How do I make sure I get as many marks as possible for my analysis of a text?

As you may have learnt in school, exam answers that achieve top grades successfully use PEA or PEE: Point, Evidence, Explanation/Analysis. Point: It is important that you establish what you are trying to say in the first sentence of your paragraph. Ask yourself: does what I’m trying to say answer the exam question? Evidence: This part of your answer is here to prove the point you’ve just made, using what you’ve found in the text. Make sure you’ve included a quotation. Explanation/Analysis: This section is where you will pick up most of the marks. Here, you have to explain /analyse how your evidence is linked to your point. Pick apart the quotation. If you’re arguing that the author is trying to appeal to the readers emotions, talk about what emotive language was used in the quotation. Remember to use your terminology here, and keep referring back to the exam question. Taking it further: The best answers consider things from more than one perspective. You can talk about alternate meanings to your quotation, and explain why you’ve chosen one interpretation over the other. For example, this might be because it fits in better with the wider text as a whole.