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Unit 3: Reading and Responding to Texts and Creating Texts
Quick questions on Features of an analytical response: VCE English Unit 3 Area of Study 1
15short Q&A pairs drawn directly from our worked dot-point answer. For full context and worked exam questions, read the parent dot-point page.
What is sentence one?Show answer
A claim about the text that engages the prompt without paraphrasing it. The opening should sound like an argument, not a topic sentence.
What is sentence two?Show answer
Your contention. A direct response to the prompt's directive verb (discuss, to what extent, how does, in what ways).
What is sentence three?Show answer
A signpost of the three lines of argument the body will develop. Use the language of the prompt, not the language of summary.
What is topic sentence?Show answer
Names the claim and links it to the prompt.
What is scene anchor?Show answer
One sentence locating the scene in the text.
What are two short embedded quotations?Show answer
Each quotation is a phrase fused into your own clause.
What is analysis?Show answer
For each quotation, name the language or structural feature and argue its effect on the reader.
What is essay register?Show answer
Formal, third person, present tense for analysis ("the author positions the reader"), past tense only for narrative events ("when the protagonist returned").
What is embedded quoting?Show answer
Quotations are integrated into your own grammatical clause. A whole-sentence quotation followed by analysis is weaker than a phrase fused into your sentence.
What is the author named?Show answer
The author is named in the introduction and used as the agent of craft throughout. "Winton positions" is stronger than "the text shows".
What is the reader, not "you"?Show answer
The hypothetical reader is named ("the reader", "the responder") rather than addressed in second person.
What are no contractions?Show answer
A formal analytical essay does not use "doesn't" or "can't".
What is metalanguage?Show answer
Precise terms for language and structural features (free indirect discourse, syntactic compression, focalisation, motif, juxtaposition). Generic terms (technique, device) signal a Band 4 response.
What is controlled syntax?Show answer
Sentences that vary in length and place the most important clause at the end. A response that uses the same sentence shape across the essay reads as monotonous.
What are argumentative verbs?Show answer
"Positions", "complicates", "destabilises", "exposes", "qualifies". Verbs of action are stronger than verbs of description ("shows", "uses", "has").