Link QuestionsLink QuestionsLink QuestionsLink Questions

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Link QuestionsA piece of writing would be very

disjointed is each new topic followed the previous one without the reader being led into it. The link sentence provides a connection between the topics so that the reader can progress through the whole argument in logical steps.

Link QuestionsWe have already looked at these types of

questions when we prepared for the textual analysis so this is a very short revision.

A link question will focus on a particular sentence and ask you to explain how it effectively connects one paragraph to another.

Link FormulaYour link formula contains 4 elements.

You must:• Include two quotations from the linking

sentence(s), one referring to the previous topic and one to the topic that follows it.

• Two very brief summaries of the topics themselves, in your own words.

Link FormulaThe word/phrase “Quote” refers

back to the previous paragraph because …The word/phrase “Quote” refers forward to the next paragraph because…

ExampleFor example, in the 2002 Close Reading text on the

subject of ‘Bears’, the fifth paragraph began:So let us imagine that a bear does go for us out in

the wilds. What are we to do?The words ‘a bear does go for us’ refer back

to the previous paragraph in which the author has talked about bears attacking people. The question ‘What are we to do?’ links forward to the next topic, which is a discussion of the advice given to people who are being attacked.

ExampleIn the 2004 paper about an amateur African safari

guide, the following link question was asked:Show how the sentence ‘That’s not what I’m

worried about’ is a successful link between paragraphs 3 and 4.

Paragraph 3 descried the danger to the group on safari from armed rebels; paragraph 4 described the narrator’s anxiety at having to lead the expedition with limited knowledge.

Select two quotations which link back and forward.

Answer• ‘That’ refers back to the earlier

topic of armed rebels;• ‘what I’m worried about’ links

forward to the topic of his anxiety over his lack of knowledge.

Your TurnShow how each of the underlined sentences in the

following extracts act as a link. Each is work 2 marks.

1) When the sun sank down it was luxury to sit in the perfumed air and forget that there was any world but these enchanted islands. It was such ecstasy to dream, and dream – till you got a bite. A scorpion bite. Then the first duty was to get up out of the grass and kill the scorpion and the next to bathe the bitten place with alcohol and the next to resolve to keep out of the grass in future.

PracticeIn Madras, as in other garrison towns in

India, there were many orphan children of soldiers who had been killed, or died of disease, or had been unaware that they had a child. These children faced an unenviable future. In the Hindi community of their mothers they were unacceptable and in the European community they were equally unacceptable because of their native upbringing.