1 What do you understand from the article about the issues of food waste at Christmas? [8 marks]

Read Source 1, ‘It’s time to cut Christmas food waste’, by Rebecca Smithers. http://filestore.aqa.org.uk/sample-papers-and-mark-schemes/2016/november/AQA-ENG1H-INS-NOV16.PDF

To answer this we need to show that we've understood what the text is talking about by talking about (and quoting) the main points of the text. We can even start to comment on them.

An example of this would be:

Smithers talks about the fact that we waste a huge amount of food at Christmas, and that a great deal of what we throw away could actually be reused! She suggests that is could be because 'we cannot calculate what we really need, or because we are gluttons', but according to Wrap we throw out ‘the equivalent of 2 million turkeys, 5 million Christmas puddings’, and ‘nearly twice as many mince pies as retail giant Marks and Spencer sells every year’- shocking and unbelievable statistics.

Unilever and Wrap are trying to help families waste less around Christmas and ‘cut their grocery bills by 15%’ by cutting the amount of food they throw away. But it might be better if we planned our cooking and shopping 'more carefully’ instead!

There are pressures to buy too much food at Christmas – one lady admits that ‘I always cook far more than I need to’ because she wants to get everything right for Christmas. And apart from the food waste, Smithers says that we pour ‘15 million cups of roast turkey fat’ poured down kitchen sinks. This should make us feel guilty for environmental reasons, and the cost of removing this, scientists say, adds up to £50 million a year to household bills.