IGSCE English for Home-educators Supplementary Worksheets

IGSCE English for Home-educators
Supplementary Worksheets
Why use them?
Supplementary worksheets can be useful for a number of reasons. Primarily, they help to
strengthen your grasp of what you’ve learned on the course. They are also very useful for
revision purposes. After all, in a condensed course, there are often only one or two
opportunities to practise a particular skill, and the worksheets give you a chance to really raise
your game in a particular area.
Another important function of worksheets is to help you to come up with ideas and answers
and to be able to write them quickly; something which is important in the exam. From time to
time I’ll suggest that you try to answer a particular exercise in a given time limit. This can be
good fun, and as you’ll find several examples of each skill-test on the worksheets, you can
practise writing to speed with different exercises.
Occasionally, too, on the basis of your assignments, I may also suggest that you do some
additional exercises on the worksheets to consolidate skills.
Above all, I want you to enjoy using the worksheets. They are meant to be fun and to help
enhance your enjoyment of reading and writing.
Do worksheets get marked?
I’ve tried to keep the cost of the course as low as possible and included in this cost are ten
tutor-marked assignments. Unfortunately, however, the price doesn’t include the cost of
marking the worksheets. This isn’t altogether a bad thing. After all, the whole purpose of
home-education is that parents are involved in their children’s learning and this is something
that you might want to evaluate on a parent/child basis. Where relevant, the worksheets have
answer sheets.
If, however, you would like some extra feedback and support, this can be provided at an
additional cost of £7.50 per worksheet. Please forward the worksheet to me at 75 Trench Rd,
Telford, TF2 6PF), together with an s.a.e. and I shall mark and return them to you.
Do please get in touch with me if you can think of anything else that you would like to see
covered on the worksheets and I shall do my best to oblige.
Best wishes,
Catherine
Worksheet 1
Chapter 1
An introduction to Writing – some key terms and ideas.
Writing to explore, imagine and entertain.
Go through the worksheet at you own pace. Don’t feel you have to answer every question. I
have left space for you to do the exercises. Please take the amount of space I have left as an
approximate indication of how much you should write. (Don’t agonise, though, if you don’t fill
the space. People have differently sized handwriting!)
1. Describing characters:
Study the faces in each of the boxes. Write a paragraph about each face, giving it a name and
making sure you write something about what the face looks like, sounds like (if you think it is
making a sound!) and the mood it is experiencing. You might want to write what the character
is thinking about. Try to use adjectives, and imaginative and interesting language.
2. Describing places
As with the exercise above, use imaginative words and interesting phrases to describe the
following places.
3. Describe character and setting together. Read the section on using original and
imaginative words and phrases, and tone, mood and atmosphere, and describe BOTH
the setting and the character. Don’t forget to describe what the characters are doing using
adverbs (happily, cautiously, warily, etcetera).