Your exam, not someone else's: how each board asks about this play

Picture one paragraph about Arthur Birling. It picks apart his words, and it sets him in the history of nineteen twelve and nineteen forty-five. Four exam boards set this play - and they would not pay for that paragraph in the same way. On one, the history earns nothing on its own. On another, the close work on his words earns nothing on its own. Which parts of that paragraph pay depends on the paper you sit, and this video sorts out which is which.

This is the video about your own exam paper. Every other video on the play teaches the play itself, beginning with An Inspector Calls: An overview.

Each board asks about this play in its own shape. The four shapes are set out here under their boards' names, so find yours first. Two boards set an essay on the play as a whole, with no extract printed. You choose one question from two, and you write from memory. On one of those two, the question itself tells you to refer to the context of the play. Context means the world the play was written in and set in: nineteen forty-five and nineteen twelve. A third board prints an extract from the play. You answer on that extract and on the rest of the play around it. The fourth board splits its task in two. The first part sets an extract from this play beside an unseen extract from a different text, and asks you to compare them. Comparing with an unseen text is a skill of its own, taught in its own videos, so this one leaves it there. The second part asks you to explore another moment in the play. Now, picture a student handed a page from An Inspector Calls, with one question on it and the rest of the play. Which of the four shapes is that: an essay, the extract task, or the two-part task? The extract task. The two-part task would add an unseen text beside it, and the essays give you no extract at all.

Now, the paragraph about Birling, written out in full, so you can watch each board read it. It opens with a claim: Priestley makes Birling a man who measures everything in money. Then, close work on his words. Birling calls himself a hard-headed business man, and hard-headed boasts that feeling plays no part in his decisions. Then history. Priestley sets Birling in nineteen twelve and writes for nineteen forty-five, so his audience already knows the world Birling is so sure of is about to fall apart. On the essay board that asks for context, the history is a big part of what is rewarded, and this paragraph earns it. That board sets nothing aside for close work on language, so hard-headed has to serve the argument. On the other essay board, all three strands are rewarded: the claim, the close work on words, and the history, as long as the history is woven into the argument rather than bolted on. On the extract board, context earns nothing as background. The claim and the close work on his words carry the paragraph there. But that does not mean never mention the dates. Material about class and status is still credited on that board when it explains a character, as part of your argument. Look at the sentence in trouble on the extract board, the history sentence, and keep it rather than cut it. How could you rewrite that sentence so it earns its place on the extract board? Make it explain Birling. His audience knows his certainty is wrong, so Priestley is warning them not to trust his judgement of Eva either. On the two-part board, the second part wants one moment explored in depth. This paragraph only works there if Birling is that moment and the question is about him.

That second part, another moment in the play, starts with a choice, and the choice shapes everything written after it. Take a question in that shape: explore another moment in the play where prejudice decides how a person is treated. Prejudice means judging someone before you know them, by the group they belong to. One student chooses the Inspector's final speech. Another chooses Sybil at her committee, turning Eva away after the girl had called herself Mrs Birling. Both moments are real, and both belong to the evening's big ideas. Which choice answers a question about prejudice better, and why? Sybil at the committee. It is one moment where a person is treated badly because of who she is taken to be. The final speech speaks about everyone, and nobody is treated in it. One examiner's report, on a question in that shape, says: Less successful moments tended to focus on Mr Birling as a capitalist businessman, or the Inspector's final speech where many candidates analysed it closely but did not link it to the question in terms of how prejudice influences the way a person is treated. In plain words, famous moments were picked for being famous, then analysed closely instead of being used to answer the question. What works instead is choosing the moment for the question, not for its fame, and staying inside it: one moment, explored closely, with precise references. That second part carries a second trap - and it is about context. A report from a different year says: Some candidates think the A O three is assessed in part b of Section A. Candidates should not include contextual information unless it is directly linked to the exploration of the text in addressing A O one. So context has to earn its place. A O three is the exam's label for context, and A O one is your argument about the text. In that second part, context only earns its place as part of what you say about the moment. The habit to take in: a fact about nineteen twelve that is not explaining your moment comes out.

Every video on this play gives each quotation a short form to learn. But how exact that learning must be depends on your paper. The rule that holds on every board: a precise, relevant reference is rewarded, and where your point is about the words, the exact words have to be on the page. The two-part board is the strict one. Learn the quotation word for word, know the moment it comes from, and never paraphrase where a quotation is expected. The extract board looks for short, exact quotations you can analyse, so learn the short forms exactly. On the essay without context in its question, a precise reference is rewarded, though exact recall is not required. On the essay that asks for context, a line put in your own words is credited, as long as the speaker is right. Here's a student on the strict two-part paper who retells Sheila's warning to her mother, in paraphrase. Is that paraphrase enough on the strict board, and why? No. That task expects the quotation itself, so the exact words must be written down: a kind of wall between us and that girl. However your paper is shaped, a long essay question wants one argument carried all the way through, never a list of points. One chain, five links: every link hands her on to the next. The chain is the same on every paper; what changes is what your paper pays you to say about it.

Your own paper first, and then two students who misread theirs. What shape is your own task, and what is one thing it does not pay for? The extract task pays nothing for background history. The two-part task's second part pays nothing for context either. The essay that asks for context sets nothing aside for close work on language. Here's a student on the extract task who writes a paragraph on nineteen twelve and leaves the family out of it. What happens to that paragraph on the extract task, and what rescues it? On its own it earns nothing there. Tie each fact to what Birling does, and it becomes an argument about a character. A different student sits the essay that tells you what to refer to, and analyses nothing but Priestley's language. What has that student left out, and why does it matter there? The context that question asked for. That board sets a big share aside for it, and close work on words alone cannot fill that share. The paragraph about Birling from the start of this video is four different answers, and only one of them is yours.

Tap the thumbs-up when your own paper holds no surprises. Unsure which board you sit? Ask your teacher tomorrow, and the rest of this falls into place.

Next in the chapter: One question, start to finish, planning and writing the answer.

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