Selecting and Using Evidence for a Purpose: Question 8
Syllabus R5
Read the passage, then answer the questions that follow.
The Ferngate Repair Café opened in the community hall three years ago, run entirely by volunteers who mend broken household items free of charge on the first Saturday of every month. Visitors bring in anything from toasters and table lamps to torn coats and wobbly chairs, and a rotating team of retired engineers, textile teachers and hobbyist tinkerers works through the queue with whatever tools and spare parts they have on hand.
Marina Costas, who has volunteered since the café's very first session, says the appeal goes beyond simply saving money. "People often arrive expecting a quick fix and leave having learned how their appliance actually works, which changes how carefully they look after it afterwards," she explained during last month's session. Records kept by the organisers show that of the two hundred and thirty items brought in over the past year, just under eighty percent left in working order, and organisers estimate this kept roughly one and a half tonnes of material out of the nearest landfill site.
Not every repair succeeds. Some newer volunteers admit they sometimes lack the specialist parts an older item needs, and a handful of visitors have been told, apologetically, that a device is beyond saving. Even so, the hall's booking has had to be extended by an extra hour this year to cope with growing queues, and the organisers are now exploring whether a second monthly session could be added from the autumn.
A local hardware shop has also begun donating surplus screws, fuses and small tools each month, though the shop's owner insists this is simply good publicity rather than any special commitment to the café's aims.
Focus for this task: why the volunteers believe the repair café is worth continuing, beyond simply saving people money.
Two students each drafted a sentence using evidence from Marina Costas's comment to answer this focus:
Draft 1: Marina Costas, a volunteer since the café began, argues that its value goes beyond cost savings, since visitors typically "leave having learned how their appliance actually works, which changes how carefully they look after it afterwards."
Draft 2: Marina Costas says the appeal goes beyond simply saving money, because people often arrive expecting a quick fix and leave having learned how their appliance actually works, which changes how carefully they look after it afterwards.
(a) Identify which draft integrates the evidence correctly, and explain how you can tell. [3]
(b) Explain what is wrong with the other draft's use of evidence, even though its content is accurate and relevant. [2]
(c) Rewrite the incorrect draft as a single, fluent sentence that properly quotes and clearly references the same evidence. [4]
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Worked solution
Assessment focus
This question tests a skill distinct from selecting relevant content: correctly integrating evidence once it has been chosen. A quotation can be accurate, relevant and even precisely chosen, and still fail if it is not clearly marked as someone else’s words. Reproducing a source’s exact phrasing without quotation marks is a form of unmarked lifting, not genuine use of evidence, even when the surrounding sentence names the source.
Part (a): Recognising correct integration
Draft 1 does two things Draft 2 does not: it encloses the borrowed wording in quotation marks, and it frames that wording as Marina Costas’s view using “argues that” rather than presenting it as fact. The rest of Draft 1’s sentence (“a volunteer since the café began,” “its value goes beyond cost savings”) is the student’s own summarising, not further borrowed phrasing.
Mark scheme for (a), up to 3 marks:
- 1 mark for correctly identifying Draft 1.
- 1 mark for noting that Draft 1 places quotation marks around the exact wording taken from the passage, while Draft 2 has none.
- 1 mark for noting that the framing and surrounding wording in Draft 1 are the student’s own, rather than more unmarked borrowing.
Part (b): Diagnosing the problem with unmarked evidence
Draft 2’s content is not in dispute, it accurately reports what Marina Costas says and directly answers the stated focus. The problem is entirely one of integration: the sentence reproduces the passage’s wording almost unchanged, with no quotation marks to signal that these are not the student’s own words.
Mark scheme for (b), up to 2 marks:
- 1 mark for recognising that Draft 2 reproduces the passage’s exact wording almost unchanged.
- 1 mark for recognising that, without quotation marks, this wording is presented as the student’s own explanation despite being lifted, a failure of integration, not of relevance or accuracy.
Part (c): Rewriting with correct integration
A strong rewrite selects a short, precise phrase to quote rather than the whole borrowed sentence, encloses it accurately in quotation marks, and clearly attributes it to Marina Costas, with the rest of the sentence in the student’s own words, for example:
Marina Costas believes the café’s real value lies in what visitors take away from it, since she has seen people “leave having learned how their appliance actually works,” which she says changes how they care for it afterwards.
Mark scheme for (c), up to 4 marks: 1 mark for selecting a shorter, more precise phrase rather than quoting the whole borrowed sentence; 1 mark for enclosing it accurately in quotation marks; 1 mark for clear attribution to Marina Costas; 1 mark for the remainder of the sentence being genuinely in the student’s own words, not further unmarked borrowing.
Common pitfalls specific to this text
- Some candidates assume that naming the source (“Marina Costas says…”) is sufficient on its own, without also enclosing her borrowed wording in quotation marks.
- When correcting Draft 2, some candidates still quote the whole borrowed sentence rather than choosing a short, precise phrase, missing the mark reserved for precise selection.
- Because the two drafts report identical content, candidates sometimes assume both must be equally valid, missing that integration, not content, is what separates a correct use of evidence from an unmarked lift.