The half of your sentence that earns the marks
In your last essay you spotted techniques — metaphors, repetition, word choice. That gets you to Band 3 or 4. The upper bands need something more: what the technique does to the reader.
"Orwell uses the windmill as a symbol of the animals' work."
"Orwell's extended symbol of the windmill positions the reader to see revolutionary labour as an endlessly receding horizon — something the animals build, rebuild, and never inhabit."
"Orwell repeats the word 'four' many times."
"Orwell's insistent repetition of 'four legs good, two legs bad' reinforces the slogan's status as thought-terminating ritual, inviting the reader to feel how rhythm can replace argument."
Stop writing "this shows that..." Start writing with verbs that name what the text does to the reader. These are the phrases IB examiners recognise as Criterion A evaluation.
Verbs that show where the text places us — physically, emotionally, or ethically.
Verbs that describe how the text changes the way we see something.
Verbs that name the mood or feeling the text generates.
Verbs that describe how the text builds, withholds, or delivers meaning over time.
Verbs that show how the writer is leaning — ironic, sympathetic, critical.
Read the extract, pick the effect you think the technique is producing, then reveal the answer. If you pick the "wrong" one, read the explanation — more than one answer can be defensible. The point is to see how technique and effect link up.
Which effect fits best?
Why: Each sentence is a closed door. No conjunctions, no dependent clauses, no hope. The structure enacts the abandonment the content describes.
Model sentence: "The three terse, end-stopped sentences reinforce the finality of the boy's collapse and distance the reader from any rescuing gesture."
Which effect fits best?
Why: "Map" is a neutral, everyday object — but the writer loads it with a violent history (torn, stitched, visible seam). The metaphor reframes the abstract idea (social division) as something the reader could literally see, if they looked closely enough at the silences around them.
Model sentence: "The extended map-metaphor reframes the city as a stitched-together wound, implicating the reader in the polite silences that keep the seam hidden."
Which effect fits best?
Why: The chant is not an argument, it is a rhythm. Orwell's repetition lets us feel how slogans close off thinking — the reader experiences the same hypnotic pull the animals do.
Model sentence: "Orwell's triple repetition of the slogan reinforces its hypnotic quality and invites the reader to recognise how rhythm can substitute for reasoning."
Which effect fits best?
Why: "Softly" and "a few minutes later" are the rhythms of ordinary life. By grafting them onto an execution, Orwell makes the horror feel procedural — which is more disturbing than overt description.
Model sentence: "Orwell's deliberately understated diction unsettles the reader by rendering the coming violence as administrative routine, critiquing how regimes domesticate brutality."
Which effect fits best?
Why: The paragraph first lets us invest in the bond ("since childhood", "fought beside"). Then the final sentence snaps away without intervention. The structure produces the heartbreak — content alone would not.
Model sentence: "The anaphoric build of 'They had...' builds the reader's attachment, which Orwell then subverts with the abrupt shift to 'Now', implicating us in the bystander's silence."
For each passage below: identify one authorial choice, choose an effect verb from the Toolkit, and write one Band 6+ analysis sentence. Reveal the model answer only after you write your own.
Annotate: What is Orwell doing with repetition, the choice of "prancing", and the unanswered question?
Choice: The repetition of "Fools!" combined with the unanswered rhetorical question.
Sentence A: "Orwell's urgent repetition of 'Fools!' heightens Benjamin's helplessness and implicates the reader in the animals' too-late recognition."
Sentence B: "The unanswered question withholds the comfort of explanation, positioning the reader alongside the illiterate animals who cannot read the van."
Why it works: Both use a clear effect verb. Both tell us what happens to us as readers, not just what the words mean on the page.
Annotate: The choice of capitals, the contradiction inside the sentence, the matter-of-fact framing ("It ran:").
Choice: The internal contradiction of the slogan, held together by the conjunction "BUT".
Sentence A: "The logical self-contradiction of the amended commandment exposes the regime's cynicism and invites the reader to feel how power bends language until it means nothing."
Sentence B: "Orwell's flat reporting verb 'It ran' distances the narrator from the slogan, positioning the reader as the one who must register the horror the animals cannot."
Annotate: the repetition of "pig to man / man to pig", the verb "looked" (passive observation), the final indistinguishability.
Choice: The mirrored repetition "pig to man, and from man to pig" mimicking the reader's failed attempt to distinguish.
Sentence A: "Orwell's repeated swing between 'pig' and 'man' mimics the reader's own scanning gaze and reinforces the novel's final claim: that the distinction between oppressor and oppressed has collapsed."
Sentence B: "The closing clause 'which was which' withholds a name from either figure, implicating the reader in the moment of moral equivalence the revolution has produced."
Keep this open while you draft. Every analysis sentence should pass the two-part test below.
| When you want to say… | Use one of these |
|---|---|
| The text places the reader somewhere | positions, aligns, distances, immerses, implicates |
| The text changes how we see something | foregrounds, reframes, reveals, exposes, highlights |
| The text creates a feeling | unsettles, disorients, evokes, heightens, tempers |
| The text builds or withholds over time | builds, delays, withholds, reinforces, subverts |
| The author takes a stance | critiques, mocks, invites, challenges, undermines |
Example: "Orwell's extended windmill-symbol reframes revolutionary labour as an endlessly receding horizon, implicating the reader in a hope we keep building even as it is used against us."