Describe A Scary Place

(Writing to Describe / Explain)

Question:

What kind of describing questions will I get in the exam, and how can I revise to answer them?

Answer:

It’s unlikely the actual question you will get can be predicted, but it will probably be something similar to:

Describe a scary place or Describe your ideal place.

The best way to revise is to practise planning, because remember planning usually pushes students up 2 or 3 grades. You don’t get marks for planning, but you do improve the quality of your writing in terms of structure – and development and detail.

Here’s how you plan for the Exemplar questions:

• Think of a place.

• Break it down into categories:

Buildings

People

Atmosphere

• Then fill in the details for each category.

Buildings

–          old

–          crumbling bricks

–          dark

–          candlelight

People

–          one person

–          alone

–          limping

–          scarred

–          missing teeth

–          tall

Atmosphere

–          windy and rainy

–          thunder and lightning

–          fog

–          very eerie

–          echoes

–          flickering lights

• Decide what you notice first, second and third and so on for each category. Number the dashed bullet points, making connections as much as possible. For atmosphere, notice how I’ve put everything to do with weather together.

• Then describe each aspect in detail. Don’t try to say everything at once. It doesn’t matter if you don’t get through everything on your list. The important thing is to write coherently and in detail. Your paragraphs should link together smoothly.

• Once you’ve described a scary place, have a go at describing your favourite place. This is more practice which should make you feel more confident – and therefore calmer – in your actual exam.

• How do you know if what you’ve written is any good?

– Read it through! Does it make sense?

– Read it aloud but only breathe when your punctuation tells you to. If you nearly

die when you read it, put full stops and commas in at sensible intervals.

– Have you described vividly?

– Get a friend to draw the scene you’ve described. Is it as you imagined it?

– Have you used exclamation and question marks, apostrophes and brackets?

– Is your vocabulary good? Have you used words the average 10 year old doesn’t understand? Get a ten year old. Ask him if there are words he doesn’t understand.

– Have you used mostly long sentences with one or two short sentences for impact?