How to get a 7 on paper1 Eng L&L SL? Can English teachers get a 7 in English?
Hello fellow/ future IB English L&L sufferee.
The paper 1 is undoubtedly one of the most challenging part of this course because it can test you on any text type and you have very limited time to work with. Here are some advices to get a better grade on the paper 1 that I’ve gathered this year in HL L&L:
Make sure you understand the main non-literary text types. This includes graphical texts like posters, advertisements, and cartoons, and more text-based ones like speeches, articles, interviews, etc. You should have a solid understanding of common techniques used across various text types such as tone, diction, the various appeals, etc. You should also be able to identify and analyze techniques specific to certain text types like bleeding for comics and synthetic personalization for advertisements. Identifying and analyzing these techniques are crucial in demonstrating your understanding of the text.
Sometimes it is easy to get overwhelmed by the abundance of techniques in each text. Sometimes it is tempting to analyze all the techniques you see, which is something I’ve done before in the paper 1, which unfortunately often result in the analysis being shallow and basic. My English teacher recommended me to analyze no more than 3-4 techniques per paper, which is an advice I will also include here as that will ensure detailed and broad analysis of the text.
Some of the sample paper 1s do not include a thesis yet still scored very high. My advice on this is to still use a thesis as it help you keep your paper coherent and focused. At the same time, it is also important to be flexible in terms of your writing and use the best structure and layout of the paper for your specific text. This will mostly depend on what will be the focus of your analysis and how will you be connecting each part of your paper.
To get a 6/7, you must get on the level of critique. This means that beyond just pointing out “xxx used yyy for the purpose of zzz”, you must also be able to discuss whether xxx’s usage of yyy for zzz is effective and/or ethical. For example, many advertisements use synthetic personalization to appeal to individual’s insecurities to get them to purchase the advertised product. One may argue that although this is a very effective technique as many consumers’ actions are driven by their need to sooth their insecurities, the usage of this technique for such purpose may be considered unethical as it directly triggers negative emotions of the consumer to motivate them to do something. That is an example of a critique you can make on the texts, and you should try to include at least a few sentences of critique in your paper 1s’.
Now answering: " Can English teachers get a 7 in English",
I’ll say yes, they can get a 7, but they won’t get full score. I know this because we graded one of my teacher’s response to a text in class and although it was very good, there are always aspects of it that it may improve upon and some aspects of the grading rubric is more subjective (which is something that I really dislike, but it is what it is). Overall, I think a 7 is definitely obtainable in English, and I urge you to not worry about whether its a low 7 like 18/20 or full score like 20/20 - getting a 7 is already hard enough.
I hope you found this response helpful and I’m always down to offer more help on English in general. Thanks for the question!
Dear Letterbox