Model Answers (AQA GCSE English Literature)

Model Answers

Below you will find a full-mark, Level 6 model answer for a modern text essay. Commentary below each section of the essay illustrates how and why it would be awarded Level 6. Despite the fact it is an answer to An Inspector Calls question, the commentary below is relevant to any modern text question.

A student-friendly mark scheme has been included here:

Model Answer Breakdown

The commentary for the below model answer as arranged by assessment objective: each paragraph has a commentary for a different assessment objective, as follows:

• The introduction includes commentary on all the AOs

• Section 1 includes commentary on AO1 (answering the question and selecting references)

• Section 2 includes commentary on AO2 (analysing writer’s methods)

• Section 3 includes commentary on AO3 (exploring context)

• The conclusion includes commentary on all the AOs

The model answer answers the following question:

Level 6, full-mark answer:

Priestley demonstrates Sheila’s capacity to learn important lessons about herself and society throughout An Inspector Calls. As her character develops, Priestley uses her to highlight his message about social and collective responsibility suggesting that everyone in the play, including the audience and wider society, also have important lessons to learn.

Commentary:

• The introduction is in the form of a thesis statement

• It includes a central argument based on my own opinions

• It includes key words from the question:

  • “Priestley demonstrates Sheila’s capacity to learn important lessons about herself and society throughout An Inspector Calls.”

• It takes a whole-text approach, referencing characters across the whole text:

  • “Priestley uses her to highlight his message about social and collective responsibility suggesting that everyone in the play, including the audience and wider society…”

• It acknowledges Priestley as a writer making deliberate choices and conveying a message

  • “Priestley uses her to highlight his message …. that everyone in the play, including the audience and wider society, also have important lessons to learn.”

• It includes modal language to show a conceptualised approach

Priestley demonstrates Sheila’s capacity to learn important lessons about herself and society as Act I develops and he uses her character to highlight his message about social and collective responsibility. Priestley first presents Sheila to the audience as “a pretty girl in her twenties, very pleased with life and rather excited” which suggests a silliness and perhaps also a naivety about her character. She is initially depicted as self-interested, relishing her engagement to Gerald, which fully aligns her with her family’s shallow and materialistic outlook. However, once the Inspector arrives, Sheila begins to change as she quickly learns the important lesson of personal and social responsibility while many of the others refuse to do so. Further, as a character, Sheila learns to become much more sympathetic and courageous. She is the first character (apart from the Inspector) to empathise with Eva Smith’s predicament and she is also the first to confess to having treated the girl poorly. She dramatically exits the stage when first shown a photograph of Eva and Priestley presents her as genuinely regretful of her actions. This growing maturity is also further revealed when Gerald’s affair is exposed, as she again demonstrates an understanding of his affair by applauding his honest confession. Similarly, she is also the first character to suspect the authenticity of the Inspector, though she comes to realise this is irrelevant. Although Priestley presents Sheila as somewhat self-interested at the beginning of Act I, there are early indications that she is a caring character and that she has the capacity to learn important lessons about herself and society in general.

Commentary:

• Paragraph begins with a topic sentence

• Topic sentence directly addresses the question (“Sheila’s capacity to learn important lessons”)

• Topic sentence has a narrower focus than the thesis statement

• The whole paragraph is related to the topic sentence

• Paragraph includes multiple references to the rest of the text

• All references are linked to the question, and support the argument of my topic sentence

Priestley demonstrates Sheila’s capacity to learn through her increasingly emotional language. Her dialogue reveals her sensitive nature and compassion and empathy for others less fortunate than herself. When she discovers Eva’s fate, she is inconsolable: “I can't help thinking about this girl - destroying herself so horribly”. Priestley sharply contrasts this with the pompous language of her father and the condescending tone of her mother. Indeed, Structurally, Priestley creates a strong contrast in the first half of Act I compared to the second half in terms of Sheila’s character and mood: while the first half illustrates the prosperity and smugness of the Birling family, the second half enables the audience to observe its destruction, as unlike Sheila, many of the characters fail to learn from their mistakes. Similarly, Sheila’s dialogue also demonstrates her increasing assertiveness towards her parents. Even at the beginning of the play, she challenges her father’s opinions about the workers in his factory, by asserting: “but these girls aren’t cheap labour, they’re people”. As the play progresses, she continues to challenge her parents for not learning from the Inspector, thus illustrating her greater capacity to learn from her mistakes. While both Sheila and Eric learn more lessons than the other characters in the play, it is Sheila who is transformed more than any other character. Although Eric echoes many of his sister’s sentiments, Sheila is a much more assertive, alluring and intuitive character than her brother. Priestley uses this intuition to foreshadow later events in the play. For example, she makes the comment to Gerald: “…except for all last summer, when you never came near me, and I wondered what had happened to you” which is used to allude to Gerald’s affair with Eva. Therefore, Priestley uses Sheila as a symbol of hope for the younger generation by demonstrating her capacity for change and her acceptance of both personal and social responsibility, which is one of Priestley’s fundamental messages in the play.

Commentary:

• The analysis provides evidence for the points in the topic sentence (all evidence relates to Sheila’s capacity to learn important lessons)

• Whole-text analysis of the writer’s methods

• The analysis includes other wider choices made by the writer: 

  • Characterisation

  • Structure

• All analysis is explained fully in terms of the question and my own argument

• The analysis explained in terms of the writer’s overall message

As the play progresses, Priestley continues to present Sheila as a character who is learning to change her behaviour and attitudes. For example, at the beginning of the play, she largely plays a typical role within her patriarchal society and is obedient to her father. However, as the play develops, Sheila begins to challenge her father and her dialogue increasingly demonstrates an assertiveness towards her parents. Priestley uses Sheila to show how women were learning important lessons about their role in the home and society, as this was a period when women’s rights were being sought through the suffragette movement. Indeed, this growing agitation for gender equality is also evident through Sheila’s refusal to continue her engagement with Gerald even though he claims “everything’s all right now”. By offering the ring again to Sheila, Priestley also shows Gerald has not learned anything from the Inspector, which is in stark contrast to Sheila, who has learned so much. Sheila belongs to a class where women would never be expected to provide for themselves and although she uses her power and position to suppress another female by having her fired, she does demonstrate a capacity to learn from that mistake: “And I know I'm to blame – and I'm desperately sorry”. Sheila’s acceptance that she is responsible and accountable for her actions underscores Priestley’s message that members of society have duties and obligations towards the welfare of others and that they have a collective and social responsibility to take care of each other. Towards the end of the play, Sheila’s language is full of irony in order to highlight Priestley’s message even further, when she says: “So there's nothing to be sorry for, nothing to learn. We can all go on behaving just as we did”. For Priestley and Sheila, there are many important lessons to be learned by everyone.

Commentary:

• Does not include any irrelevant historical or biographical facts

• All context is linked to the topic sentence (“Priestley uses Sheila to show how women were learning important lessons about their role in the home and society”) and the argument as a whole

• All context is integrated into the analysis of the writer’s methods

• Understanding contextual ideas and perspectives provides additional insight to my main argument

• Context is sometimes implied, rather than explicit. This still shows sophisticated awareness of ideas (“and although she uses her power and position to suppress another female by having her fired, she does demonstrate a capacity to learn from that mistake”)

To conclude, Priestley presents Sheila’s capacity to learn important lessons about herself and society in order to convey Priestley’s message that all actions have consequences and that everyone can learn something from their past actions. Sheila’s ability to change is used by Priestley as a symbol of hope for the younger generation and her capacity to change and her acceptance of social and collective responsibility demonstrates Priestley’s insistence that this extends beyond the confines of a family unit and spreads to society as a whole: to learn important lessons about ourselves and society is a fundamental aspect of his message.

Commentary:

• Conclusion uses key words from the question

• Conclusion links to thesis

• Conclusion sums up more detailed arguments outlined in topic sentences of all paragraphs

• It also gives a fuller understanding of the writer’s intentions, based on ideas explored in the essay