hello and welcome to igcsc success if you're new here big hello to you i'm an english teacher and i post content here on youtube to prepare students for the cambridge first language english exam and if that sounds interesting to you be sure to check out the videos on my channel because i post videos i post videos breaking down some of the core skills needed to succeed with first language english i should just um get rid of that intro so i hope you are all doing well i just wanted to really jump on quickly and i guess do a part two to my video which i uploaded a couple days ago which looks at what you need to do to i guess produce a successful piece of narrative writing one of the things i said in my video was take the ordinary take what you've experienced and make that interesting and one thing no doubt you have all experienced i guess sporadically throughout the year is taking some sort of formal assessment in some big uninviting examination hole oh i've taken that and i've turned it into a simple yet effective narrative and i've given myself a little task or a little title and that is right about a time when you felt nervous so let's take a read of it and discuss what is effective about it right about the time when you felt nervous it was time the unforgiving door swung open revealing the examination hall one by one we were ushered in like vulnerable lambs to the slaughter the fear felt by most was palpable and seemed to suffocate the entire hall today was a day where my destiny was to be decided five years of learning about the bard and macbeth it all came down to this one pivotal moment having finally found my seat i reluctantly took my place small trickles of sweat began to delicately fall from my brow anxiously waiting i noticed that the hall had been fashioned with garish banners haphazardly hanging from the ceiling with various messages of good luck from teachers and parents however these did nothing to calm my nerves petrified my attention was now drawn to the windows my mind started to raise with magical thoughts of the exam somehow being cancelled what if the fire alarm went off what if the lights went out what if the wrong exam paper had been delivered my wishful thinking was soon dampened by the harsh thud of a fist on my table that seemed to come from nowhere pay attention and look straight ahead said the odious invigilator in a harsh regimented tone you have one chance and one chance only at this the invigilator's bright purple spectacles balanced precariously on the top of her pointed nose she scanned the hall in an aloof manner making inaudible grunting noises as she directed anxious students to their seats she glanced over at the big clock that hung on the front wall and began to erratically dart in and out of the neatly formed tables pointing students to the various empty st seeds that were still available there were five minutes left i sat still scared of making even the slightest of movements and continued to observe my surroundings the hall itself had its own ominous quality to it the desks seemed to form a labyrinth stretching as far as the eye could see hundreds of students were now contained and seated there was no escaping from this the lights began to flicker feelings of trepidation resonated throughout the hall as a formidable monster stationed herself at the front of the hall ready to deliver further instruction today's exam is english literature she said with little enthusiasm you have one hour and 45 minutes to complete the paper you may start now i took one final glance at the clock and carefully turned over the page the beads of sweat had returned i grabbed my pen and began to plan a response the hall was now still and quiet except for the hypnotic tick of the old plastic clock a second invigilator past me and greeted me with a warm welcoming smile which seemed to erase my nerves ever so slightly you can do it she said with encouragement and so i began to pen my response to the macbeth question the reassuring words of the second invigilator stay with me for the two months that i waited for my results the almost interminable weight allowed me to reflect on my five years of being a student at high school everything happens for a reason i thought to myself i've done my very best and so i made my journey to school for one last time to collect my envelope i had passed with flying colors sorry i missed the s i had passed with flying colors so despite the missing commas which i've noticed reading it back what makes this short story successful well the opening establishes settings the settings straight away and it creates quite a foreboding quite a tense atmosphere we've got that opening short sentence it was time we've almost got the sort of personification of the doors swinging open um and we've got this sort of characterization of the narrator really struggling and almost entering the unknown so the second paragraph notice the sentence structures we're not starting with that first person pronoun i all the time we're using that ing verb having finally found my seat i reluctantly took my place there's lots of imagery we've got the imagery of the small trickles of sweat um dripping from the narrator's brow we've got some adverb sentence starters again we've got the the sort of characterization being developed with the the almost the sort of the inner thoughts of the character with those rhetorical questions we also have some direct speech to help characterize this odious invigilator not too much speech it's not necessary and then of course the next paragraph um we are very much focusing on this quite formidable this quite intimidating quite unpleasant in vigilator with her spectacles balancing precariously on her pointed nose very much sort of stereotypical image of a slightly older invigilator not that i'm saying that all invigilators are unpleasant but certainly when i was at high school um they weren't the most welcoming of people you always felt like you were doing something wrong and then we go on to a description of the hall itself it having this sort of ominous quality to it there's this real sort of palpable sense of the size it's described as being a labyrinth imagery i've said it's really really important because it creates this all these vivid pictures in the reader's mind and we want you want your imagery or your images that you use to be as realistic as possible so hopefully you would agree that nothing is too far-fetched in this story and then of course we've got the sort of second invigilator coming in just for a brief moment we've got this juxtaposition of the rather unpleasant invigilator compared to the second one who is far more encouraging and then of course our narrator all those nerves are for nothing because they pass with flying colors the other thing that i wanted to mention vocabulary there are certainly um lots of i guess what cambridge would classify as ambitious vocabulary or effective vocabulary you've got that adverb haphazardly you've got that adjective garish you've got that adverb erratically you've got that adjective formidable that verb station so all of these adjectives verbs these adverbs are really really quite important and you want to think carefully about your vocabulary and how you can use it to effectively improve your descriptions of your setting and indeed your characters in your story that's all for today guys as always leave your feedback in the comments below and i will see you again very soon until next time bye bye