MARK SCHEME – A-LEVEL ENGLISH LANGUAGE – 7702/1 –
JUNE 2023
AQA
A-level
ENGLISH LANGUAGE
7702/1
Paper 1 Language, the individual and society
Mark scheme
June 2023
, MARK SCHEME – A-LEVEL ENGLISH LANGUAGE – 7702/1 –
JUNE 2023
English Language Mark Scheme
How to Mark
Aims
When you are marking your allocation of scripts your main aims should be to:
recognise and identify the achievements of students
place students in the appropriate mark band and in the appropriate part of that mark band (high, low,
middle) for each Assessment Objective
record your judgements with brief notes, annotations and comments that are relevant to the mark
scheme and make it clear to other examiners how you have arrived at the numerical mark awarded for
each Assessment Objective
put into a rank order the achievements of students (not to grade them that is done later using the
rank order that your marking has produced)
ensure comparability of assessment for all students, regardless of question or examiner.
Approach
It is important to be open-minded and positive when marking scripts.
The specification recognises the variety of experiences and knowledge that students will have. It
encourages them to study language in a way that is relevant to them. The questions have been
designed to give them opportunities to discuss what they have found out about language. It is important
to assess the quality of what the student offers.
Do not mark scripts as though they are mere shadows of some Platonic ideal (or the answer you would
have written). The mark schemes have been composed to assess quality of response and not to
identify expected items of knowledge.
Assessment Objectives
This component requires students to:
AO1: Apply appropriate methods of language analysis, using associated terminology and coherent
written expression
AO2: Demonstrate critical understanding of concepts and issues relevant to language use
AO3: Analyse and evaluate how contextual factors and language features are associated with the
construction of meaning
AO4: Explore connections across texts, informed by linguistic concepts and methods.
The marking grids
The specification has generic marking grids with a hierarchy of performance characteristics for each
Assessment Objective that are customised with indicative content for individual tasks. These have been
designed to allow consistent assessment of the range of knowledge, understanding and skills that the
specification demands across all tasks.
Within each Assessment Objective there are five broad levels representing different levels of
achievement. Do not think of levels equalling grade boundaries.
You will be giving a mark to each separate Assessment Objective tested by a task.
3
, MARK SCHEME – A-LEVEL ENGLISH LANGUAGE – 7702/1 –
JUNE 2023
Depending on the question, the levels will have different mark ranges assigned to them. This will reflect
the different weighting of Assessment Objectives in particular tasks and across the examination as a
whole. You may be required to give different marks to bands for different Assessment Objectives.
There is the same number of marks in each level for an individual Assessment Objective. The number
of marks per level will vary from two to four across different Assessment Objectives depending upon the
number of marks allocated to the Assessment Objective in a particular question.
Step 1 Using the grids and annotating scripts
These levels of response mark schemes are broken down into five levels, each of which has descriptors.
On the left-hand side of the mark scheme, in bold, are the generic descriptors that identify the
performance characteristics at five distinct levels. These are designed to identify clearly different
levels and types of performance.
On the right-hand side are statements of indicative content. These give examples of the kind of things
students might do that would exemplify the level. They are neither exhaustive nor required – they are
simply indicative of what would appear at this level.
Having familiarised yourself with the descriptors and indicative content, read through the answer and
annotate it (as instructed below) to identify the qualities that are being looked for and that it shows.
As you mark a script, use annotations to identify exactly where the student shows the performance
characteristics noted in the mark scheme. You should note where they give evidence of the indicative
content you have been given.
Remember they may do things not mentioned in the indicative content but of similar quality – reward
these too.
You can now check the levels and award a mark.
Step 2 Writing a comment to determine a level
Look back at the script. If you have made precise, full and accurate annotations it should be easy to
work out what level to award the answer.
When assigning a level, you should look at the overall quality of the answer and not look to pick holes in
small and specific parts of the answer where the student has not performed quite as well as the rest.
When you first look at some answers, it is useful to start with the lowest level of the mark scheme and
use the mark scheme as a ladder to see how far the answer can go up the scale.
The descriptors for a level indicate the different qualities that might be seen in the student’s answer for
that level.
Good answers will not necessarily be characterised by the descriptors in lower bands because they will
be doing better things. You may find yourself thinking: no, it’s better than that. If so, look to the next
level to see if that begins to describe what the answer does.
As you go up through the levels with good answers you will find they do the things characterised by the
descriptors.
4
JUNE 2023
AQA
A-level
ENGLISH LANGUAGE
7702/1
Paper 1 Language, the individual and society
Mark scheme
June 2023
, MARK SCHEME – A-LEVEL ENGLISH LANGUAGE – 7702/1 –
JUNE 2023
English Language Mark Scheme
How to Mark
Aims
When you are marking your allocation of scripts your main aims should be to:
recognise and identify the achievements of students
place students in the appropriate mark band and in the appropriate part of that mark band (high, low,
middle) for each Assessment Objective
record your judgements with brief notes, annotations and comments that are relevant to the mark
scheme and make it clear to other examiners how you have arrived at the numerical mark awarded for
each Assessment Objective
put into a rank order the achievements of students (not to grade them that is done later using the
rank order that your marking has produced)
ensure comparability of assessment for all students, regardless of question or examiner.
Approach
It is important to be open-minded and positive when marking scripts.
The specification recognises the variety of experiences and knowledge that students will have. It
encourages them to study language in a way that is relevant to them. The questions have been
designed to give them opportunities to discuss what they have found out about language. It is important
to assess the quality of what the student offers.
Do not mark scripts as though they are mere shadows of some Platonic ideal (or the answer you would
have written). The mark schemes have been composed to assess quality of response and not to
identify expected items of knowledge.
Assessment Objectives
This component requires students to:
AO1: Apply appropriate methods of language analysis, using associated terminology and coherent
written expression
AO2: Demonstrate critical understanding of concepts and issues relevant to language use
AO3: Analyse and evaluate how contextual factors and language features are associated with the
construction of meaning
AO4: Explore connections across texts, informed by linguistic concepts and methods.
The marking grids
The specification has generic marking grids with a hierarchy of performance characteristics for each
Assessment Objective that are customised with indicative content for individual tasks. These have been
designed to allow consistent assessment of the range of knowledge, understanding and skills that the
specification demands across all tasks.
Within each Assessment Objective there are five broad levels representing different levels of
achievement. Do not think of levels equalling grade boundaries.
You will be giving a mark to each separate Assessment Objective tested by a task.
3
, MARK SCHEME – A-LEVEL ENGLISH LANGUAGE – 7702/1 –
JUNE 2023
Depending on the question, the levels will have different mark ranges assigned to them. This will reflect
the different weighting of Assessment Objectives in particular tasks and across the examination as a
whole. You may be required to give different marks to bands for different Assessment Objectives.
There is the same number of marks in each level for an individual Assessment Objective. The number
of marks per level will vary from two to four across different Assessment Objectives depending upon the
number of marks allocated to the Assessment Objective in a particular question.
Step 1 Using the grids and annotating scripts
These levels of response mark schemes are broken down into five levels, each of which has descriptors.
On the left-hand side of the mark scheme, in bold, are the generic descriptors that identify the
performance characteristics at five distinct levels. These are designed to identify clearly different
levels and types of performance.
On the right-hand side are statements of indicative content. These give examples of the kind of things
students might do that would exemplify the level. They are neither exhaustive nor required – they are
simply indicative of what would appear at this level.
Having familiarised yourself with the descriptors and indicative content, read through the answer and
annotate it (as instructed below) to identify the qualities that are being looked for and that it shows.
As you mark a script, use annotations to identify exactly where the student shows the performance
characteristics noted in the mark scheme. You should note where they give evidence of the indicative
content you have been given.
Remember they may do things not mentioned in the indicative content but of similar quality – reward
these too.
You can now check the levels and award a mark.
Step 2 Writing a comment to determine a level
Look back at the script. If you have made precise, full and accurate annotations it should be easy to
work out what level to award the answer.
When assigning a level, you should look at the overall quality of the answer and not look to pick holes in
small and specific parts of the answer where the student has not performed quite as well as the rest.
When you first look at some answers, it is useful to start with the lowest level of the mark scheme and
use the mark scheme as a ladder to see how far the answer can go up the scale.
The descriptors for a level indicate the different qualities that might be seen in the student’s answer for
that level.
Good answers will not necessarily be characterised by the descriptors in lower bands because they will
be doing better things. You may find yourself thinking: no, it’s better than that. If so, look to the next
level to see if that begins to describe what the answer does.
As you go up through the levels with good answers you will find they do the things characterised by the
descriptors.
4
