Unit Exam 2 — News Article & News Report | IGCSE First Language English 0500

90:00 0 / 50

Instructions — and the distinction this whole paper tests

Answer both tasks. Each is worth 25 marks; the paper totals 50 marks in 90 minutes — about 45 minutes each, including five minutes of planning.
Each piece should be 250–350 words; headlines are not counted.
Your school lists news article and news report as two separate forms, and they are. Writing one in the shape of the other is the main way this unit is failed:

	Task A — news article (feature)	Task B — news report
Job	Makes the reader feel and understand a story they may already know happened	Delivers the facts of something new, fastest first
Opening	A scene or a person — the reader is put somewhere	The lead: who, what, where, when in the first sentence
Order	Story logic — each paragraph earns the next; the best line may come last	Inverted pyramid — importance order; the story must survive being cut from the bottom
Voice	Warm, textured, has colour — but still no “I think”	Invisible. Neutral. No opinion, no emotive adjectives, ever
Ending	A turn or a resonant image	The least important fact — never a moral

Write both answers before pressing Finish. You then tick concrete criteria (one mark each) and check yourself against three exemplars per task — weak, middling, strong — with the marking explained in the margin.
Tick a criterion only if it is visibly true on the page. That is the examiner’s rule, so it is yours.

0 / 50

Each tick is one mark, and each criterion is something an examiner can point at on the page. The fastest check of all: could a stranger tell, from the first two sentences alone, which of your two pieces is the feature and which is the report? If not, re-read the exemplars before trusting your ticks.

Mark / 50	Indicative grade
40–50	A*
35–39	A
30–34	B
25–29	C
20–24	D
15–19	E

Insert for Task A — reporter’s notes and interviews

Dark Skies Night — everything you gathered

You write for the Milbrook Gazette’s weekend feature pages. These are your notes; you may not invent facts, names or quotations beyond them.

Last Friday, Milbrook switched off its streetlights from 9 p.m. to midnight — the town’s first Dark Skies Night.
The idea came from the high school’s astronomy club — twelve members — who campaigned for two years and collected a petition of 1,100 signatures.
Around 400 people gathered on the school playing field. The club set up its three telescopes; the queue for the largest never dropped below forty people.
Clearly visible: Saturn’s rings through the telescopes, and, for the first time in decades over the town, the Milky Way with the naked eye.
Club founder Priya Nair, 16: “People kept asking what we had done to the sky. We had not done anything. We had stopped doing something.”
Edith Hartley, 84, of Corn Row, who was helped onto the field by her granddaughter: “I last saw the Milky Way from this street when I was a girl. I thought it had gone.”
Dennis Kroll, who kept his shop open at first: “It was bad for trade and I said so at the meeting. But by ten I had shut up and gone out to look like everyone else.”
Police confirmed no rise in incidents during the switch-off.
The town council votes next month on making Dark Skies Night annual.

Task A News article — feature treatment for the weekend pages 25 marks

Write a news article about Dark Skies Night for the Gazette’s weekend feature pages. Your readers already know the lights went off; your job is to make them feel what it was like, and understand how it came about.

Open with a scene or a person, carry a human thread through the piece, weave in the background, and use the quotations where they will land hardest. Give the article a headline. Write 250 to 350 words (the headline is not counted).

A Your news article, with its headline on the first line. [25]

Marking — Task A

Band descriptors — hold your piece against these before you tick anything

Band	Content and structure	Style and accuracy
5 21–25	A genuine feature: it opens inside a scene or beside a person, carries that human thread to the end, and weaves the two-year backstory through the piece instead of dumping it. Every fact and quotation is accurate to the notes; the contrasting voice gives the piece texture; the ending turns.	A journalistic voice with warmth and colour but no first-person opinion. Quotes attributed and punctuated cleanly; precise vocabulary; sentence rhythm consciously varied. Errors rare and trivial.
4 16–20	Clearly a feature, opening with scene or person, facts accurate, background present though perhaps in one solid block. Quotes used purposefully; the ending competent rather than resonant.	Voice mostly held, with flat patches; attribution consistent; minor errors that never delay the reader.
3 11–15	Accurate but written as a report: facts frontloaded, quotes clumped, no human thread — the right story in the wrong form. Or a feature shape with thin use of the notes.	Neutral to a fault, or wobbling between registers; plain vocabulary; noticeable but non-obscuring errors.
2 6–10	A recount (“On Friday there was an event…”) with facts thinned, misquoted or invented; quotes unattributed; no structure beyond chronology.	Gushing or chatty (“amazing”, “a night to remember”); uniform sentences; frequent errors.
1 1–5	Barely uses the notes; invention throughout; no recognisable journalistic form.	Little control of register or accuracy; the reader has to work.

These band descriptors are a study aid written for this site, not Cambridge’s published wording.

Exemplar 1 — weak (band 2, about 8/25)

Weak exemplar — the same task, done badly

Dark Skies Night

The event’s own name is not a headline — it is a caption. No angle, no promise, no reason to read on.

On Friday there was an event in Milbrook called Dark Skies Night where all the lights got turned off. It was organised by the astronomy club and it was really amazing and everyone loved it.

A recount opening (“On Friday there was…”) plus gushing (“really amazing”) — the two register failures of this form in one paragraph. A feature earns the reader’s feeling; it never announces it.

Loads of people came, maybe a thousand, and there were telescopes where you could see Saturn and loads of stars. An old lady said she hadnt seen the Milky Way since she was little which was really sweet. Even a shopkeeper who was against it came out to look in the end.

“Maybe a thousand” — the notes say around 400: an invented figure in a piece of journalism is not a style fault, it is the cardinal sin. Edith Hartley has lost her name, her age and her actual words; “really sweet” is the writer’s opinion doing the quote’s job. And hadnt needs its apostrophe.

The council might do it again next year. All in all it was a great night and fun was had by all!

A cliché ending with an exclamation mark — the feature writer’s white flag. The two-year campaign and the 1,100 signatures never appeared: the story of how it came about, which the task asked for, is simply missing. Well under length too.

Exemplar 2 — middling (band 3, about 14/25)

Middling exemplar — accurate, but the wrong form

Town Switches Off for First Dark Skies Night

A clean, factual headline — for a news report. On the feature pages it promises information the reader already has.

Milbrook held its first Dark Skies Night on Friday, switching off the town’s streetlights from 9 p.m. to midnight. Around 400 people gathered on the high school playing field, where the astronomy club had set up three telescopes.

The event followed a two-year campaign by the twelve-member club, whose petition collected 1,100 signatures. Saturn’s rings were visible through the telescopes, and the Milky Way could be seen with the naked eye. Police confirmed no rise in incidents.

Every fact is present and accurate, the background is included, the accuracy criteria all earn their ticks — and it is an inverted pyramid. Facts first, importance order, invisible voice: this is Task B’s form wearing Task A’s byline. Nothing here makes the reader feel the field in the dark.

Priya Nair, 16, who founded the club, said: “People kept asking what we had done to the sky. We had not done anything. We had stopped doing something.” Edith Hartley, 84, said: “I last saw the Milky Way from this street when I was a girl. I thought it had gone.”

Both quotes accurate, attributed, correctly punctuated — and clumped in a pen at the end, each introduced by the same flat “said”. In a feature, Edith Hartley is not a quote: she is the opening scene, waiting to be used.

The council will vote next month on whether to make the event annual.

A perfectly correct report ending — which is the problem. Content accurate, form wrong: band 3 is exactly where “the right story in the wrong shape” lands.

Exemplar 3 — strong (band 5, about 23/25)

Strong exemplar — what feature treatment means

The Night Milbrook Stopped Doing Something

Angled — and borrowed, cleverly, from the best quote in the notes, which the piece will pay off later.

At four minutes past nine on Friday, on a playing field filling with strangers, Edith Hartley tipped her head back and went quiet. She is 84. The last time the Milky Way stood over Corn Row, she was a girl. “I thought it had gone,” she said.

The reader is put on the field, beside a named person, inside the first sentence. The quote is broken across the paragraph so its shortest line lands alone. This is the scene-first opening the form demands.

It had not gone. It was waiting behind the streetlights — all of which, for three hours, Milbrook switched off for the first Dark Skies Night, while some 400 people queued at three school telescopes to look at Saturn’s rings. The queue for the largest never dropped below forty.

None of it happened by accident. Two years ago, twelve students founded an astronomy club with a grievance: their town had mislaid its sky. They argued at council meetings, gathered 1,100 signatures, and won. “People kept asking what we had done to the sky,” said Priya Nair, 16, the club’s founder. “We had not done anything. We had stopped doing something.”

Background woven as a story (“a grievance”, “mislaid its sky”), not dumped as data — and the founder’s quote arrives exactly where it explains the most. Colour, but not one word of the writer’s own opinion.

Not everyone came willingly. Dennis Kroll kept his shop lit and said the dark was bad for trade. “But by ten I had shut up and gone out to look like everyone else.” The police, for their part, counted nothing unusual at all — except, perhaps, where everyone was looking.

The dissenting voice is given fairly and becomes the story’s texture; the police note is turned with a light touch that stays factual.

The council votes next month on making the night annual. Edith Hartley has already told her granddaughter she is coming back.

The close returns to the human thread and the headline’s promise — a turn, not a summary. Why 23 and not 25? “Except, perhaps, where everyone was looking” edges toward the writer’s own voice intruding, and one more concrete sensory detail of the field would seal band 5 beyond argument.

Twelve ways this task loses marks — check your article against every one before you tick.

No headline, or the event’s name used as one — a caption is not a headline.
A recount opening — “On Friday there was an event…” is a diary entry, not a feature.
Writing the report instead — facts frontloaded, importance order, invisible voice. Right story, wrong form, band 3 ceiling.
Gushing — “amazing”, “magical”, “a night to remember”. If the scene is built properly, the reader gushes for you.
Inventing facts — a crowd of “a thousand”, a quote nobody gave. In journalism tasks, invention is the heaviest single penalty.
Losing the names — “an old lady said” wastes the best-attributed quote in the notes.
Quotes clumped at the end, each on the same flat “said” hinge, instead of placed where they land.
Background dumped in one block — the two-year campaign delivered as a paragraph of dates rather than woven as story.
No human thread — nobody is met early and returned to; the piece has facts but no one to follow.
The dissenter flattened or mocked — Kroll is texture and fairness; losing him makes the piece an advert.
First-person opinion — “I think this was wonderful” breaks the form; a feature has warmth, not editorial.
An ending that summarises — “All in all…” instead of a turn, an image, or a door left open.

Insert for Task B — notes in the order you collected them, not the order that matters

Storm damage at Milbrook High — everything you have

You cover news for the Milbrook Gazette. These notes are jumbled and some details do not belong in the story — choosing and ordering is the test. You may not invent anything.

Tuesday evening: sky darkened about 8 p.m.; heavy rain began around 9.
Weather station: 62 mm of rain in three hours — the heaviest since records began locally.
The culvert under Mill Lane blocked with debris; the stream overtopped it and ran downhill to the school.
Caretaker Joe Brennan, 58, called out at 2 a.m., waded into the rising water and carried the school’s 40 microscopes upstairs. It was his birthday. His terrier, Scout, waited at the door.
Water reached 30 cm in the ground-floor science block. Three laboratories closed; repairs estimated at six weeks.
Nobody was injured.
School closed Wednesday; reopened Thursday, with science classes moved to the hall and library.
Head teacher Susan Achebe: “The exam timetable is unaffected. The labs will be back. The microscopes, thanks to Mr Brennan, never left.”
Brennan: “You do not stand looking at water at two in the morning. You move what matters.”
Repair cost not yet known; insurers visited on Friday.
The parents’ association has announced a fundraiser for replacement equipment.

Task B News report — inverted pyramid, facts first 25 marks

Write the news report of the flood for the Gazette’s news pages. Lead with the most newsworthy fact — not with the weather, and not with Tuesday evening. Order everything after it by importance, so the story would survive being cut from the bottom. Keep yourself, and every opinion, out of it.

Give the report a factual headline. Write 250 to 350 words (the headline is not counted).

B Your news report, with its headline on the first line. [25]

Marking — Task B

Band descriptors — hold your piece against these before you tick anything

Band	Content and structure	Style and accuracy
5 21–25	The lead carries who, what, where and when, and picks the right “what” — the consequence, not the weather. Importance order is sustained; background arrives after the news; the irrelevant details are silently gone; unknowns are reported as unknown; the last paragraph is the most cuttable.	An invisible reporter: neutral register with not one emotive adjective, quotes attributed by name and role, short self-contained paragraphs, clean active sentences, consistent past tense. Errors rare and trivial.
4 16–20	A genuine lead and mostly-sustained importance order, though one paragraph sits too high or the cause arrives early. Irrelevancies out; facts accurate.	Neutral register held with a slip or two; attribution consistent; minor errors that never delay the reader.
3 11–15	The facts are present and broadly accurate but the story is told in time order, or the lead chooses the storm rather than its consequence. An irrelevant detail survives.	Mostly neutral with occasional colour (“brave”, “luckily”); paragraphs long; noticeable but non-obscuring errors.
2 6–10	A chronological recount from the sky darkening onward; the news buried halfway down; figures thinned or wrong; the birthday and the dog reported as news.	Opinion and drama in the telling (“hero caretaker”, “disaster struck”); unattributed quotes; frequent errors.
1 1–5	Barely uses the notes, or invents; no recognisable news structure.	No neutral register attempted; persistent errors make the reader work.

These band descriptors are a study aid written for this site, not Cambridge’s published wording.

Exemplar 1 — weak (band 2, about 7/25)

Weak exemplar — the same task, done badly

A Terrible Night for Milbrook High!

Emotive, vague, and carrying an exclamation mark — three things a news headline never does. It also fails to say what actually happened.

On Tuesday evening the sky went dark over Milbrook at about 8 p.m. and by 9 the rain was hammering down. Little did anyone know what the night had in store for the school.

Chronology, starting at the least newsworthy moment — the weather — plus “little did anyone know”, a storyteller’s tease. A reader skimming the news pages still has no idea what the story is.

The hero of the night was brave caretaker Joe Brennan, who amazingly waded through the freezing flood to rescue the school’s microscopes — on his birthday of all days! His loyal terrier Scout waited anxiously at the door. “You move what matters” he said.

“Hero”, “brave”, “amazingly”, “loyal”, “anxiously” — five opinions in two sentences, in a form that permits none. The birthday and the dog are exactly the details the task plants to see if you will cut them. The quote has lost its attribution comma and its context, and “freezing” is invented.

The school had to shut and everyone is hoping things get back to normal soon. What a night!

The actual news — three labs shut for six weeks, school reopened Thursday, exams unaffected — never appears. “Everyone is hoping” is unverifiable; “What a night!” is a moral. A report ends with its least important fact, never a flourish.

Exemplar 2 — middling (band 3, about 15/25)

Middling exemplar — nearly news

Storm Floods Milbrook High School

Factual and compressed — a real headline. But it leads on the storm; the better story, as the strong exemplar shows, is what the flood did.

A violent storm hit Milbrook on Tuesday night, dropping 62 mm of rain in three hours — the heaviest since local records began. The stream overtopped a blocked culvert under Mill Lane and flooded the ground floor of Milbrook High’s science block to 30 cm.

Accurate, tight, properly sourced figures — but the lead sentence answers “what was the weather?” when the reader is asking “what happened to the school?”. The consequence — labs shut for six weeks — is a sentence too late.

Three laboratories will be closed for an estimated six weeks. Nobody was injured. The school shut on Wednesday and reopened Thursday, with science classes relocated to the hall and library. Luckily, caretaker Joe Brennan carried the school’s 40 microscopes upstairs at 2 a.m. before the water reached them.

Short paragraphs, right facts, irrelevancies cut — and one word breaks the register: “Luckily” is an opinion. Report what Brennan did; the reader will supply the luck.

Head teacher Susan Achebe said: “The exam timetable is unaffected. The labs will be back. The microscopes, thanks to Mr Brennan, never left.” The cost of repairs is not yet known. The parents’ association has announced a fundraiser for replacement equipment.

Attribution clean, the unknown reported as unknown, the fundraiser correctly last. This is solid band 3 pushing 4: fix the lead and delete one adverb, and it is a different report.

Exemplar 3 — strong (band 5, about 23/25)

Strong exemplar — the pyramid, inverted properly

Milbrook High Labs Shut for Six Weeks After Flood

The consequence, compressed to eight words. A reader who sees only the headline has the story.

Three science laboratories at Milbrook High School will be closed for an estimated six weeks after Tuesday night’s storm flooded the school’s ground-floor science block to a depth of 30 cm. Nobody was injured.

Who, what, where, when — and the “what” is the thing that changes readers’ lives, not the rainfall. “Nobody was injured” comes second, exactly where a reader looks for it.

The school closed on Wednesday and reopened on Thursday, with science classes relocated to the hall and library. Head teacher Susan Achebe said: “The exam timetable is unaffected. The labs will be back. The microscopes, thanks to Mr Brennan, never left.”

Caretaker Joe Brennan, 58, was called out at 2 a.m. and carried the school’s 40 microscopes to the upper floor as the water rose. “You do not stand looking at water at two in the morning,” he said. “You move what matters.”

Brennan’s actions are reported without one admiring adjective — and are the more striking for it. His birthday and his dog are nowhere: the reporter chose the news. The quote is split so its strongest line stands alone.

The flooding began when the culvert under Mill Lane blocked with debris, sending the stream downhill to the school. A weather station recorded 62 mm of rain in three hours, the heaviest since local records began.

The cause arrives fourth — background explains news; it does not precede it. Every figure traces to the notes.

The cost of repairs is not yet known; insurers visited on Friday. The parents’ association has announced a fundraiser for replacement equipment.

Cut this last paragraph and the story still stands — the pyramid test, passed. Why 23 and not 25? The relocation detail might sit a touch high for some editors, and the report spends no sentence on how long Mill Lane itself was affected — a question a sub-editor would ask. Band 5 does not mean unimprovable.

Twelve ways this task loses marks — check your report against every one before you tick.

Leading with the weather — the storm is the cause; the closed labs are the news.
Chronological telling — “On Tuesday evening the sky darkened…” is a story shape, not a news shape.
An emotive or vague headline — “A Terrible Night!” tells the reader your feelings and no facts.
Opinion anywhere — “brave”, “hero”, “luckily”, “amazingly”. One adverb of admiration breaks the whole register.
Keeping the planted irrelevancies — the birthday and the terrier are bait. The notes are not a checklist; selection is the skill.
Burying “nobody was injured” — safety information belongs at the top, not discovered halfway down.
Cause before consequence — explaining the culvert before reporting the closed labs.
Unattributed or mangled quotes — every quotation carries a full name and role, punctuated as speech.
Guessing the unknowns — inventing a repair cost the notes say is not yet known.
Long, braided paragraphs — news paragraphs are one or two sentences, each able to stand alone.
A story that cannot be cut from the bottom — if the last paragraph holds something vital, the order is wrong.
Ending with a moral — “What a night!” or “everyone is hoping…” instead of the least important fact.