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Lottery

Good responses to final question Very few unanswered questions Some very good answers for word choice

and sentence structure questions

Positives

Linking question Tone Effective conclusion Sentence structure

Areas of Concern

1. Identify in the linking sentence two words or phrases: one pointing back and one pointing forward.

2. Quote the word / phrase that links back 3. Paraphrase the idea that it links back to. 4. Quote the word /phrase that links forward.5. Paraphrase the idea that it introduces.6. Make sure that you quote form the

sentence(s) identified in the question. Some of you quoted form different sentences.

Linking Question

“Camelot regards that instinct as a commercial proposition.”

Answer: “That instinct’ refers back to people’s desire to do good.“commercial proposition” links to the way Camelot exploit this to make even more money.

1. Identify the tone2. Explain how this tone is created by

referring to and explaining specific examples of language.

Tone

1. Is it serious?2. No: mocking, ironic, light-hearted,

sarcastic (only if there is something nasty behind it), tongue in cheek.

3. Yes: consider the emotion that the writer is expressing. Are they angry, delighted, depressed?

Identifying Tone

Pick a phrase or other feature of language that helped you to decide on the tone.

Quote it and explain how it did so.

Explaining Tone

10. Describe the tone created in lines 52-53 and explain how the writer has created it.

Camelot has announced that the Lottery is being “revamped”. Its central message will, of course, remain unchanged: your life can be transformed by greed and gambling.

Serious: yes. Mood/ emotion – unhappy, depressed,

angry. Possible tones: pessimistic, depressed,

despairing, resigned.

Camelot has announced that the Lottery is being “revamped”. Its central message will, of course, remain unchanged: your life can be transformed by greed and gambling.

A tone of despair is created through the inverted commas round “revamped” suggesting a disbelief in the validity of the word, that the lottery will continue its exploitation.

Also, the parenthetical “of course” suggests a weary acceptance that nothing will change.

15. Describe the tone created in lines 28-32 and explain how the writer has created it.

Camelot has just said it intends to double its prices. For a gambling game, that’s steep. I’m still waiting, in fact, for the Government to say that outrage will not be tolerated, that having its people depend on a numbers racket is an offence to national dignity, that a poll tax done with magical balls is still, in essence, balls. But it won’t happen. Rooking the dispossessed remains the best game invented.

Is the writer serious: yes and no. Mood: Angry.

Possible tones: tongue-in-cheek, cynical, scathing.

Camelot has just said it intends to double its prices. For a gambling game, that’s steep. I’m still waiting, in fact, for the Government to say that outrage will not be tolerated, that having its people depend on a numbers racket is an offence to national dignity, that a poll tax done with magical balls is still, in essence, balls. But it won’t happen. Rooking the dispossessed remains the best game invented.

An angry tone is developed through ‘rooking the dispossessed. This is a scathing description of exploitation of the most vulnerable. ‘best game invented’ suggests that Camelot see taking money from the poor to a fun pastime, something which angers him.

Identify specific sentence(s) being discussed. Give a quotation to help the marker know what sentence(s) you are discussing.

Outline the relevant features of sentence structure in your chosen sentence(s). Use your guide to sentence structure to revise the relevant features.

Explain their effect: how structuring the sentence in this particular way helps to convey the writer’s point.

Sentence Structure

6 b: Show how the writer’s sentence structure in these lines emphasises his point.

The effect of placing gambling at the centre of our nations’ domestic life, of presenting it as a normal leisure activity which actually benefits society, could not be clearer. It is there on television, where betting is promoted as never before. It is there on the high street, where shops are being replaced by rows of bookmakers.

The final two sentences have a parallel structure. Both start with ‘It is’ before identifying a different part of society that promotes gambling

The effect of this is to make it seem as if the promotion of gambling is everywhere in our culture, that it is causing similar problems in more than one aspect of life.

9. Show how the writer’s sentence structure in lines 48-51 adds impact to what he is saying.

If right-wing politicians truly believed in the importance of work and the market, they would oppose the National Lottery. If left-wing politicians truly disapproved of exploitation of the vulnerable, their position would be the same. Yet in politics, as in the media, the lottery is given a free ride.

In the first two sentences a parallel structure is used. A type of political view is identified, followed by a reason why they should oppose the lottery. This creates the impression that all politicians should oppose the lottery (and implies that most do not).

Refer to aspects of final paragraph Link them back to the passage’s earlier

/main ideas. Be specific about both of these. Not: “It is an effective conclusion because

the writer sums up his feelings about the lottery. This returns to the passage’s main idea.”

Effective Conclusion

‘Once upon a time’ suggests a happy, fairy-tale time in the past before society’s values had been corrupted by the lottery. This is an effective conclusion because it reiterates the writer’s main point: the lottery has a corrosive effect on our culture.

Some analysis answers are overlong and repetitive.

Marking is positive (wrong answers ignored; correct answers rewarded)

Better to have two shorter pieces of analysis than an overlong one.

Less can be More (more or less)

The word choice of ‘desperate’ suggests that the lottery creates individuals who are in desperate hope of winning anything after they have spent too much money buying tickets. After money has been wasted, people feed their habits again, desperate for their luck to change. The writer’s use of language highlights the impact the lottery has on people bringing out desperation in them for them to get their money’s worth, suggesting that they never will.

Overlong/ Repetitive Answer

Word choice ‘desperate’ has connotations of misery and

bleakness, suggesting the misery that lies behind the false hope of the lottery.

‘relentless’ has connotations of persistent, unpleasantly so, this suggests that the lottery is presented in an aggressive, unremitting manner.

Focused Answer