Structuring an Extended Written Response: Question 9
Syllabus W1, W2
A student is writing a report evaluating a proposal to convert a disused railway line into a walking and cycling path. Below are two paragraphs from their report, written in the correct order but with nothing linking them together.
Paragraph 1: "The old railway line that once linked Marsden and Thorpe End has been unused since services stopped in 1998. Weeds now cover the tracks, and several sections of the boundary fencing have collapsed, making the corridor an eyesore as well as a safety hazard for the children who sometimes climb through gaps to explore it."
Paragraph 2: "A dedicated path along this route would connect the two towns without requiring residents to use the busy A312, which currently has no separate provision for cyclists. Early estimates suggest the conversion could be completed within eighteen months, at a cost considerably lower than building an entirely new path from scratch."
(a) Write one or two sentences that could be inserted between these two paragraphs to bridge them, making the shift from the current problem to the proposed solution explicit. Do not repeat either paragraph's content word for word. [4]
(b) Explain how your bridging sentence(s) connect back to Paragraph 1 and forward to Paragraph 2. [3]
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Worked solution
Assessment focus
This tests structuring at the level of the whole response rather than a single paragraph: whether a candidate can write a sentence that performs the specific job of a bridge, referring back to what has just been said while pointing forward to what is about to be said, without repeating either paragraph’s content.
Model bridge (a)
“Converting this derelict corridor into a dedicated path would resolve both problems at once, transforming a safety hazard into a valuable piece of local infrastructure.”
Explaining the bridge (b)
- Linking back to Paragraph 1: “this derelict corridor” and “safety hazard” refer back to the disused line and the collapsed fencing described in Paragraph 1, using a synonym (“derelict corridor”) rather than repeating “unused since services stopped in 1998” word for word.
- Pointing forward to Paragraph 2: “converting… into a dedicated path” and “valuable piece of local infrastructure” introduce the proposal that Paragraph 2 then develops in detail (the route, the cost, the timescale), without stealing any of that paragraph’s specific evidence.
- Why a bridge is needed here: without it, the report would jump abruptly from describing a problem to describing a solution with no signal that a shift is happening, forcing the reader to infer the connection rather than having it made explicit.
Common pitfalls specific to this task
- Writing “The railway line is derelict and unsafe,” which only repeats Paragraph 1 and gives the reader no indication that a solution is coming.
- Writing “The A312 has no cycling provision,” which jumps into Paragraph 2’s own evidence rather than bridging towards it.
- In part (b), writing “the sentence connects the two paragraphs” without naming which words do the connecting or what each one refers to.