Word Choice



Word Choice2. Read lines 16 – 23.(b) Show how the writer’s word choice in the whole paragraph makes clear the difference between the two types of communication (real life and cyber world). 4AAt the same time, this constant reassurance – that you are listened to, recognised, and important – is coupled with a distancing from the stress of face-to-face, real-life conversation. Real-life conversations are, after all, far more perilous than those in the cyber world. They occur in real time, with no opportunity to think up clever or witty responses, and they require a sensitivity to voice tone and body language. Moreover, according to the context, and indeed, the person with whom we are conversing, our own delivery will need to adapt. None of these skills are required when chatting on a social networking site.Word Choice – Sample Answer“Stress” indicates the strain and anxiety the writer feels can be caused by face to face conversation.“Perilous” also describes face to face; this suggests extreme danger and threat.“Chatting” describes the safer world of cyberspace as it connotes warm, easy-going friendships and relationships.“Reassurance” establishes the online world as calming, comforting and encouraging.1. (b) Show how the writer’s word choice in lines 7 – 10 (“It’s not…family life”) emphasises the extent of changes she describes.2AIt’s not that nothing has changed in that time, of course. There has been turbo-charged economic growth, wave upon wave of migration, a massive shift from an industrial to a service economy, and a generation of unprecedented change in sexual politics and family life.Word Choice – Sample AnswerShe describes economic growth as “turbo-charged” which links to the idea of an engine charged for power and speed. This means change will be dramatic and quick.“Massive” describes the shift from industry to service the economy. This stresses the extent of change as the word connotes a huge, unstoppable force.1. (b) Show how the writer’s word choice in lines 1 – 3 emphasises his low opinion of “consumer society”. 2AWe are caught up on a treadmill of turbo-consumption powered by the unfounded belief that having more will make us happy. We are part and parcel of a consumer society whose credentials are becoming more tarnished.Word Choice – Sample Answer“tarnished” suggests that the gloss, the attractiveness has gone from something (in this case the appeal of consumerism). It was once shiny but now it is tainted.“part and parcel” suggests that we are no more than commodities in a warehouse, all the same and wrapped up ready for someone to use.Imagery3. (b) How effective do you find the image “a blizzard of social reasons” in conveying the writer’s point about the plight of some British youngsters?2A/EWhat I really object to about the book is what I object to about sex education as a whole. Sex education – particularly compulsory and standardised sex education – is based on mistaken assumptions. The first is the pervasive assumption of equality – that is, that all six-year-olds or all 11-year-olds or 15-year-olds can discuss the complexities in the same form in the same way. That’s nonsense. Children vary in intelligence and progress. Children and teenagers mature at different ages and come from different backgrounds. You cannot talk the same way to a shy 13-year-old who hasn’t had her first period as to another who is well acquainted with the darker recesses of the school bike shed. Some boys are men at 11 and 12, physically; others are children until much later. You cannot talk to all these children together. And it undermines the authority of those parents who do not share the same values as the teacher.Imagery – Sample AnswerA “blizzard” is literally a snowstorm which overwhelms and makes vision almost impossible. The image effectively illustrates the writer’s point that there are so many social reasons (causing the young people not to heed the advice they get on sex) coming from many different directions such that they are blinding the young people, making it impossible to distinguish one from the other, making them seem threatened and lost.Imagery5. Read lines 47 – 57.(a) Show how the imagery in lines 47 – 49 (“So what…alien?”) conveys the writer’s view of the situation we find ourselves in.2ASo what are we to do, stranded in this no-man’s-land between an old civilisation that’s no longer sustainable either practically or morally, and a new one that we still resist because it seems somehow alien? Some bluster hopelessly about the need to return to the past. Other’s talk blithely as if there was no problem about abandoning the family as a useful transmitter of wisdom, and passing the whole job on to schools.But for the rest of us – well, we probably do best when we face the truth that all social change involves some measure of loss, but that the clock cannot be turned back towards attitudes and prejudices that were abandoned for the best of reasons. And, above all, we perhaps need to strive to move forward as a whole society, rather than as a bunch of fragmented individuals demanding increasingly impossible feats from our hard-pressed public services.Imagery – Sample Answer“No man’s land” is literally the space between warring armies. This suggests we are trapped between two forces, in this case old and new attitudes, uncertain about which way to go and committed to neither side.Sentence Structure2. (b) Show how the writer uses sentence structure in lines 4 – 9 to make clear the points he is making.2AIncreasingly, the predominant thing that you and I do is shop and plan our lives around things we have to pay for: clothes, jewellery, cars, houses, holidays, restaurants and gadgets that make us what we are. Once we were a society of producers, knowing ourselves and each other by what we did and what we made. Not any more. Today we understand ourselves and project the image we want others to see through what we buy.Sentence Structure – Sample AnswerThe long list of typically consumer items (‘clothes, jewellery,…gadgets’) emphasises the sheer extent of spending opportunities open to us today in contrast to the simplicity of the past.The use of the short sentence (“Not any more”) illustrates the contrast between life in the past and life today. The sharpness of the sentence sort of jolts the reader to appreciate the complete change in society’s attitude to individual worth. ................
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