1. Don't just talk about one person's words in the conversation. Look at everyone's words.

2. Don't just say things without explaining them. Always give reasons.

3. Don't decide what stage of learning someone is in without looking at their words closely.

4. Don't just mention famous thinkers without saying how their ideas relate to what you're talking about.

5. Don't talk about things that aren't related to what's written in the text.

6. Don't start with big numbers or facts that don't really help your answer.

7. Don't ask questions in your writing without answering them. It makes it hard to understand.

8. Don't talk about things that aren't about language in your essay.

9. Don't use hard words without explaining them or understanding what they mean.

10. Don't go off-topic or talk about things that aren't in the question or the text.

Section A Q1

*It is not a requirement for a response to be structured by orthography, lexis, grammar, pragmatics, morphology and semantics.

These are great to bring up but not all may be relevant or necessary.

*Do not use historic or sociological content.

Although sometimes it may be useful it can easily get off topic on the question.

*Reasons should not be heavily discussed, it can weaken the analytical standpoint.

Be elaborate and take out a necessary fluff.

*Responding the question from the order of the sources given limits development of ideas.

It is best to give a response in a scramble order of the sources to create different connections between the sources.

*Weak responses gave only some knowledge on linguistic issues.

Make sure to know the different issues that are possible and connect them to the article.

*Do not mention Jesperson on the Great Vowel Shift for this question.

Do mention Halliday functional linguistics, the theory of lexical gaps, tree and wave models, Hockett’s random fluctuation theory, Aitchison’s Damp Spoon or Crumbling Castle and Chen’s S-curve model

*Do not explain the data on the n-gram. it is already there.

Instead, go in depth possibilities the n-gram is how it is. Go in depth on the word and how it is used in language.

Section B Q2

*Use a wide range of technical terminology with accuracy to demonstrate deeper understanding of characteristic features through developed discussion.

*Do not forget to discuss the negations, tenses, contractions and fluency without pauses in the text.

Make sure to use developed discussion on the child's emerging linguistic competence.

*Make sure to accurately label what stage the child is. if done incorrectly it can affect your whole response when making connections.

More confident responses analyzed a variety of utterances before labelling each of the children’s competencies, after careful consideration of relevant linguistic approaches.

*Do not use the child's ages as a guide to their stage of language development.

Use data and evidence provided in the source.

*Analyze the father’s scaffolding technique

Weaker responses demonstrated some knowledge and understanding of linguistic issues, concepts and approaches; these candidates needed to develop such points more fully, or to apply them to the given text(s). This shows that stronger responses tie what that they know in the text and use contextual theories that tie in and explain how it works in general, weaker respondents should focus more on adding these theories rather than focusing on the question at task and tie these with the question provided.

Weaker responses misunderstood the use of the medial, or long, S in Text A, with some claiming it to be a phonemic symbol rather than the archaic grapheme which was in use at the time of writing (1680). These weaker responses lacked showing how these words and phrases became obsolete and focused more on the symbols provided rather than showing how the use of these nonexistent words changed over time.

Many weaker responses for text c had copied out the numerical data without trying to provide observations showing language change and how it has evolved.

When looking at the conversation between Gina and her father, weaker responses mainly tended to focus on the utterances of Gina rather than miss the full dynamics of the conversation. Weaker responses made brief reference to the approaches taken by a variety of theorists, which included Bruner and Skinner; these candidates needed to develop their analysis by providing sufficient evidence from the data source. Where no data were provided there was no synthesis or cohesion.

• Use concise planning and focus on making a sustained final response.

• Engage with the broader implications of linguistic issues discussed in the main material.

• Provide clear and precise responses that address the specific points raised in the question or extract.