The exam paper and the aspect categories
What the paper gives you
- Five questions. You answer ONE. There is no compulsory question and no second essay.
- Every stem begins Analyse how… The verb never changes. What changes is the aspect named and the effect on the audience it is tied to.
- The booklet has a tick box for the text type — film, television, radio, drama production, graphic novel, oral performance, digital or online text — and space for the title and creator. The written-text booklet (AS91098) and this one are separate, and you may not answer both.
- The paper prints its own guidance: a concise essay of no more than four to five pages, and quality of analysis matters more than length. A six-page essay is usually a plot summary that grew.
The glosses printed on the paper
- The paper defines its own key words beside the questions, and the definitions are wider than students expect.
- Ideas may refer to character, theme or setting — so an ideas question can be answered through one character.
- Structure may refer to the order, organisation or conventions of a text. Conventions counts: what the form normally does, and what this text does with that expectation.
- Setting covers social and historical context, not only physical place.
- The glosses widen your options; they never narrow them.
The audience verbs — what makes this paper different
- AS91098 usually ties an aspect to a meaning. AS91099 ties it to what the text does to you. The recurring verbs are manipulate, provoke, encourage, take sides, fulfil or ruin expectations.
- This changes your last sentence. …which shows the character is isolated answers the wrong question; …so we are placed outside the room and share the discomfort of watching answers this one.
- It makes your own reaction usable — but only anchored to the choice that produced it.
The grade ladder — explained once, here
| Grade | The standard's word | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Achieved | analyse | You explore and interpret how meanings and effects are created, in essay format |
| Merit | convincingly | Reasoned and clear, and the majority of your interpretations are connected to each other |
| Excellence | perceptively | Insightful and/or original interpretations |
- The rest of this topic names these grades without redefining them.
The four aspect categories
- Only the language features differ from AS91098. Structure is the least crowded category on the paper, and it suits a text in which nothing can be quoted.
- A topic cannot be analysed, because every scene supports it equally. Family is a topic; in this family care is expressed through work rather than speech is an idea.
- The word specified in the title is doing work: every paragraph must stay on, and end on, the aspect the question named.
- Choosing your question takes three checks: can you describe three specific moments, say what they did to the audience, and show that they connect?
Worked Example
Worked Example
Scene — "The Kitchen", written for this site so it can be analysed in full. Late afternoon. Mere, 16, has come home to tell her father she is leaving for Auckland.
Shot 1 — wide, static, from the far doorway: Mere just inside the door, her father at the table with his back to her, peeling potatoes, the table between them. Held eleven seconds. No music, only the peeler. Shot 2 — mid shot of the father, still from behind; he does not turn. Shot 3 — close-up of Mere; she opens her mouth, then closes it. Two seconds. Shot 4 — the wide shot again, identical framing to Shot 1. Mere says, "I've got the bus at six." The peeling stops. Silence. Shot 5 — close-up of the father's hands, motionless on the potato. Shot 6 — wide, held. He says, "There's kai in the oven." The peeling resumes. Fade to black.
Show how one scene answers a question from each of the four categories.
Purposes and audiences — Analyse how a text positioned its audience in relation to a character. The camera never takes the father's eyeline: we are given Mere's face and the father's hands, so the scene grants access to one person and denies it to the other, placing us in the doorway of a family we do not belong to.
Ideas — Analyse how an idea was developed through a character. In this house care travels through work rather than speech — he peels through his daughter's arrival, stops at her announcement, resumes under his reply. Three uses of one prop.
Language features — Analyse how sound was used to manipulate the viewer's response. There is no score anywhere in the scene, so the viewer must read a domestic noise instead, and when the peeling stops that silence is the loudest event — manipulation by subtraction.
Structures — Analyse how the structure of part of a text created an effect. Shots 1, 4 and 6 are the same wide static shot, so the most significant announcement of Mere's life leaves the picture exactly as it found it.