In a time out of mind the last question of the Higher English close reading paper used to be seriously intimidating. After 44 marks-worth of questions completed, you would then have to answer a 6 mark evaluation question. Given that evaluation was the hardest type of question to do, then this meant the hardest obstacle was left to the last, and, truth be told, for many it was an obstacle too far. The results of these questions were always quite poor.
All that has changed now. It's not for us to say if it's fairer, better or worse. We just outline now what you have to do. All we can say is that an element of challenge remains.
The final question of the Higher English close reading paper has aspects of evaluation, comparison and summary: it is an evaluative-comparitive-summary question which sounds worse, but it isn't.
