English Response, French Evidence
An English-language response task asks you to evaluate how the prescribed text uses a secondary character to illuminate the protagonist. You write in English, but the only evidence you can recall is in French, and you are unsure whether to quote the French directly, translate it, or describe it. Your draft currently includes two French quotations with no translation and one translated quotation whose French original you have paraphrased loosely. The response is capped at 500 words and you are at 470. You have 15 minutes to revise.
1. Decide how to handle the French quotations in an English response and justify the choice.
Read the worked answer
In an English response, French quotations should be brief, integrated, and immediately glossed in English so the argument never depends on the reader decoding French. Keep at most one short French phrase if its wording itself is the point, and translate or paraphrase the rest. The two untranslated quotations in the draft are a risk: they interrupt the English argument and, if the wording is approximate, invite an accuracy objection. Convert them to English paraphrase with a note of the technique, and retain one short French phrase only where the exact word carries the interpretation. This keeps the response readable and keeps the evidence subordinate to the evaluation the question actually rewards.
2. You are 30 words over the cap with 15 minutes left. What do you cut first?
Read the worked answer
Cut the loosest translated quotation first, because it is both the least reliable evidence and the least load-bearing for your argument. Replace it with a single evaluative sentence that states the effect directly, which typically saves 20-30 words while strengthening the analysis. Do not cut the thesis or the concluding evaluation, since those carry the judgement the question asks for. Then reread for any sentence that restates the plot without evaluating it; those are the next candidates. The judgement is to protect argumentative spine and evidential accuracy, and to sacrifice breadth of example rather than the clarity of the central evaluation.