AQA GCSE English Language paper 1 walk through using June 2020 paper

1. AQA English Language Paper
1
Explorations in creative reading and writing
June 2020
https://www.physicsandmathstutor.com/past-papers/gcse-english-
language/aqa-paper-1/

2. FIRST Thing – read the whole question paper.
It will direct you to the key elements –
Q.1 – character – sympathy/empathy
Q.2 - The Garden= SETTING - MOOD/ATMOSPHERE
Q.3 – The structure (same question every time) but PROGRESSION/THE
JOURNEY
Q.4 – ‘disappearance’ ‘Rosie’s imagination’ – THE CHARACTERS and THE
SITUATION – MOOD/ATMOSPHERE
Q.5 – MYSTERIOUS/CAN’T BE EXPLAINED

3. What can the questions teach you?
Q.1 – The character will be key. New house/new start? ‘Overwhelmed’
Q.2 – The garden is threatening ‘gnarled…twisted’ Old and foreboding.
Q.3 – Starts in a typical domestic setting and then slowly introduces the
strangeness of the garden and the girl.
Q.4 – Her being overwhelmed and also the left-handedness hints at it
being in her imagination.
Q.5 – MYSTERIOUS/CAN’T BE EXPLAINED– how are any of these 2
things conveyed in the extract.

4. Q.1 – Rosie is… Rosie has…

5. Q.2 – The Garden
Rosie had made a quick check of the unfamiliar garden before letting the
children go out to play. The bottom half of the garden was an overgrown
mess, a muddle of trees and shrubs. An ancient mulberry tree stood at the
centre. Its massive twisted branches drooped to the ground in places, its
knuckles in the earth like a gigantic malformed hand. The wintry sun hung
low in the sky and the gnarled growth threw long twisted shadows across
the undergrowth within its cage. The trunk of the tree was snarled with the
tangled ivy that grew up through the broken bricks and chunks of cement,
choking it. The path that led down towards the fence at the bottom, which
marked the garden off from an orchard beyond, disappeared into a mass of
nettles and brambles before it reached the padlocked door.
What words are conjured/created –
STRANGE/ANCIENT/THREATENING/ABANDONED/UNKEMPT/MYSTERIOUS

6. Q.2 - LANGUAGE DEVICES
The garden is seen as an unknown, strange and brooding place. The word
‘ancient’ not only adding an air of mystery but also adding a layer of
permanence further emphasised by the way human constructions are left
as mere ‘broken bricks’ and ‘chunks of cement.’
The writer develops the image of the mulberry tree as a dominating and
supernatural force in the garden. Adjectives like ‘massive’ and ‘twisted’
establish the authoritative size and complexity of the tree and this is
further developed with the simile ‘like a gigantic malformed hand’. This
personifies the tree and gives it a sense of deliberate intent, as if it rules
over the elements of the garden around it. The ‘hand’ could imply a
supernatural power that has a sinister influence over the rest of the
garden.

7. AO2 content may include the effect of ideas such as:
• semantic field: ‘overgrown mess’ ‘muddle’, ‘broken’ to suggest disorder
and potential mystery
• adjectives: ‘massive’ ‘twisted’, to suggest the age/complexity/dominance
of the mulberry tree
• simile: ‘like a gigantic malformed hand’ to personify the tree and add a
supernatural element to its superiority
• metaphor: ‘the undergrowth within its cage’ to suggest the
imprisonment of the rest of the garden
• verbs: ‘snarled’ ‘choking’ to evoke a claustrophobic and threatening
atmosphere
• natural imagery: ‘nettles’, ‘brambles’, with possible connotations of pain.

8. Q.3 – structure
Where does it start? A sense of new beginnings but an immediate sense of
mystery with the introduction of the ‘stranger child’
2nd paragraph – FOCUSES on the details, the age of the house and the change
in the circumstances left vague as to the why. Then the cliff-hanger of another
child.
3rd paragraph – SHIFTS to the garden giving it a sense of mystery and the
gothic. Leaves the mystery of the child in the air.
4th Paragraph – FOCUSES on the strange child and why she is so out of place.
5th Paragraph – INTRODUCES doubt and shifts to a rational explanation.

9. • 6th ZOOMS in on the details and the bond between Rosie and the child.
• 7th FOCUSES in on Rosie’s bond and creates tension.
• 8 - FOCUSES in on how calm she is and her role as a mother.
• 9 – ENDs on the shift between the kitchen and the garden adulthood
and childhood.

10. Q.3 - Structure
Rosie’s journey is many layered from the kitchen sink and domesticity to finally
going out into the garden and childish uncertainty. The extract takes us from
new beginnings to new mysteries, the ambiguous nature of the ‘calm’ and
‘trauma’ established at the start continually heightened by the foreboding
garden and strange girl.
From the very first sentence, the writer carefully builds up the references to the
‘stranger child’ that run throughout the text. By introducing this unexplained
element straight away, it immediately establishes the mysterious atmosphere
of the extract. When we learn at the same time that this is the ‘first day at the
house’, the combination of these structural features is a narrative convention
for creating a sense of the unfamiliar within the supernatural genre. When at
the end it is suddenly revealed that she has ‘gone’, it completes a circular
structure that deepens our understanding that this is a mystery narrative.

11. AO2 content may include the effect of ideas
such as:
• narrative hook: reference to the ‘stranger child’ in the first line to create
suspense and mystery, especially alongside reference to moving to a new house
• description: detailed image of Rosie’s distorted view to imply sense of
uncertainty
• exposition of character: background information about Rosie, such as her
recent trauma, to intrigue the reader and perhaps make them doubt what she is
seeing
• focus shifts: description of garden to create mystery followed by description of
girl; movement from inside to outside and the window between the two
• perspective: use of questions to allow reader to share Rosie’s thought process
• climax: final line completes circular structure of story as we learn that the
stranger child is not there after all.

12. Q.4 – Is it in her imagination?
•The mystery as to why they have moved.
•Her sense of being overwhelmed.
•The unthreatening actions of the girl.
•The lack of response by the children.
•The links between R and the C.
•Maternal feelings from Rosie.

13. AO4 content may include the evaluation of
ideas such as:
• juxtaposition of reality and fantasy such as Rosie’s rational questions
contrasting to the more fairy tale ‘Cinderella’ description of the girl
• description of the girl’s ‘furtive’ behaviour as unnatural or suspicious
• use of animal imagery, ‘like the darting of the mouse’ to add to the elusive
nature of the girl
• description of the other children, such as the ‘unfazed’ Cara, to imply
nobody else is actually there
• hints of a supernatural connection to Rosie, such as the specific reference
to being ‘left-handed’
• final line with the simple declarative ‘the child was gone’ to perhaps
emphasise the girl was never there.

14. Q.4 – Focus on the question.
Rosie’s situation is ripe for flights of fancy and imagination. The
ambiguous reasons for moving, the emphasis on tiredness and the
strange antique glass between her and the mysterious garden place her
trapped in one role but yearning to be fulfilling another.
Despite Rosie’s initial thoughts, the writer includes so many clues that the
girl is imaginary that we are not at all surprised when she disappears. The
use of the simile ‘like a home-made Cinderella costume’ undercuts Rosie’s
attempted rational explanations and places the girl within the genre of
the fairy tale, signalling to the reader that we should not trust what Rosie
is seeing.

15. A reader familiar with fairy tales knows that they
are characterised by sudden disappearances and
unexplained events so it is not remotely
surprising to find that the girl has suddenly ‘gone’
at the end. The writer has left clues throughout
this section that there is something more
supernatural occurring in the garden than Rosie
ever realised, even if the reader suspected it
from the very start.

16. Q.5 – MYSTERIOUS/UNEXPLAINED
• Adjectives/adverbs
• Metaphors/similes
• Cyclical technique
• A central conceit/symbolism/motif

17. Initial thoughts
Doorways/portals
Other worlds/dimensions
Nature vs man made
Choosing to enter somewhere
Ancient/eldritch/eerie/gothic/
Heebie jeebies/spooky

18. Story – what is suggested?
• Imagination
• Nature/overgrown/degradation of man made things
• Calmness and trauma creating situations
• How can we use the extract?
• Inside vs outside
• Introduce and idea then move to something else to increase tension.
• Setting to create atmosphere/mood

19. Story – Unexplained event
It wasn’t so much the creepy trees, their skeletal twisted branches swinging with
sinister menace even in the absence of any discernible breeze. It was the
temperature drop, one side of the old gothic style gate was cold, as you would
expect for a brisk autumn day but a solitary step into the eerie grounds beyond the
gate produced a sharp dramatic drop in temperature.
-headstones
-weird statue seems to be watching
-the headstone they are visiting
-a strange sensation the statue has changed facial features
-a solitary tear on its cheek.
…As they ran out of the darkening cemetery, the last wispy strands of dusk making
the trees seem far more ominous and sinister. Their hearts pounded as if they
would burst from their chest. And as they gratefully flung themselves through the
gate a single drop of water could be heard hitting stonework a simple familiar
sound. But it seemed to echo throughout the cemetery.

20. Description
• Imagine a scene.
• Break it down into 5 key aspects.
• Vividly describe each one then move on to the next one.
• Try to encapsulate a moment in time. (not a still moment but a
moment)

21. Description – Mysterious Place
Mist coils and snakes around the skeletal trees. These bare, decaying
sentinels loom over the shrouded ground. The gates are half open, yet
look so permanent and ancient they seem incapable of any other state.
-strange shapes on the mist sticking out of the ground.
- Strange statue in corner
- One particular headstone
- A sole raven on a branch
…The raven watches thoughtfully over the cemetery its beady eye
focused on the eldritch gateway that protects its kingdom, its jet black
head starts as they seem to creak and slightly close.