converse in, in our day to day life. So for example instead of just saying something like big we will use something like momentous to show our rich and enthralled understanding of how to use vocab to employ effective feelings on the reader.

WRITING

Be able to wright normally without acting like you know everything. Use good punctuation that would be able to break up the passage in the correct way and adding nuances making it a more interesting read. Adress your pieces to the right audiences so that they can fully engage with the piece of writing that you are creating. Long sentences and short paragraphs, this can be very useful into shortening passages and making them more impelling to read.

This can be achieved through writing a lot reading a lot and being able to express your own opinion without having setup formulas that you would use before you went into the exam.

TIPS FOR EFFECTIVE WRITING

Objective tips

  • you need variety this can help employ the reader to make it a more interesting read
  • make it sensuous and vivid visually so that the reader can absorb and understand what your are trying to say
  • anecdotes which are personally stories to show the reader examples and how you understand the passage that your are analysing 
  • vocab this is so important if you really want to express yourself during writing and to do this you NEED TO READ A LOT
  • just make it interesting for the reader

VOCABULARY 

1. Use analytical verbs: suggest, imply, describe, demonstrate,
convey, seem
2. Use modal verbs and adverbs to
show tentativeness:
V: might, could, may, should
A: probably, perhaps
3. Use pronouns and determiners
that add authority rather than
personalise ideas:
we/us/our
(Avoid ‘I’ and ‘me’)
4. Use occasional passive
constructions to add detachment:
it can be seen that, it might be thought, it
could be argued
5. Build a vocabulary that adds
precision and subtlety to your
expressions:
See the word cloud below: 80 words you
ought to know

THE THREE WWW

What 

  • is the text about
  • what type of text it is

Who

  • who wrote it 
  • who did he write it for a friend or someone like a king

HOW

  • structure
  • story in order or does it go all over the place
  • short or long sort of paragraphs if so why
  • how are the ideas linked 
  • sentences and word
  • formal
  • personal 
  • serious or not 
  • layout

how to read the passage

  • read it with an open mind 
  • analyse how they set it out 
  • heading 
  • is formal or informal
  • is it about in his life
  • is it chronological order
  • pictures if so what sort and why
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Chelsea

Well where do i start, well after they managed to gain the title “champions of Europe  when all they one was the europa, its like for someone who has one the championship calling themselves champions of England when well really they ARE NOT.

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Incredible

sky

To you, who read my words:

Writing is a gift, one I treasure each and every day, without it I would be completely lost. There are many ways to express what lies deep within our heart and soul and words to me are the most powerful of all. Looking deep I see a big castle with many, many rooms, in each one of them there is a little piece of me a facet of some kind. I go in a differernt room each time and in some of them I find you, unable to vocalize what’s in your heart so I go out and write it down for you, it’s my gift to you. Perhaps you are better expressing with actions what lies deep within your heart and that’s okay, but I want to forever leave the words sprinkled on my path so that others know what was in my heart.

I carry you around and look for ways to help you out, there is nothing I can do but to let you know I listen to your heart. If you are in darkness I want to bring you light and if you are sad I want to bring you hope and happiness. When you take the time to share with me your thoughts I pick jewels out of them and place them in my treasure box. I go there from time to time and then create the most beautiful writing pieces because they have a little of you and me. I can’t create a thing without you, because it is with you in my mind that I get inspired to go beyond the physical realm and reach across the cosmos to touch your soul and I hope I do. Thank you for reading my words…

 

 
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What i improved

Tenses

i found that with tenses is, is that when you come to write it can be very easy for me to get the tenses mixed up. Even though i would never do this while speaking i would often end up getting the tenses mixed while writing the piece of text.

I found that if i was to read the piece i had written through i could easily recognise where i had got the tenses wrong.

 

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Presentational Devices, Lypsyl

At the apogee of the page where the title is situated the letters are bright and vibrant and by using this presentational device it employs the reader which are mainly fifteen year old girls to notice and it draws their attention to the page because the letters are fun and exciting.

 

Also in the section of the page where there is a picture of two girls buying clothes and “having a good time” so subconsciously the girl subjective to that page think that the lypsyl is linked with having a good time and is something girls do in this contemporary age.

 

Also a 20p coupon is a great sort of carrot because for some people who would ordinarily buy different lip products they might see the 20p off voucher as an incentive to try the lypsyl.

 

Also the picture is a great presentational device as it symbolises the fact to the teenage girls that girls who like to do shopping and do girly stuff would also like the lypsyl.

 

It also uses colloquial language to show that it is not formal and engages the teenage girls readers (the main target audience) to think that it is relaxed and is friendly, so that in turn employs an effect on the reader that by the passage of text sounding like something written by a friend and friends share similar interests so this would reassure the girl that it is something that they would like.

 

Even the entry form entices the girl to buy the lypsyl because to enter you have to send a picture of you kissing anything, from pictures to pets. so by doing this it is making you think about your lips and then of course lip balm and the first lip balm they will think off is lypsyl.

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What i learnt in the lesson

I learnt that to create a great sentence you need to employ evocative language that makes the passage active as if it is doing something, by doing this you can ensure that you can achieve a level seven.

better ways of saying increasing 

e.g.

This increases the sense of….

this emphasises the sense of…

This accentuates the sense of…..

Also how to use figurative language  

Then a golden rule is too never ever say “THIS CREATES TENSION”

better ways you can say this 

This simile evokes the feeling of…

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A capsule in time

The capsule in time is a story in which people at wellington find a capsule in the ground and then strange things happen to them. A white fog impenetrable fog appears around the school which when touched for a long time kills them and any mirrors or teles when for certain people stood in front of a weird person who are normally old and then the person looking in the mirror vaporises. i thought that it was very nicely written with good langauge that was nice and easy but still vivid to read but the main thing that i did not like about the book or short story that was written was that the way they died was not very original or exciting as they just vaporise which is a bit old and has already been used.

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English project essay

Does Lance Armstrong deserve redemption?

 

Well first let’s start with his upbringing. He was born in Texas in September 1971 with the name Lance Edward Gunderson.  He had a very impoverished childhood.  He started his athletic career as a swimmer and placed fourth in the Texas 1,500m freestyle at the age of twelve.  Then from swimming he changed into becoming a triathlete and he won something called “the Iron Kids” at the age of just thirteen. He became the best triathlete in Texas at sixteen in the U19 section.

What did he “achieve”: using the word loosely. He won seven Tour de Frances, consecutively.   This was an incredible feet as it is one of the hardest physical challenges that a professional sportsman can undertake.  But then he didn’t really – he cheated.  Before his cycling “success” he survived cancer and this endeavour – twinned with his charitable fund-raising – sparked further admiration for this Lance Armstrong.  He managed to raise an astonishing US$20 million and – even though he did cheat – this is an incredible feet.

Now, what drugs did he actually use and how did they help him?  First, he used the drug called EPO (erythroprotien, a naturally occurring hormone) to conduct what is commonly known as blood doping. What this drug does is that it increases the amount of red blood cells and the haemoglobin that you have in your blood.  In turn this means that more oxygen can be absorbed into the blood and this translates into greater energy for the muscles and results in enhanced and prolonged performance. There are ways of doing this legally:  if an athlete trains at high altitude and then returns to a back near to sea level, the body naturally creates for more red blood cells for itself because the air is thinner at altitude and the body compensates by making more red blood cells. A similar effect by extracting a pint of blood from the body (which starts with roughly nine pints of blood) and then for the rest of that week before a match (or event), an athlete trains with only eight pints of blood.  Then an hour or shortly before a match the athlete will inject the blood back into the body.  The athlete then has an enriched blood supply – this isn’t legal by the way.   In any case, Armstrong wasn’t just using EPO he was using steroids as well – an anabolic steroid with tissue-building properties known as nandrolone.  Nandrolone is used for muscle strength and endurance and has been found in the bodies of the sprinters Ben Johnson and Linford Christie as well as numerous US pro footballers and baseball players.

Lance got caught – he’s never owned up – because of the USADA (the United States Anti Doping Authority).  They investigated Lance and conducted a series of interviews with his former teammates.  USADA asked them if they had witnessed whether Lance had used drugs or engaged in blood doping.  First of all they said that he was doing all of these things over a long period of time and further they said that they had all been coerced (nee threatened) that if they were going to remain as his teammates then they had to dope and take steroids as well.  So not only did he cheat but he ruined his teammates’ careers by forcing them to take the drugs as well.  A possible – if rather flimsy – justification is that when Lance was doing this everyone else on the Tour was going it to.  Maybe:  but no one else was forcing his teammates to do it and then threatening them (verbally, legally and physically) if they didn’t or if they had any thought of shopping him.   Armstrong didn’t contest the USADA charges –which would be almost impossible in light of the weight of evidence against him – but he did not admit to it either.  So he basically did it. People think that Armstrong will admit to it in a soft interview done by Opera Winfrey next week – she may even ask him what his favorite type of cupcake is.  Pity that Jeremy Paxman isn’t available.

Well why does he want redemption? I think the main reason why he wants redemption is because he does not really have any other choice.   Also, from many previous examples and trying to avoid national stereotypes too much (well not much really), Americans rather enjoy a journey of forgiveness and redemption. The way he may go about it is to “admit” rather selectively to what he has done.   The he may “apologize” to all the people whose lives he has ruined and then he may be asked a tough question about his favorite colour or a (cue tearful) moment from his childhood.

The other thing that strikes me (and is not easy to understand) is how he he managed to conceal an activity on such a scale for so long.   I reckon he bullied and pressurized a large amount of people to conceal his secret.  His masseuse famously accused him off doing the drug taking and doping and so he called her a prostitute and then filed false (and not very nice) legal allegations against her.  Oh and he threatened her physically as well.  Also sit seems almost certain that cycling global governing body the UCI colluded with Armstrong in the face of a colossal amount of evidence which is even more horrifying.  Lance even managed to avoid getting caught on the regular drug tests because UCI told him when they were coming and then even if he tested positive then ignored it.  So the people whom should be looking out for foul play and cheating where actually helping him do it. The reason for this could be that it would almost be too difficult (read embarrassing) not to and he (and they) had gone to far to turn back.  Amazingly, it does get even worse – as Lance would take the blood from blood banks that would ordinarily go to patients who needed it most and then he would filter out his old blood and take out the blood with the bad stuff in it just so he could get away with the cheating.

A shot at redemption – does he deserve it?  David Millar certainly doesn’t think so and I think I rather agree.

During the interview he admitted to doing all of the things that he did, he cheated in all of them but I quote, “it didn’t feel like cheating”, from his point of view, also throughout the interview he did not show much remorse. Then Armstrong also said that he had bullied his teammates. Lots of people feel that he did not show enough remorse, well because to be honest I do not think he really cares.

So throughout this passage we have discovered that he bullies people, Armstrong is a lying person who after given several opportunities still does not admit. Along with all this he has scared and ruined cyclists reputation for many years to come. He does not really deserve redemption but he might get it.

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