The Essay That Started With "In this essay I will…"
📖 The Essay That Started With "In this essay I will…"
Thirty-nine seconds into reading your essay, an AQA examiner puts a pencil mark in the margin: Level 1. The opening sentence is "In this essay I will discuss how Shakespeare presents ambition in Macbeth." No argument. No interpretation. Just a table of contents.
The examiner is not being harsh. The mark scheme simply cannot award higher than Level 2 for an essay that has no claim yet — only a promise to make one later. The fix takes exactly one sentence. This topic teaches you what that sentence looks like.
English Literature glossary
- What is an interpretive claim?
- An interpretive claim is a statement that argues HOW or WHY a writer has constructed something — not what a character feels or does. A claim can be argued against. 'Shakespeare presents Macbeth's ambition as self-defeating from the start' is a claim. 'Macbeth is ambitious' is a description.
PETAL (Point → Evidence → Technique → Analysis → Link) is the most widely taught paragraph structure in GCSE English. It produces Level 3 essays almost every time. Not because the structure is wrong, but because it produces the wrong ORDER of thinking.
Earn the mark scheme marks
🧠 Remember the 5 Moves: CLAIM-PROOF-CHOICE-MEANING-CONTEXT
One mnemonic for the Argument-First structure:
C — P — C — M — C
Claim (interpretive) → Proof (embedded quote) → Choice (writer's specific technique explained) → Meaning (what it argues) → Context (AO3 integrated, not bolted on)
Why it works: each letter represents the move that advances the argument. If you find yourself writing PETAL, check whether Move 1 (Claim) is genuinely an argument — not a topic sentence restating what the question says.
Now try it yourself
Quiz · Question 1 of 10
AQA mark-scheme descriptors for Level 5-6 use two specific words to describe what a high-band essay must do. Which pair of words is correct?
Tap an answer to check it