Imaginative writing — image stimulus (full task)

Question: Look at the image of an empty railway platform at dusk. Write either: (a) a description suggested by the picture, OR (b) the opening of a story inspired by the picture.

(40 marks: 24 for AO5 + 16 for AO6)

---

Mark scheme — Level 5 (top band)

AO5 (19–24):

• Convincing and compelling tone, style and register, sustained throughout
• Sophisticated and ambitious structural choices (e.g. cyclical motif, shift in focus, withheld information)
• Highly engaging implied reader awareness
• Purposeful selection of detail; nothing superfluous

AO6 (13–16):

• Extensive and ambitious vocabulary used with precision
• Wide range of sentence structures used for deliberate effect (minor sentences, cumulative sentences, embedded subordinate clauses)
• Accurate and varied punctuation including semicolons, colons, dashes
• Virtually faultless spelling, including ambitious lexis

Indicative grade-9 features: extended metaphor (the platform as 'a stage abandoned mid-rehearsal'), pathetic fallacy via dusk light, free indirect discourse if a character is introduced, cyclical close returning to a small detail (e.g. a discarded ticket).