📖 The Examiner’s Secret Vocabulary List
📖 The Examiner’s Secret Vocabulary List
There is a set of verbs that AQA examiners use to describe the work they reward. Analyses. Evaluates. Methods. Perceptive. Judicious. These are not just description words — they are the vocabulary of the mark scheme itself.
Most students write as if examiners use a different dictionary. They write: “the writer talks about…” or “the writer puts across…” or — the most common of all — “the writer uses imagery here.”
None of these appear anywhere in the mark scheme. The mark scheme rewards analyses, employs, positions, foregrounds. The student who writes in mark-scheme language is not just sounding impressive — they are using the exact words that trigger the examiner’s Level 4 recognition. That is not coincidence. That is strategy.
English Language glossary
- What are mark-scheme verbs, and why should you use them in analytical writing?
- <strong>Mark-scheme verbs</strong> are the exact words AQA uses to describe what Level 4 students and writers do. Two types:<br><br><strong>Craft verbs</strong> (describe what the writer did): <em>employs, constructs, positions, foregrounds, analyses</em><br><strong>Reward verbs</strong> (describe what you as a student are doing): <em>analyses, evaluates, perceptive, judicious</em><br><br><strong>Why use them:</strong> ‘The writer uses’ identifies a technique. ‘The writer employs / constructs / foregrounds’ analyses the purpose of a technique. The mark-scheme verb <em>obligates</em> the explanation — which is where the marks live.
The AQA mark scheme uses two overlapping vocabularies: reward verbs (describing what the student does) and craft verbs (describing what the writer does). A Level 4 student deploys both.
Now try it yourself
Quiz · Question 1 of 10
Which of these is a craft verb from the AQA mark scheme, used to describe what a writer does?
Tap an answer to check it