The 'Sentimental' Answer: Inference Versus Quotation

Candidate B is closer, but the teacher should not simply award full marks and move on.

• The question asks what the writer suggests, not what words appear. Candidate A has spotted the adjective 'sentimental' but has attached it to the wrong noun. In the sentence 'We cannot afford to be sentimental about convenience', the writer is attacking an attitude towards convenience, not labelling opponents as sentimental people. A's answer is a quotation masquerading as an inference.
• Candidate B reconstructs the implied position: opponents prioritise convenience over safety and the wider community. That is a valid inference because the article has already referred to 'the daily danger at the school gate'. B should be taught to anchor 'children's safety' explicitly to that phrase, so the answer reads as inference from evidence rather than invention.
• Feedback to A: 'You found a key word, but you did not unpack it. Test your answer by asking: who or what is "sentimental" describing? Then ask what the writer wants the reader to think about the opponents.'
• Marking: one mark for identifying the implication about convenience; a second for developing it with a consequence (safety/community) and textual support. B's answer earns both if the link to the school gate is made explicit.

'It shows most parents agree' is retrieval plus a simple gloss; it does not answer how the writer uses the figure.

A full answer needs technique, effect and, ideally, framing:

• Selection and precision. The exact figure ('78% of 240 parents') creates an impression of scientific authority and makes the support look measurable rather than anecdotal.
• Framing of the opposition. The writer immediately contrasts the survey with the traders' association's complaint that businesses were ignored. This makes the opponents look like a narrow interest group defending profit, while parents appear as a broad majority.
• Reader positioning. The reader is invited to see pedestrianisation as the democratic, responsible choice; opposing it becomes difficult without seeming to ignore 'most parents'.
• Limits. A strong answer may note that 78% of 240 respondents is not 78% of all parents, which is exactly the kind of scepticism the question rewards if the writer's use of the figure is being evaluated.

So the move is from 'what the statistic says' to 'what work it does in the argument'. The student should write something like: 'The precise percentage lends authority to the pro-change side, and its contrast with the traders' complaint frames opponents as a self-interested minority.'

Treat the mark scheme as indicative, not as a list of required words.

• The article's phrase 'the daily danger at the school gate' implies risk to children; 'children's safety' is a legitimate paraphrase, not an invention, provided the candidate connects it to that phrase.
• The teacher should reward B's inference and then ask B to quote or paraphrase the textual trigger. This teaches the difference between an unsupported assertion and an evidence-based inference.
• If a candidate wrote 'children's safety' with no reference to the gate or danger, the teacher can still credit the idea but should note that the support is thin; at SEC level, the quality of support matters.
• The feedback should not tell the class 'the mark scheme says children's safety', because that encourages phrase-matching. Instead: 'The mark scheme accepts this idea because the text implies danger at the gate; your job is to show that link.'
• In a review lesson, put both answers on the board and ask students to highlight the words in the text that license each inference. This makes the marking decision transparent without reducing comprehension to guess-the-phrase.