Think Like a Top GCSE English Scorer

In a GCSE English Language exam, when you're asked to analyse how a writer uses language, there are techniques that almost every student can spot. The lowest low-hanging fruits of all are similes. Just look for "like" or "as." The mere act of being able to identify a simile is therefore far from enough to distinguish your response from the hundreds of others an examiner will read in a week. To score high, you must demonstrate that, compared to the average student, you have both a sharper eye for language and a deeper understanding of its mechanics."

Below is my response to a question from a past GCSE English language paper. Notice how, even though I did identify the author’s use of simile, I expanded on why it works well. When she writes each raindrop falling on dry earth "sparked up a plume of dust so fine it looked like steam, making the soil look as if it were boiling," what is noteworthy isn’t the simile itself, but what it achieves. I pointed out the way she takes a tiny detail, the collision of a raindrop with dry earth, and reimagines it as something elemental: a battle between water and fire. This kind of elaboration is beyond the ability of the average student.

Also, take note of my ability to single out techniques the average student would almost certainly miss: the writer’s use of passive construction, and her decision to omit a word and let a sentence run without the verb it technically needs, in order to create the mood she wants. It is this level of observation that distinguishes a top-tier response in the eyes of an examiner.

Question

How does the writer use language to describe the rain and the storm?

Passage to be analysed:

Suddenly, there was a squall of activity all over the campsite as the sky darkened and the rain began to fall in thick, steady drops.  Caravan awnings were being winched in, windows slammed shut, towels were being hastily gathered and everywhere, families were retreating to the inside of their tents.  Because the ground was so dry, the patter of rain on the hard earth sounded almost metallic and each raindrop sparked up a plume of dust so fine it looked like steam, making the soil look as if it were boiling.  In the distance, a low rumble of thunder began rolling towards us, the starter flag for any decent storm, and the rain which had an individual and random quality became more pack-like, shifting shapes like a flock of starlings.  The storm was circling the area before clattering in to do its worst.  Soon, the rain was slashing down, the relentless battering against the tent canvas loud and frightening. 

My response

To underscore the helplessness that weighs on the writer and her fellow campers when the storm gathers above their campsite, Kennedy uses a series of passive constructions to describe the campers' response: "Caravan awnings were being winched in, windows slammed shut, towels were being hastily gathered." It is as if humans are at nature's mercy to such an extent that their only recourse is to react passively.

Kennedy uses a simile to show the power of the storm. When she writes "every drop of rain sparked up a plume of dust so fine it looked like steam, making the soil look as if it were boiling," she gives her reader a palpable sense of the rain by magnifying a small detail - the confrontation between the rain and the earth - and then reimagining it as an epic battle between the raw elements of water and fire. When she compares the appearance of the rain produced by an incoming storm to "a flock of starlings" that are "shifting shape," she helps the reader picture the rain's density. It is so heavy that normal visibility is no longer possible. All the campers see is a maddening flurry of wings.

Notably, Kennedy portrays the beginnings of the storm as "a low rumble of thunder [that] began rolling towards us.” The sound of the phrase itself allows her reader to almost hear the physical encroachment of the storm: "low" echoes the second syllable of "rumble," while "rumble" and "rolling" form an alliteration.

The relentlessness of the rain is highlighted through deliberate word choice. In the sentence "the rain was slashing down, the relentless battering against the tent canvas loud and frightening," Kennedy could have inserted another "was" between "canvas" and "loud," yet she deliberately refrains from doing so, relying on the first "was" to make the latter half of her sentence grammatical. This clever trick reinforces the sense that the rain is unceasing.