Bemused about Architecture - thoughts on the GCSE English Exam

English teachers - help me out with this one. I finally got a chance this week to have a good look at the F Tier AQA English Language paper. It was basically what we were expecting, and the questions looked reasonable on the whole, but I'm baffled by question 4. For the uninitiated, this question asks students to 'compare the ways that presentational features are used for effect' in two non-fiction sources. The sources this year were a page from an information book about the Titanic, aimed at children, and a pared down and adapted version of this article about a brother and sister who survived a recent boating accident.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/apr/26/brother-sister-swim-boat-sinks

My confusion stems from the fact that to me, it seems utterly bereft of meaningful presentational features - on the paper insert that the students get, most of the presentational conventions of the genuine website are removed, so there are no comments, share buttons, different coloured links to comment on, and the heading doesn't contain the font of the newspaper. This is typical of the way that the inserts have been designed and it's what we've come to expect. The one feature that is present however, and that which we've worked hard to teach our students to analyse, is the photograph. In last year's paper, for example, about Prince Harry's expedition to the North Pole, students were given two photos, both of which carried clear potential to comment meaningfully on effect - students could write about use of colour, the 'team photo' versus the individual, the way that Harry's pose and posture reflected the difficulties and challenges - there was plenty to say.
http://filestore.aqa.org.uk/subjects/AQA-ENG1F-INS-NOV13.PDF

This year's though… the people in the image have survived an aquatic ordeal, but the image seems to give us so very little to write about. One of them looks happy, presumably because... she isn't dead? Is that it? The other one looks pretty expressionless but has lots of facial hair which might signify that…. he likes beards? He's wearing, um, a navy blue top? This links to, um, the navy who were so conspicuous by their absence in the 14 hours that they were needed? 

With students, we've spent lots of time trying to get them to focus on the details of the image - look beyond the obvious, and consider what's in the background. In this case, you might expect to see some reference to the water, to danger, to survival, but what we actually get is two people in front of what appears to be a sort of neo-classical facade - now what, seriously, are we expecting F Tier English students to make of that? That their survival has sparked an epiphanic desire to get the most out of life from now on, beginning with taking a MUCH more active interest in architecture? The building doesn't even help to locate the pair geographically, unless we are assuming or requiring that students have a working knowledge of colonial buildings in the Caribbean? Are we really doing that? 

Looking even more closely, there also appears to be some sort of sign in the top left hand corner, saying 'RAMOLE'. Ramole. Ramole. I'm racking my brains, but nothing's coming to mind. A quick google reveals that there's a 'Gold Shop' in Minneapolis called 'Ramole', but that doesn't help much… Is it a street sign? Are we seriously expecting students to bring knowledge of the conventions of Caribbean municipal street signage to accompany their cognisance of architectural style? There is a patch of sky near the sign which looks… sort of blue, might be grey. The effect of this is… to reinforce the fact that one of them feels happy (if blue) or that the other one is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (if grey)? What are they supposed to say about this image?

Now it may of course be that there are lots of things that can be said about it, but I'm just missing them. If this is the case, please do let me know what they are - I would appreciate it massively. My overwhelming sense at the moment is that, whilst it might be amusing to speculate about whatever contorted 'effects' we could draw from this image if we had to, there's nothing funny about the effort that teachers and students have put in to preparing to do this exam, only to be faced with a question which is so difficult to answer. To be clear, that's not difficult in a credible 'anti-dumbing down, let's boost standards and knowledge' way, it's difficult in an 'asking kids to do something fundamentally facile and unachievable' way. And that is not on.

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