Close Reading
Sentence Structure
It’s Not Hard!
• Identify the feature
• Comment on the effect of the
feature
• Remember, it is analysis, so it is
more than just the meaning
There are 5 Main Possibilities
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Punctuation and lists
Length of sentence
Use of climax or anti-climax
Repetition
Word order
Memorise them and use them to check
against the sentences you have been
asked to examine
Punctuation
• Punctuation is designed to aid your
understanding.
• It is crucial to be able to name the
punctuation mark and understand what its
function is.
• It is not enough to be able to identify the
feature – you have to comment on its
impact on the text you are reading
Let’s see what you know
Show how the punctuation of the sentence beginning
‘These included:’ is particularly helpful in following the
argument at this stage. (6A)
The panel divided into two teams. One offered a number
of alternatives. These included: a ‘Landscape of Thorns’ – a
square mile of randomly-spaced 80ft basalt spikes which
just out the ground at different angles; ‘Menacing
Earthworks’ – giant mounds surrounding a 200ft map of the
world displaying all the planet’s nuclear waste dumps; a
‘Black Hole’ – a huge slab of black concrete that absorbs so
much solar heat that is impossible to approach.
Answer
• The punctuation helps to sort out the various
solutions one of the teams suggested.
• The colon after ‘included’ shows there are several
solutions coming up.
• The semi-colons divide up the three solutions (
the spikes, the mounds and the slab) so that you
can see each solution in isolation. They also
create the list implied by the colon.
• The inverted commas give you the name of each
solution as in ‘Black Hole’
• the dash after each of the names introduced and
explanation of each of the names – a huge slab of
black concrete.
Example 2
Show how the punctuation clarifies the
argument (2A)
Some argue that the ultimate result of
global warming will be a paradoxical but
even more catastrophic development:
global cooling.
Example 3
• Show how the punctuation clarifies the
argument (2A)
• Governments may stop finger pointing and
instead join hands; industries may slash
short term profit to permit long term
survival
Example 4
Show how the punctuation helps your
understanding. (2A)
Campaigners for drastic cuts in emissions
fear that talk of ‘adapting’ rather than
‘mitigating’ will ease political pressures on
the big polluters such as the US and
Japan.
Lists
• Numbers of items separated by
punctuation (usually commas or semicolons) form lists
• Recognising a list will get you 0
• You must comment on its function
and impact.
How do deal with a ’list’ question
1. Identify the list
2. Say what effect the list has on the
reader
3. The effect will often be created by
the cumulative nature, or the
monotony, or the shape of the list.
Example 1
• Comment on the structure and effect of
this sentence. (2A)
• The Scottish race has been variously and
plentifully accused of being dour, mean,
venal, sly, narrow, slothful, sluttish, dirty,
immoderately drunk, embarrassingly
sentimental, masterfully hypocritical, and
a blueprint for disaster when eleven of
them are together on a football field.
Answer
• The sentence consists of long list of
faults of the Scots. It makes their
faults seem endless, as if there
were no hope of redeeming features.
Example 2
Show how the writer uses the sentence
structure to enlist your sympathy for
Mohammed Ali. (2A)
What overwhelms you about this man from such a
violent trade are the goodness, sincerity and
generosity that have survived a lifetime of
controversy, racial hatred, fundamental religious
conversion, criminal financial exploitation, marital
upheavals, revilement by many of his own nation
and, eventually, the collapse of his own body.
Answer
• There are two lists here. Here is an
answer for the second longer list
• The list of all the adversities that
Mohammed Ali had to face impresses
on you what a mountain of
difficulties there were piled up
against him, so that you sympathise
with his situation.
Sentence length
• Easy to spot; hard to comment on
• Generally what you will notice is a short
sentence
• Normally Higher passages have sentences
of some length and complexity so the
short sentence (simple or minor) stands
out.
• Remember it’s not that it is short or long
but what its impact is you are being asked
for.
Example 1
• Show how the sentence structure emphasises
the impact of the destruction of his bat. (2A)
I used that bat the entire summer and a magical
season it was. I was the best hitter in the
neighbourhood. Once, I won a game in the last atbat with a home run, and the boys just crowded
round me as I were a spectacle to behold, as if I
were, for one small moment, in this insignificant
part of the world, playing this meaningless game,
their majestic, golden prince.
But the bat broke. Some kid used it without my
permission. He hit a foul ball and the bat split, the
barrel flying away, the splintered handle still in the
kid’s hands.
Answer
• The short sentence ‘But the bat broke.’ is
a dramatic sentence which puts and end to
the glory that has been built up
surrounding the bat in the previous
paragraph. It marks a sudden event which
takes the reader by surprise. Its position
as a link sentence at the beginning of the
paragraph stresses the contrast between
the triumph of the previous paragraph and
the disaster of the next paragraph.
Example 2
• But then, like the cavalry regrouping, they
set off once more, ground their way back
up to speed, beat a path through the final
verse and ended again. Simon’s final
flourish sounding a little more sheepish
this time. After that they were gone.
And no encores.
• Show how the sentence structure
emphasises the failings of the band.
Example 3
The Scottish race has been variously and
plentifully accused of being dour, mean,
venal, sly, narrow, slothful, sluttish, dirty,
immoderately drunk, embarrassingly
sentimental, masterfully hypocritical, and
a blueprint for disaster when eleven of
them are together on a football field.
Comment on the structure and effect of
this sentence.
Climax and Anti-climax
• Sometimes easy to identify, especially if
in a list of three things or in a long
sentence. Bur what if it is more subtle?
For example:
• We are not going to be identified as a
‘growing social problem’, as the social
commentators would have us labelled, but
as a thriving, gossiping and defiant
sisterhood.
How does the sentence structure
emphasise her positive point of view? (2A)
Answer
Clues for climax
• There is list
• There is a build up
• The negative ideas are at the
beginning
• The ideas become more positive
Anti-climax would reverse 2 and 4
Repetition
• Repetition of sentence structure ie
word order or parts of speech or
patterns
• Repetition of words or expressions
• Repetition of sounds
(Remember it is the impact of the
repetition not just identification of
it that gets marks.)