Hello there! If you purchased the book recently, you are entitled to access the premium tier of this website; thank you so much and I hope that it will bring you to where you wish to go, and beyond as you embark on the journey that is education and the IGCSE!

Rest assured that we are doing everything in our power, to refine the membership tier and to bring you a great experience when it comes to the time for memberships to open, and if you don’t receive access within the next week (by 7th April 2023), do send me a message and I will add you in as soon as I can!

In the meantime, I’d also like to define the benefits that members of the premium tier will get briefly in this post, and will do so more extensively at a later point.

• Full access to all guides
• Full access to recorded courses 
• Full access to worked solutions and responses for exams 
• Priority access to posts
• Full essay breakdowns and analysis
• Live office hour (once weekly, at 9pm on Tuesdays via Zoom) 
• Discounted access to future resources across the entire spectrum 

Additional membership tiers will be defined at a later point perhaps for schools as well, but this is the draft for what I am envisioning for the premium tier at this point in time.

Free members of the website, please know that you will continue to receive access to the same level of high-quality content that you have had access to up until now, and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future – Premium will be a cut above though, and if you see value in that, our promotion to grant you one year of access in return for the purchase of the book is still ongoing, and approximately 150 redemptions remain. If you see value in this work, I look forward to seeing you in the members section!

In the meantime, premium members, do give us some time as we prepare the membership area content for you – looking forward to serving you soon!

V.

Dear All,

Welcome to the very first publication on this site! 

This book offers excellent narrative and descriptive compositions based on the 2021 and 2022 IGCSE First Language English exams.

Why does it exist?
It exists because the key challenge students often face isn’t that they don’t understand the criteria for excellence: It is not knowing what top-quality work looks like. This book demonstrates work that is concordant with the highest possible achievement levels for Descriptive and Narrative compositions for the IGCSE (Paper 2, Section B). It encompasses the most current and updated understanding of the Cambridge IGCSE mark scheme criteria for Paper 2 into 56 incredible compositions that we hope will be a joy to read.

Have a look at a preview here and enjoy some of the sample essays within!

The book takes account of the entire history of examiner reports from Cambridge International Examinations. It designed to be used and read alongside markschemes, not to replace them. Do also read it in alongside our guides for descriptive composition as well as narrative composition as well!

As a final note, this book would not have been possible without the kind support of many different people. 

In particular, I thank Cambridge IGCSE examiners and teachers from schools such as Garden International School and Premfield International School. I also thank collaborators from Sri Kuala Lumpur International School, Sri KDU International School, Eagles International School and many others. This has been a labor of love, a product of deep and extensive reflection, and deep and intense learning. Thank you for discussing this work and the content of the website with me! 

We hope these essays will serve you well throughout the process of preparing for the IGCSE and we hope it will be a joy to read 🙂

If you want one of the best possible resources to guide your preparation the IGCSE 0500 First Language English examinations, pick up a copy today! 

Feel free to pick the book up here.

To purchase, simply click “Add to cart”, and you can check out via Stripe.

The book is a digital download, and once you’ve made payment, you’ll receive the book directly; please check your spam folder to ensure that you’ve received an email, and do note that no physical book will be delivered to you.

Thank you for the support, and as always, here is to your success in days ahead!
Victor.

P.S. Special, limited time promotion! 

If you are one of the first 200 people to purchase this book, you will receive one year of access to the premium memberships section of EnglishFirstLanguage.net!

P.P.S. On a side note, this book’s publication took place prior to the closure of Book Depository, and the book recommendation links within the book (which were directed to Book Depository) are no longer functional; this will be updated in a subsequent edition of the book. Apologies for that!

In today’s post, I thought to write about something that many of you been requesting for: A guide on Writer’s Effect. (note: We’ve just released The Complete Guide to Writer’s Effect, and we hope you’ll enjoy it!)

I started to think about doing this ever since I had performed a poll on the IGCSE Malaysia Facebook group, and this happened:

All right, I hear you!

Let’s get into it!

Writer’s Effect questions appear in Paper 1 of the IGCSE first language English exam. Here’s an example from Variant 1 of Summer 2021. You may seek out the paper (look for 0500_s21_qp_11 and 0500_s21_in_11 and look for text B on pastpapers.co and follow along if you wish) 🙂

Generally, these questions are often phrased in the same way.

They ask you to highlight three key words or phrases that can be found in the texts that you will be reading for the exam, and to point out how the writer uses those words or phrases achieve specific effects upon the reader.

The key word here is how. More on this later.

Sounds easy? 

Well, many students struggle with this.

As they write, they overemphasise the content of the pieces that they are generating and prefer to write about the content inside the passages that they are reading rather than doing what they are supposed to actually do, which is actually to talk about language.

Let me give you an example from a recent student essay that I marked. 

“In paragraph 18, the writer begins with the phrase “wails” to create a sense of drama and exaggeration, which highlights Vivian’s discomfort with her surroundings. The writer then continues with the phrase “plucked out of her comfort zone.” This metaphor is used to emphasise Vivian’s transition of city life to cycle touring. The phrase also suggests that Vivian was unprepared for the challenges of the trip.”

In this case, as with many other cases of student work, the student focused not on language but instead made a relatively weak statement about the content of the passage that is pretty obvious to anyone who reads it.

Here’s my feedback and improvement on this:

Now, here’s my commentary:

(Oh, but before that, I’m sorry to burst your bubble if you’re a non-member, but to read this you’re going to have to sign up for a free membership – don’t worry, it will only take a minute!)

Now, a bit of guidance for our Premium Members, containing a format I recommend for your Writer’s Effect:

We hope that you found this incredibly useful, and that it will help you on your journey to being able to break down Writer’s Effect, and to consistently do well in this section of the exam – good luck, make sure to keep practicing, and here is to your success!

V.

I doubt that you are lazy, otherwise you wouldn’t be reading this.

Come on. Even if your parents forced you to be here, or if you are a parent and you really don’t want to be here, there is a part of you that understands very clearly that there is something lacking about what you are doing and you want to improve it.

However, that does not mean that you are good at practice.

In fact, chances are you are here after having done past year paper after past year paper or written exam script after exam script, only to realize that your scores are not improving.

To that I say, well…

Not all practice is created equal.

Practicing to get better at first language English is not a matter of just doing essays over and over again.

It is also about spending that time isolating the specific things that would help you get better and then actually training those things.

Let’s now talk about how to practice intelligently.

All of these were just suggestions on how you can get better at practicing, but do not think of them as dogma. Each of you readers has a different mind and a different approach to things, and at the end of the day, whatever practice method you choose has to work for you specifically. However, I think that some things here remain absolutely true:

In order for you to get a sense of how to improve, you first have to know where you stand, and you do need to know where you want to go.

Beyond that, a lot of things are negotiable, and how and whether you improve are up to you – What’s for sure, though, is that intentionally choosing to look for better methods and seeking out intelligent ways of improving in a way that suits you will far outperform just blindly going into the preparation process hoping and praying that writing a few essays is going to magically make you into one of the greatest writers on the planet.

With that in mind, do you have a strategy or do you have a plan in mind for improving your writing this year and leading up to the exams? Let me know down in the comments!