The big idea: Most lost marks come from a few repeat mistakes: feature-spotting, retelling the text, no clear focus, and forgetting the reader/effect. Learn to catch each one as you write.
Examiners see the same handful of errors again and again — which is good news, because you can learn to avoid every one of them.
🚩 The big four: naming devices without effect (feature-spotting); summarising the plot; listing points with no argued focus; and analysing in a vacuum, forgetting who the text is FOR and what it DOES. Fix these four and you clear the bands most students get stuck below.
The big mistakes (and the fix)
Feature-spotting → add effect
‘There is a metaphor’ fixes to ‘the metaphor makes X feel Y, evaluated as…’.
Summary → analysis
Retelling the text ‘this is about…’ fixes to analysing CHOICES → meaning.
No focus → thesis
A device-list fixes to one thesis every paragraph proves.
Ignoring the reader → link to effect/audience
Analysing in a vacuum fixes to ‘which affects the reader by…’.
The key move: As you write, self-check for the big four: have I given the EFFECT, avoided SUMMARY, kept a FOCUS, and linked to the READER? If not, fix it on the spot.
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Why it matters in the exam: These errors map directly onto lost criteria: feature-spotting and ignoring effect cost B; summary and no focus cost A and C. Knowing them turns vague ‘be better’ feedback into a concrete checklist.
Diagnose and fix this weak paragraph: ‘This text is about a woman leaving her job. There is a metaphor and a rhetorical question. It uses short sentences too. This makes it interesting.’
Model answer plan
See the mark-by-mark plan — for / against / judgement, with marking guidance — in study mode.
Watch out: The sneakiest mistake is feature-spotting in disguise: ‘the writer uses a metaphor to show a metaphor of X’. If your sentence doesn't name an EFFECT on meaning or the reader, it isn't analysis yet.