From analysis to judgement
What "respond critically" adds to Level 2
- At Level 2, AS91100 asks you to analyse — to explain how meanings and effects are created.
- At Level 3, AS91474 asks you to respond critically, which the Explanatory Notes define as making evaluative interpretations and judgements.
- So a Level 2 answer is the first half of a Level 3 answer. It is not wrong. It is unfinished.
- The commonest Level 3 failure is a good Level 2 answer — accurate, evidenced, well written, and one sentence short. That is why strong candidates are the ones most often surprised by their grade.
- The paper's verb reflects this. It says Discuss, not Analyse. Discuss asks for a position; analyse asks for an account.
The grade ladder, defined once
| Grade | The standard's word | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Achieved | respond critically to significant aspects | Evaluative interpretations and judgements, evidenced |
| Merit | convincingly | Reasoned, clear and discerning |
| Excellence | perceptively | Insightful and/or original, and sophisticated |
- Sophisticated describes how a claim is handled, not how the prose sounds — proportion, concession, two-sidedness, ranking your aspects, and declaring where the reading stops. Elevated vocabulary, a more extreme reading and extra length are the substitutes markers recognise instantly: if replacing a term with plain words leaves the interpretation unchanged, the term was decoration.
The four judgements available
- Does it work? Is the effect achieved, and where does it strain? The second half is where the marks are — an effect achieved everywhere is a claim about a perfect text, and there are none.
- What does it cost? Every choice forecloses something. A narrator who never states feeling cannot be shown changing their mind.
- How significant is it? Governing the passage, or decorating one sentence? Ranking is a judgement, and the one most often skipped.
- How does it compare? To the rest of the passage, or to what the form usually does.
- One judgement, made properly, beats four named.
The disagreement test
- Test every sentence: could a well-read person disagree with it?
- The writer repeats the question about the drive — nobody can disagree. It is a description.
- The repetition is the passage's most efficient choice, because it conveys the mother's condition without the narrator having to name it — a reader could disagree, and would have to argue. It is a judgement.
- If a sentence cannot be disagreed with, the paragraph is not finished. And judgement words are not judgements: writing effective or striking and stopping is a description with an adjective attached. The judgement is in the reason, so because should follow in the same sentence.
Judgement is not opinion
- A judgement is evidenced; an opinion is not. Supported by evidence is in the standard's title, and it binds hardest here, because you cannot fall back on knowing the text. Every claim needs a short quotation, and a claim about a pattern needs the pattern shown in more than one place.
- A judgement can be negative, and an argued objection is often the most original thing available, because the pile is overwhelmingly appreciative. Unevidenced dismissal is never permitted.
- The check that disarms a bad objection: say what the writer was trying to do before saying it did not work. Most failed objections criticise a deliberate effect.
Two-sided judgement, which is where the grades are
- The strongest judgements say two things about one choice. A restraint can be genuinely effective and evasive. Understatement can produce sympathy while denying a character the language to describe themselves.
- This is not hedging. Hedging refuses to decide; two-sided judgement decides, then names what the decision cost. After every analytical point, ask and what does that cost? — one sentence, and it converts description into evaluation more reliably than anything else in this topic.
Worked Example
Worked Example
Treat the extract below, written for this topic, as a text supplied in the exam.
Task: finish one Level 2 observation three ways.
Answer:
The Level 2 observation. The narrator notes that the visitor's chair is better than the patient's, which shows the hospital is designed around visitors. Accurate, evidenced, and it stops. Now the finishes.
Does it work? It works because it is delivered as a fact rather than a complaint — "which tells you something" hands the conclusion to the reader. It strains in that same phrase, the one moment the narrator addresses us directly, which the passage otherwise refuses to do.
What does it cost? The flatness costs the narrator the chance to say what they feel. The writer buys credibility and pays in access: from here the narrator can only show us feeling by accident.
How significant is it? It establishes the rule the whole passage runs on, so it governs how every later sentence is read.
A Level 3 sentence is one a well-read person could argue with.