Polska i Unia Europejska: Poland in Europe, the benefits and the challenges

A Paper 1 stimulus text contains this paragraph: „Polska należy do Unii Europejskiej od 1 maja 2004 roku i dwukrotnie sprawowała prezydencję w Radzie Unii Europejskiej — w drugiej połowie 2011 roku oraz w pierwszej połowie 2025 roku. Poza strukturami unijnymi Warszawa działa również w formatach regionalnych: w Trójkącie Weimarskim, powołanym w 1991 roku wspólnie z Francją i Niemcami, oraz w Grupie Wyszehradzkiej. Zdaniem części komentatorów te fora wzmacniają pozycję negocjacyjną Polski; inni uważają, że ich znaczenie bywa przeceniane.” The question, worth two marks with no AO3 marks attached, is: „Jak komentatorzy oceniają znaczenie forów regionalnych dla Polski?” Work the answer.

1. 01Read what the question actually asks, and count the marks

   The question asks how commentators assess the significance of the regional formats — not what the formats are, and not what the writer thinks. Two marks with no AO3 attached tells you two things at once: there are two content points to find, and the language mark is not in play, so the specification's tolerance for using the text's own words applies here. Students routinely answer this kind of question by describing the Weimar Triangle, which is in the text and is irrelevant to the question set. Irrelevant material is one of the two grounds on which the specification says the content mark is withheld altogether.

2. 02Locate the answer and notice that it is double

   Everything before the semicolon in the final sentence is background; the answer lives in that sentence alone, and it has two halves. Zdaniem części komentatorów te fora wzmacniają pozycję negocjacyjną Polski is the first assessment. Inni uważają, że ich znaczenie bywa przeceniane is the second. The two marks are one for each. An answer that reports only the positive half has found one content point, and an answer that reports the two halves as though the text endorsed the first has misread the attribution, which is the actual comprehension being tested.

3. 03Apply the lifting rule the specification states

   The rule is precise. Where a comprehension question carries no AO3 marks and the natural answer consists wholly or partly of words from the text, the student may use that material without rephrasing it, and minor spelling errors that do not distort meaning are tolerated. But no content mark is given where the answer contains irrelevant material or lifts an element that does not match the phrasing of the question set. So reusing wzmacniają pozycję negocjacyjną is safe here; copying the whole paragraph, including the Weimar Triangle, is not, because the added material does not match the question.

4. 04Write the answer in complete Polish clauses

   Even where lifting is permitted, write clauses rather than fragments, because a fragment can be ambiguous on paper in a way it never is in speech. Keep both attributions, because the attribution is the content: część komentatorów on one side, inni on the other. Two clauses joined by natomiast or by a semicolon will do it. Adding a third clause that says the text does not settle the question costs nothing and demonstrates that you read the sentence as a reported disagreement rather than as a claim.

5. 05Check the grammar of the frames you have reused

   Zdaniem and według both govern the genitive, so it is zdaniem części komentatorów and never zdaniem komentatorom. Część takes a genitive plural after it and then a singular verb, because część is itself the grammatical subject: część komentatorów uważa, not uważają. Wzmacniać takes an accusative object, so pozycję negocjacyjną is correct and the adjective agrees with it. Bywa przeceniane is an imperfective frequentative carrying a passive participle that agrees with the neuter znaczenie. Rozstrzygać takes the genitive under negation, so nie rozstrzyga tego sporu rather than ten spór. Five checks, half a minute, and they are precisely the five places a rushed answer goes wrong.

Result: Opinie są podzielone. Zdaniem części komentatorów fora regionalne wzmacniają pozycję negocjacyjną Polski, natomiast według innych ich znaczenie bywa przeceniane. Tekst nie rozstrzyga tego sporu.

You have one fact and nothing else: Polska od 2004 roku otrzymuje środki z polityki spójności. A written task has asked whether membership has changed Poland. Build one argued paragraph of Polish from that single fact, about seventy words long, showing every decision on the way.

1. 01Turn the fact into a claim, because a fact is not an argument

   Poland has received cohesion funds since 2004 is true and inert. The claim hidden inside it is that those funds paid for something visible, and the claim is what an examiner can credit. So the first move is to name the thing: powstała znaczna część nowej infrastruktury drogowej i kolejowej. Notice that this already forces a grammatical decision — powstać is the intransitive verb for something coming into existence, and it takes no object, so the infrastructure is the subject and stands in the nominative while its qualifiers sit in the genitive.

2. 02Name the beneficiary, because a benefit without one is not analysed

   Cohesion money does not reach everywhere equally; it reaches the authorities that prepared projects and applied for them. Saying so is not a criticism, it is a specification of the claim, and it is the difference between an answer at the reasonable band and one at the good band of the AO4 grid. In Polish: największe zmiany widać w miastach i w regionach, które przygotowały własne projekty. Widać is impersonal and takes an accusative object — one of the most useful constructions in the whole topic.

3. 03Add the concession that stops the paragraph reading as advertising

   A paragraph in which every clause points the same way is not read as confident, it is read as unbalanced, and the AO4 grid explicitly rewards evaluation rather than enthusiasm. So concede something real and documented: the differences between regions did not disappear. Różnice między regionami nie zniknęły. Between takes the instrumental in Polish, so it is między regionami and never między regionów, and the verb of disappearing is perfective here because the point is a completed non-event rather than a process. One clause, ten words, and it changes the register of everything around it — which is the cheapest improvement available anywhere in this topic.

4. 04Attribute the contested half rather than asserting it

   Whether the funds accelerated the modernisation of the country is an interpretation rather than a measurement, and different people in Poland answer it differently, so it must be attributed. Give both sides in one sentence: Zdaniem zwolenników integracji te inwestycje przyspieszyły modernizację kraju; krytycy zwracają jednak uwagę, że różnice między regionami nie zniknęły. Zdaniem governs the genitive, so zwolenników and never zwolennikom. Przyspieszyć takes an accusative object, modernizację, and that noun then takes a genitive of its own, kraju. Zwracać uwagę takes an accusative noun followed by a że clause. Two frames, two positions, and the paragraph now reports a disagreement instead of joining one.

5. 05Draw the conclusion the paragraph has actually earned

   The conclusion must not exceed the evidence assembled above it, so hedge it honestly and let the concessive carry the shape: Wydaje się zatem, że fundusze zmieniły Polskę, choć nie zmieniły jej równomiernie. Wydaje się is impersonal; zatem is the formal therefore; choć is the lighter form of chociaż and introduces the concession. Note the genitive jej after the negated verb — nie zmieniły jej, not nie zmieniły ją — which is the single most frequent grammatical slip in whole-paragraph writing at this level.

Result: Od 2004 roku Polska korzysta ze środków polityki spójności, dzięki którym powstała znaczna część nowej infrastruktury drogowej i kolejowej. Największe zmiany widać w miastach i w regionach, które przygotowały własne projekty. Zdaniem zwolenników integracji te inwestycje przyspieszyły modernizację kraju; krytycy zwracają jednak uwagę, że różnice między regionami nie zniknęły. Wydaje się zatem, że fundusze zmieniły Polskę, choć nie zmieniły jej równomiernie.

These are the closing sentences of a Paper 1 translation passage, worth part of the section's ten marks. „W grudniu 2017 roku Komisja Europejska uruchomiła wobec Polski procedurę przewidzianą w artykule 7 traktatu. W opinii Komisji zmiany w sądownictwie zagrażały niezależności sędziów; zdaniem ówczesnego rządu była to wyłącznie wewnętrzna sprawa państwa członkowskiego. Spór trwał latami i objął również wypłatę środków z Krajowego Planu Odbudowy, które wstrzymano, a następnie uruchomiono. Część komentatorów uważa, że postępowanie osłabiło pozycję Polski w Unii; inni twierdzą wręcz przeciwnie, że pokazało ono granice kompetencji instytucji unijnych.” Translate it into English.

1. 01Read the whole passage first and mark who is speaking in each sentence

   Four sentences and four different voices: the first reports an event with no voice at all, the second reports two opposed views, the third reports events again, the fourth reports two more opposed views. Marking this before translating a word prevents the commonest failure in this kind of passage, which is rendering a reported claim as an assertion. If W opinii Komisji is dropped or weakened, the English says that the changes threatened judicial independence, which the Polish does not say. The attributions are not decoration; they are the content, and each one must survive into the English.

2. 02Sentence one, and the trap inside uruchomiła

   Uruchomić literally means to set in motion or to start up, and it is the standard verb for opening a formal procedure; open, launch or initiate all work in English, but start up does not. Wobec Polski is in relation to Poland or against Poland — wobec governs the genitive and is more neutral than przeciwko. Procedurę przewidzianą w artykule 7 is the procedure provided for in Article 7, with przewidziany the passive participle of przewidzieć. Traktatu is the genitive of traktat: of the treaty. Keep the date first, as the Polish does; English tolerates it and the emphasis is deliberate.

3. 03Sentence two, and the two frames that hold it apart

   W opinii Komisji is in the Commission's view; opinia takes the locative after w and Komisji is genitive. Zagrażać governs the dative, so niezależności sędziów is the dative object of a verb English builds transitively: threatened the independence of judges. Zdaniem ówczesnego rządu is in the view of the government of the time — ówczesny is a high-value adjective meaning then, of that period, and there is no single-word English equivalent. Była to wyłącznie wewnętrzna sprawa is this was purely an internal matter. The semicolon in the Polish is holding two attributed views apart, and the English should keep it.

4. 04Sentence three, and the impersonal -no forms that have no agent

   Wstrzymano and uruchomiono are impersonal past forms: the action happened and no agent is named. English has no matching form, so it must use a passive — were withheld, and were subsequently released — and must not supply an agent that the Polish deliberately withholds. Translating them as they withheld would invent a subject and make a political claim the source does not make. Objął is the perfective past of objąć, to encompass or come to cover; wypłatę środków is the payment of funds, accusative after the verb, genitive plural after the noun.

5. 05Sentence four, and the reporting verbs that must stay reporting verbs

   Część komentatorów uważa is some commentators consider or take the view — część takes a genitive plural and a singular verb. Postępowanie osłabiło pozycję Polski is the proceedings weakened Poland's position, with pozycję accusative and Polski genitive. Inni twierdzą wręcz przeciwnie is others claim quite the reverse; wręcz przeciwnie is a fixed adverbial meaning on the contrary and reverses rather than qualifies. The final clause must keep the reporting verb: they claim that it demonstrated the limits, not it demonstrated the limits. That distinction is worth a mark and it is the whole point of the passage.

Result: In December 2017 the European Commission opened the procedure provided for in Article 7 of the treaty in relation to Poland. In the Commission's view, the changes to the judiciary threatened the independence of judges; in the view of the government of the time, this was purely an internal matter for a member state. The dispute lasted for years and also came to cover the payment of funds from the National Recovery Plan, which were withheld and subsequently released. Some commentators consider that the proceedings weakened Poland's position in the Union; others claim quite the reverse, that they demonstrated the limits of the competences of the EU institutions.

A Paper 1 stimulus text sets out Poland's route into the Union and notes what has not changed since. The summary question asks you to summarise in Polish, in full sentences and in your own words as far as possible, how Poland reached membership and what has remained unchanged since accession. Content is marked as AO2, language as AO3 out of 5, and the two marks are awarded independently. Build the answer.

1. 01Count the content points before writing anything

   The task names two strands — the route to membership and what has not changed — so the content points divide between them. On the route: the association agreement, the application, the negotiations, the referendum, accession itself. On what has not changed: the currency, and the absence of a target date for the euro. That is seven candidate points for roughly ninety-five words, which tells you immediately that each point gets one clause and no clause gets a decorative adjective. Planning at the level of points rather than sentences is what keeps a summary inside its length.

2. 02Understand what the two independent marks actually reward

   The AO2 content mark is awarded for a point that contains the required information regardless of whether it is in your own words or lifted from the text. The AO3 language mark, out of five, is a separate judgement about accuracy and complexity — and lifted language is never eligible for it. So lifting cannot lose you the content mark, but it can never earn you the language mark, and the specification also withholds the content mark where the answer contains irrelevant material or copies inappropriately. The practical conclusion is to reformulate everything, because reformulation is the only route to both marks at once.

3. 03Choose the structures that will carry the AO3 mark

   The language mark asks whether the student can manipulate complex language accurately where the task requires it, so decide in advance which complex structures the summary will contain. A chronology of events with no named agent is a gift here: podpisano, złożono, otwarto, zamknięto, przeprowadzono are all impersonal past forms from the specification's own grammar list. Add one concessive clause with mimo że for the unchanged currency, and one relative clause with w którym for the referendum. That is three structure types, chosen before drafting rather than hoped for during it.

4. 04Draft to length and find the natural break

   A long summary is marked for content or for language only until the first natural break — usually the end of a sentence or main clause — between ninety and a hundred words. That is not a penalty so much as a cut-off, and the safe target is a draft that ends a sentence somewhere in the low nineties. Write, then count, then cut adjectives before cutting content points, because a lost point loses a content mark while a lost adjective loses nothing at all. A short summary carries no automatic penalty but cannot contain all the points, so it penalises itself.

5. 05Run the language check that earns the AO3 mark separately

   The language mark is awarded independently of the content mark, so it needs its own pass, and that pass should check five things and nothing else so that it fits inside two minutes. Case after every preposition: w grudniu, w kwietniu, do Unii, za przystąpieniem, which is the instrumental after opowiedzieć się za. Genitive after every negation: nie wyznaczył terminu. Verb agreement: negocjacje otwarto is impersonal and governs an accusative, while Polska weszła agrees feminine singular with its subject. The instrumental after posługiwać się: posługuje się złotym. And the date formats, which is where an otherwise fluent summary most often slips.

Result: Droga Polski do Unii Europejskiej trwała ponad dwanaście lat. Rozpoczęła się w grudniu 1991 roku podpisaniem Układu Europejskiego, a formalny wniosek o członkostwo złożono w kwietniu 1994 roku. Negocjacje akcesyjne otwarto w marcu 1998 roku i zamknięto pod koniec 2002 roku. W czerwcu 2003 roku przeprowadzono dwudniowe referendum, w którym większość głosujących opowiedziała się za przystąpieniem. Polska weszła do Unii 1 maja 2004 roku, a do strefy Schengen w grudniu 2007 roku. Mimo że od akcesji minęło ponad dwadzieścia lat, kraj nadal posługuje się złotym i nie wyznaczył terminu przyjęcia euro.

The multi-skill task sets a listening passage and a written source and then asks an unseen question in Polish, for thirty marks split AO1 out of ten, AO2 out of ten and AO3 out of ten, in approximately 200 words. You have heard a radio discussion in which a farmer says that direct payments have stabilised his income, while a local-government officer says that EU-funded projects have not reached the smallest villages. The written source is a short article reporting that Poland has been among the largest net recipients of the EU budget and that the government has set no date for adopting the euro. The question is: „Czy członkostwo w Unii Europejskiej zmieniło polską prowincję? Odnieś się do obu źródeł.” Plan and draft the answer.

1. 01Read what the task requires before deciding what to say

   The specification is explicit that the response requires analysis, personal reaction and the drawing of a conclusion, and that it must refer to the information in both sources. Three obligations, and each is separately visible to an examiner. The mark split reinforces it: AO1 out of ten for the spoken source, AO2 out of ten for the written source, AO3 out of ten for the Polish. An answer that handles the recording brilliantly and glances at the article has capped itself at a little over two thirds before writing a word, which is why the plan allocates space to both sources first.

2. 02Set the two sources against each other rather than summarising them in turn

   The weakest structure is a paragraph on the recording followed by a paragraph on the article; it summarises twice and analyses once, if at all. The stronger structure states the relation in the first sentence — that both sources describe the same change from different positions — and then lets each detail from one source meet a detail from the other. In Polish: Oba źródła mówią o tej samej zmianie, ale widzą ją z różnych stron. That single opening sentence does the analytical work that a two-paragraph summary never gets round to.

3. 03Attribute each claim to its own source, and keep the two speakers apart

   The recording has two speakers with different positions, and conflating them loses AO1 marks. Attribute inside the sentence: W nagraniu rolnik podkreśla, że dopłaty bezpośrednie ustabilizowały jego dochody, natomiast urzędniczka samorządowa zwraca uwagę, że projekty finansowane ze środków unijnych nie dotarły do najmniejszych wsi. Natomiast contrasts the two without conceding to either. Then bring in the article with its own frame — Artykuł potwierdza skalę wsparcia … dodaje jednak, że … — so the reader can always tell which source is speaking.

4. 04Place the personal reaction where it argues rather than decorates

   The required personal reaction is not the same thing as taking a side in a live political dispute, and the strongest version is analytical: say something about the evidence that neither source says. Here the useful observation is that the two speakers are not contradicting each other because they are describing different scales. Moim zdaniem oba głosy są prawdziwe i wcale sobie nie przeczą: rolnik mówi o dochodach gospodarstwa, urzędniczka o inwestycjach gminy, a to nie jest ta sama skala. Note przeczyć taking the dative, and moim zdaniem in the instrumental.

5. 05Draw a conclusion the answer has earned, then check the Polish

   The conclusion must follow from what is above it and must not exceed it, and a concessive shape usually fits: Wniosek: członkostwo realnie zmieniło polską prowincję, choć nie zmieniło jej wszędzie tak samo. Then the AO3 check, four items and no more. Genitive after every negation — nie zmieniło jej, nie dotarły do wsi. Instrumental after posługiwać się and after moim zdaniem. Case after every preposition, especially do plus genitive and w plus locative. And one deliberate concessive plus one deliberate attribution present and correct, because those two structures are where the range mark is decided.

Result: Oba źródła mówią o tej samej zmianie, ale widzą ją z różnych stron. W nagraniu rolnik podkreśla, że dopłaty bezpośrednie ustabilizowały jego dochody, natomiast urzędniczka samorządowa zwraca uwagę, że projekty finansowane ze środków unijnych nie dotarły do najmniejszych wsi. Artykuł potwierdza skalę wsparcia — Polska należy do największych beneficjentów netto unijnego budżetu — dodaje jednak, że rząd nie wyznaczył terminu przyjęcia euro. Z jednej strony trudno zaprzeczyć, że pieniądze zmieniły polską prowincję: powstały drogi, sieci wodociągowe i świetlice. Z drugiej strony zdaniem samorządowców korzyści rozłożyły się nierówno, a mimo że środki były dostępne, najmniejsze gminy nie zawsze miały możliwości, by po nie sięgnąć. Moim zdaniem oba głosy są prawdziwe i wcale sobie nie przeczą: rolnik mówi o dochodach gospodarstwa, urzędniczka o inwestycjach gminy, a to nie jest ta sama skala. Należy jednak zaznaczyć, że oceny tej zmiany pozostają podzielone i zależą od tego, o której wsi mówimy. Wniosek: członkostwo realnie zmieniło polską prowincję, choć nie zmieniło jej wszędzie tak samo.