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- Your toolkit: word classes and language terms
Your toolkit: word classes and language terms
GCSE questions ask how writers use language. To answer well you need the right names for words and techniques, plus the habit of explaining their effect.
Word classes
Language techniques
Name it, then explain it
Spotting a technique is only the start. Examiners reward what you say about its effect.
Explain the effect of 'The wind prowled round the cottage'.
- Name it: personification, because the wind is given an animal or human action.
- Zoom in: 'prowled' is how a predator moves when hunting.
- Effect: the wind seems to be stalking the cottage, which makes it feel threatening.
Answer: The personified verb 'prowled' makes the wind sound like a hunter circling its prey, so the storm feels dangerous.
Learn the word classes and the main techniques, but always go further: zoom in on a precise word and explain what it makes the reader think or feel.
The interactive lesson includes the diagrams for this topic.
Check you have got it
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