Recast Task
Planning your recast text is vital.
You will have to work very quickly to fit everything you need to do in the hour you have available to do this task. However one of the most vital and useful ways of spending your time before you write your answer is to plan effectively and quickly. Before you begin to write you should have a list of relevant bullet point notes - in a logical order.
You should aim to write between 300 - 400 words for the recast text.
If you write less than 300 words then you have not included enough information from the source text and therefore will be losing important marks because you have not completed the task effectively.
You must write a variety of sentence structures in your text.
Make use of simple, compound and complex sentences. Be very careful not to dominate your text with long and complex sentences. This will lead to confused meaning and poor expression. By using a variety of sentence structures you are making a text interesting to a reader and you are creating an opportunity to write about this in your commentary.
Select relevant information from the source text.
You must be very selective when choosing material from the source text. You will not get marks for adding irrelevant information. To do this effectively you will need to read the source text carefully - underlinning key statements. But you must also consider and interpret the question / task in its broadest, most open way.
Commentary
Write brief, detailed, concise introductions
that state your audience, purposes and features of genre. Use the introduction to make contextual references both in terms of the task and the actual text itself.
Aim to include about 12 - 18 integrated technical terms in your commentary. If you are not including relevant terms then you are not writing a good commentary and will miss out on marks. I expect you will use a term every second line. As you identify a term you are using then go on to write about its effect on a reader.
Don't be limited by the word count recommendations given to you by the board.
If you have the time to write then keep writing detailed, relevant, concise, technical
paragraphs. Expect to write as much as you did for the recast text itself.
My recommendation is to structure your commentary in a similar way you wrote your introduction. Your main paragraphs should address audience, purposes and the genre.
Write accurately but just slap down your points. You do not need to take as much care over expression as you did in your recast task. The commentary is not a crafted text. However it should be planned.
