Composing (Paper 1)
What the Composing task asks
Section I of Paper 1 is worth 100 marks and asks you to write one extended piece chosen from a set of prompts, with roughly 1 hour 20 minutes of the 2 hour 50 minute paper available for it. Each prompt names a purpose (to entertain, persuade, inform, reflect) and an audience (a magazine, a blog, a competition). Marks are awarded under Purpose, Coherence, Language and Mechanics, with Purpose and Coherence carrying the most weight.
Core rules
- Decide the genre before writing: personal essay, persuasive article, short story, informative piece, descriptive or aesthetic piece.
- State a controlling idea in your plan; every paragraph should advance it.
- Open inside the subject, not with a dictionary definition or "In this essay I will…".
- Keep voice and register consistent with the named audience.
- Vary sentence length, use connectives, and paragraph deliberately.
Worked example
Prompt: "Write a personal essay for a weekend magazine on the theme of learning to wait." Purpose: reflective personal essay. Audience: general magazine readers, so an accessible, lightly literary register. Plan: a concrete moment of waiting in a hospital corridor; an earlier childhood memory of waiting; the insight that waiting can be a form of attention; a return to the corridor image, changed. The reasoning: the prompt says personal essay, so the "I" must reflect rather than invent; the magazine audience rules out an academic tone; the returning image supplies coherence.
Traps
- Genre drift: writing a short story when a personal essay is asked for.
- Ignoring the stated audience and purpose.
- A long, throat-clearing introduction.
- Cliché such as "In today's fast-paced world".
- Narration without reflection.
- Sloppy paragraphing and spelling, which costs Mechanics marks.