Syllabus Edition
First teaching 2025
First exams 2027
Question 4 Skills: Extended Response to Reading (Cambridge (CIE) IGCSE English Language): Revision Note
Exam code: 0500 & 0990
For this task, you will be asked to produce a piece of writing in a particular format, based on what you have read in Text C. You may be asked to write in one of six possible formats (genres):
A letter
A report
A journal entry
A speech
An interview
An article
The following guide will cover the main skills you need to demonstrate in order to complete this question successfully.
Selecting and developing details from a text
This task will require you to produce a piece of writing based on the ideas and specific details you find in Text C.
However, this does not mean just “re-telling” the text, quoting directly from the passage or repeating the details.
You are being assessed on your ability to select relevant information from the text and then develop these details in the style of writing instructed.
Importantly, this means that you should use clues and evidence in the text to help you make judgements about characters and situations, and then creatively expand on the details selected.
Your starting point will always be the bullet points in the question. These tell you what to focus on, and what you should highlight on Text C.
Let’s look at the following example, about a student tour of the ancient Greek site of Delphi.
You are one of the students who visited Delphi. It is the evening of your visit and you have now returned to Athens.
Write a letter to your parents, telling them about your experiences so far.
In your letter you should include the following points:
Details of your trip and your feelings about it before you visited Delphi
Your thoughts and feelings about the visit to Delphi and about how your teacher reacted to it
What you have learnt from your trip so far and why you would (or would not) recommend your parents to make a similar visit
The key details of this task are:
Write from the point of view of a student on the tour
Write in the format of a letter to parents
The first bullet point indicates that you need to find details about the trip and the student’s feelings about it before visiting Delphi.
Let’s find this information in the first part of the passage. The narrator of the passage is the teacher (not the student), so we are going to need to use inference to work out information about the trip and the student’s feelings about it.
Text | Relevant details |
|---|---|
I took a look at my students and wondered if we should cancel the day trip to Delphi. We had been touring for seven days non-stop with every morning an early one; the students were visibly exhausted. Today I was tempted to give us all a break. We had already visited many of the ancient sites of Greece and Rome and we still had a week to go. Surely, we could skip Delphi, a site I was only vaguely familiar with, without causing undue harm to the students’ education? I knew they had wished for more time to hang out in the city, and the three-hour drive each way to Delphi and back sounded gruelling. “Could we just stay here today?” I asked our guide, careful to stay out of earshot of the students. “Sure.” He frowned. “But I think you should go.” I didn’t want to disappoint him. “OK, then,” I said, “We’re going.” After all, it seemed unfair to deny the interested ones in the group the trek to Delphi. “It’ll be fine,” I said, trying to convince myself as well as the students. “You can sleep on the bus.” |
|
Next, we need to develop those relevant details within the scope of the passage, and from the point of view of the “student”.
Details | Development |
|---|---|
Touring for seven days non-stop/early mornings/students visibly exhausted | We were completely worn out. The trip so far had consisted of constant travelling with no down time whatsoever, and we hadn’t had a lie in all week. I know this seems hard to believe, but we’ve been up at 6am every morning! |
Even the teacher was tempted to give everyone a break | Our teacher could see we were flagging, and we were hoping he would give us a bit of a break |
Already visited many of the ancient sites of Greece and Rome/still had a week to go | We’d trekked around ancient monuments, crumbling temples and dusty ruins all week and we still had another week of ancient history to take in. It’s all been very interesting, but there are only so many mosaic floors to see |
Not that familiar with Delphi | I wouldn’t mind, but who has even heard of Delphi? It’s hardly one of the more famous sites. I don’t think our education is going to suffer massively if we miss it out |
Students wanted more time to hang out in the city/three-hour drive each way to Delphi | The city, however, is amazing! So many excellent shops and little cafes. Most of us wanted a bit of time to go shopping, and I really wanted to get you a lovely handmade tablecloth, as they are really pretty. It’s a three-hour drive each way to Delphi, so that would take away any time we might have had for shopping and sightseeing |
Teacher didn’t want to disappoint the guide/some of the students wanted to go/teacher thinks a solution is for the students to sleep on the bus | But there were a couple in our group who really, really wanted to see Delphi, and I got the impression that our teacher didn’t want to disappoint our guide. So his brilliant solution was to sleep on the bus. This site had better be worth the effort! |
Each development point takes the relevant details from the passage and uses logical inferences, based on the information in the passage, to expand on the ideas in the student’s “voice”. The idea of a narrative voice will be explored further in the following section.
Language and tone
In order to be successful in this task, you also need to use a register appropriate for the format of writing. This means adapting your tone, language and expression to make it appropriate for its intended context.
It is therefore important that you identify the point of view from which you are writing and stick to it throughout your answer (and to be aware that you may not be writing as the original “speaker” in the text).
This is your narrative voice. You are expected to mirror the attitude of the character in the text in your response, and maintain this voice and style consistently.
In the above example, you are writing as a student writing a letter to their parents. In this case, it would be appropriate to be a bit less formal and to use some appropriate colloquialisms.
Your language and tone are how you convey the format you have been asked to write in. There are six possible formats you may be given in the exam:
A letter
A report
A journal entry
A speech
An interview
An article
However, it is important not to concern yourself with the layout details of the different styles of writing. It’s a good idea to start a letter with “Dear…” and sign off appropriately, and you should use the bullet points given in the task as “questions” if you have to write an interview, but it is not necessary to use headings, taglines or subheadings for the other formats.
While your choice of register will largely be dictated by the task and the character you are being asked to write as, the following guidelines are always helpful:
Type of writing | Form, language and tone |
|---|---|
Letter |
|
Report |
|
Journal entry |
|
Speech |
|
Interview |
|
Article |
|
For model answers for each of the above formats, please see our model answer pages.
Did this video help you?
Rewriting a text
You are having to use information in a reading text to form this piece of writing.
This is where your question tool from your Critical Reading tools comes in handy, so you can ask: who, what, where, when, why:
Who are you writing as?
So what role are you taking on?
What are you writing about?
What are the key facts from the text and what is the purpose of the writing?
Where has it taken place?
Imagine yourself in the scene
When did it happen?
If it’s not clear, then you can always make that part up!
Why is this being written?
Who will be reading this and what sort of audience are you writing for?
How should you format your answer?
What form should your writing be in? It will tell you in the question so make sure you lay out the answer correctly
Note: in the video above, this question is referenced as Question 3. This was the case for exams up to and including 2026. Cambridge have now changed this to Question 4. However, the advice still applies.
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