This was the hardest recast question you will be set. Please be reassured that whatever you face in the exam on Friday 17 June it will probably not be anything like as difficult and complex as this mock question.
One significant reason for the difficulty of the task is the narrative perspective of the extract. The narrator is highly critical of the US involvement in the Vietnam War.
To write a successful recast text it is essential to understand clearly the narrative perspective of the narrator.
Another challenge in this recast task is the tone of voice the narrator adopts throughout the extract. The writer adopts a cynical, dismissive and sardonic attitude - meaning grimly mocking. I'm pretty sure the exam board will steer well clear of articles that are written like this.
And I strongly recommend that you do not adopt for your recast text any attitude that can be described as cynical, sarcastic or ironic. I'm pretty sure examiners will not expect you to write in this way. It is full of dangers.
Because the tone of the article is cynical, sarcastic or ironic I think this text is really confusing to understand.
Therefore it is important that you understand as fully as possible the extract you will be answering the question on. You will need to take your time reading the extract carefully. Don't jump to conclusions about the text or the question until you've read the text and question more than once. Take a moment to recall from memory everything you know about the text from revision notes and context notes you've made on this article. This will reassure you, give you confidence and help give you relevant and appropriate points to make.
Finally another problem with the source text was the use of a very specific semantic field - words used about the Vietnam War.
Often words drawn from a semantic field will be defined by the exam board in a glossary. However there were too many here.
And there were a high number of low frequency lexis being used throughout.
I'm fairly confident the exam board would not choose extracts with low frequency lexis. Again a glossary may be used for one or two words.
And now really really finally. This text required a significant amount of contextual knowledge and understanding.
You must spend a little time doing some background reading of the articles that could come up in the exam.
Although this was a difficult source text it was by no means an impossible one to respond well to. Click here for a post on the notes I made on this question.
