Różnorodność, awans społeczny i emigracja: Poland's past and current social issues

Paper 1 sets four stimulus texts and asks questions in Polish that are answered in Polish. Here is a short practice text written for these notes — it is practice material, not an examination paper: «Kiedy Marek kończył ósmą klasę, rodzice namawiali go na liceum ogólnokształcące. On sam wybrał jednak technikum informatyczne, bo chciał mieć zawód, zanim pójdzie na studia. Maturę zdał, ale na studia dzienne się nie dostał; pracuje teraz w małej firmie i studiuje zaocznie. — Nie żałuję — mówi. — Koledzy z liceum dopiero teraz zastanawiają się, co dalej.» Answer in Polish: (a) Dlaczego Marek wybrał technikum? (b) Co Marek robi obecnie? (c) Na czym polega jego przewaga nad kolegami z liceum, zdaniem samego Marka?

1. 01Read the questions before the text, and read the interrogative in each

   Dlaczego wants a cause and will need a clause beginning ponieważ or bo. Co robi obecnie wants an activity in the present, and obecnie fixes the time — anything Marek used to do is outside the question. Na czym polega wants a mechanism rather than an evaluation, and the tail of the question, zdaniem samego Marka, restricts the answer to his view and not yours. Three questions, three different shapes of answer. Reading them first costs a minute and stops you writing a correct sentence that answers a question nobody asked, which is the commonest way a comprehension mark is lost.

2. 02Locate each answer and note exactly how the text words it

   The answer to (a) is inside a subordinate clause, bo chciał mieć zawód, zanim pójdzie na studia. The answer to (b) is a pair of coordinated present-tense verbs, pracuje teraz w małej firmie i studiuje zaocznie. The answer to (c) is not stated as a claim at all: it has to be built from the closing reported speech, koledzy z liceum dopiero teraz zastanawiają się, co dalej, read against the earlier statement that Marek already has a trade. Notice the asymmetry — two answers are lying on the surface, one has to be assembled, and the assembled one is where the marks separate candidates.

3. 03Make the lifting decision, question by question

   The specification is precise about this. In comprehension questions carrying no AO3 marks, where the natural answer consists entirely or partly of words from the text, you may use that material without rephrasing it, and minor spelling errors that do not distort meaning are tolerated. But no mark is given where the answer includes irrelevant material or lifts an element that does not match the phrasing of the question set. So for (a), reusing bo chciał mieć zawód is safe: it matches dlaczego exactly. For (c), lifting the final sentence whole is not safe — it describes the classmates, not the przewaga the question asks about, so it has to be converted.

4. 04Answer only what the question asks, and nothing else

   Adding that Marek's parents wanted a liceum is true, interesting and fatal in answer (b): it is irrelevant material, and the specification's wording withholds the content mark for exactly that. The same applies to explaining in (a) that he did not get onto full-time studies. Each answer should contain the elements the interrogative demands and stop. This is the one place where writing more is reliably worse than writing less, and it is the opposite of the instinct most candidates bring from essay work, which is why it has to be practised deliberately.

5. 05Write the three answers as full Polish clauses and check the grammar

   Comprehension answers are still read as Polish. Check the government of every verb you reuse: polegać na czymś takes the locative, so an answer to (c) built on the question's own verb must read przewaga polega na tym, że… . Check aspect: wybrał is perfective because the choice was made once and completed; pracuje and studiuje are imperfective presents because they are current states. Check that zdaniem, if you use it, is followed by the genitive — jego zdaniem is the shorter and safer form here. Four checks, under a minute, and they protect the AO3 marks elsewhere in the paper as well.

Result: (a) Marek wybrał technikum, ponieważ chciał zdobyć zawód, zanim pójdzie na studia. (b) Obecnie pracuje w małej firmie i studiuje zaocznie. (c) Jego zdaniem przewaga polega na tym, że on ma już zawód, a koledzy z liceum dopiero teraz zastanawiają się, co robić dalej.

Paper 1 asks for a translation into English of a Polish passage of at least 100 words, worth 10 marks. Translate this practice passage — written for these notes, not taken from any examination paper: «W wielu polskich miastach pomoc osobom w kryzysie bezdomności prowadzą organizacje pozarządowe, a nie same urzędy. Zimą otwiera się dodatkowe noclegownie, ale pracownicy socjalni podkreślają, że sam nocleg nie rozwiązuje problemu. Wykluczenie społeczne wynika bowiem nie tylko z braku mieszkania, lecz także z utraty dokumentów, długów i zerwanych więzi rodzinnych. Dlatego coraz częściej mówi się o rozwiązaniach, w których człowiek najpierw dostaje dach nad głową, a dopiero potem zaczyna się jego długa droga powrotna.»

1. 01Read the whole passage before translating a word, and find the skeleton

   This is an argument, not a description, and its argument lives in five connectives: a nie, which contrasts; ale, which concedes; bowiem, which explains; nie tylko … lecz także, which extends; and dlatego, which concludes. Mark them before you touch the vocabulary. A translation that renders every noun correctly and flattens those five words scores badly, because the examiner is reading for whether you understood what the passage was doing as well as what it said. Note also the register: this is journalistic and analytical, so the English must be too — no contractions, no colloquialism.

2. 02Sentence one: word order carries emphasis that English must carry differently

   The Polish fronts w wielu polskich miastach and holds the subject organizacje pozarządowe back to the end, which is the specification's own point about flexible word order depending on semantic emphasis. English cannot emphasise by position in the same way, so it uses a cleft: in many Polish cities it is non-governmental organisations, rather than the local authorities themselves, that provide the help. Watch the case relations too. Pomoc osobom is help for people, with osobom in the dative — not help of people, and not help to be confused with a genitive. Same urzędy is the local authorities themselves, with sam in its emphatic sense.

3. 03Sentence two: the reflexive impersonal has no subject, so do not invent one

   Zimą otwiera się dodatkowe noclegownie names no agent at all, deliberately. English needs a passive to preserve that: in winter, additional night shelters are opened. Writing the city opens supplies an agent the Polish refused to name and is a comprehension error, not a stylistic choice. Zimą is the instrumental used adverbially for a season. Pracownicy socjalni are social workers, a false-friend risk worth naming. And sam nocleg means a bed for the night on its own or in itself, not the same bed for the night — sam before a noun in this position means by itself.

4. 04Sentence three: bowiem moves, and the genitives have to be sorted out

   Bowiem means for or after all and never begins its clause in Polish; English has to move it to the front or convert it to after all. Nie tylko … lecz także is the formal correlative pair — lecz is higher in register than ale and English should show that with but also rather than a loose and. Then the genitive chain: z braku mieszkania, z utraty dokumentów, długów i zerwanych więzi rodzinnych. Are długów and więzi governed by utraty or by z? Semantics decides: the loss of debts is nonsense, so all three items are governed by z in parallel. Render it as from the loss of identity documents, from debts and from broken family ties.

5. 05Sentence four: the impersonal returns, and one metaphor happens to travel

   Coraz częściej mówi się o rozwiązaniach is again agentless: there is increasing talk of arrangements, or people increasingly speak of. Dach nad głową is literally a roof over one's head, and English has the identical idiom, so keep it rather than paraphrasing — the rare case where the literal rendering is also the idiomatic one. Zaczyna się is intransitive with the reflexive particle: begins, not is begun. And długa droga powrotna is the long road back, which is the English collocation; his long return road would be word-accurate and idiom-deaf, and translation marks are lost far more often to that than to unknown vocabulary.

6. 06Read the English aloud with the Polish covered

   The last check is the one that catches translationese. Cover the Polish and read your English as though you had found it in a newspaper. Does it sound like a sentence an English writer would produce? If a clause makes you stumble, the fault is almost always a Polish structure carried across intact — a fronted adverbial that English would put later, a nominalisation English would turn into a verb, or a participle English would relativise. Fix it, then check once more that every content element of the Polish is still present, because the fluency pass is exactly where an element quietly disappears.

Result: In many Polish cities it is non-governmental organisations, rather than the local authorities themselves, that provide help for people experiencing homelessness. In winter, additional night shelters are opened, but social workers stress that a bed for the night on its own does not solve the problem. Social exclusion, after all, arises not only from the lack of somewhere to live, but also from the loss of identity documents, from debts and from broken family ties. That is why there is increasing talk of arrangements in which a person is first given a roof over their head, and only then does the long road back begin.

You have one bare fact and nothing else: the 2005 Ustawa o mniejszościach narodowych i etnicznych oraz o języku regionalnym recognises kaszubski as Poland's only regional language. Build it into a paragraph of argued Polish of about 100 words that an AO4 grid could reward — the kind of paragraph that would sit inside a Paper 1 research-project essay or a Paper 3 multi-skill answer.

1. 01State the fact in one full Polish sentence, in the right tense and with the right government

   Ustawa z 2005 roku uznaje kaszubski za jedyny język regionalny w Polsce. Two grammatical decisions are already made here. Uznawać and uznać take za with the accusative for the thing recognised as something — uznać X za Y, with both X and Y accusative — so it is uznaje kaszubski za jedyny język regionalny, never uznaje kaszubski jako. And the present tense is right, because a law in force is described in the present in Polish as in English. Get this sentence exact and the rest of the paragraph has something to lean on.

2. 02Ask what the fact is evidence for, and notice that it is evidence for two opposite things

   This is the move that converts a fact into an argument. The same recognition can be read as the state formally protecting a minority language and putting resources behind it, or as a narrow recognition that admits exactly one regional language and says nothing about others. Both readings follow from the fact; neither is dishonest. A candidate who sees only the first writes a paragraph of praise, and a candidate who sees only the second writes a paragraph of complaint. A candidate who sees both has the raw material of an argument, which is what the AO4 grid is looking for when it asks for a critical response.

3. 03Attach each reading to a holder, and check the frame each verb needs

   Do not present either reading as your own conclusion yet. Write zwolennicy ustawy podkreślają, że… for the first and krytycy zwracają jednak uwagę, że… for the second. Both podkreślać and twierdzić take że with a finite clause. Zwracać uwagę takes że when a clause follows, but na with the accusative when a noun phrase follows — zwracają uwagę na to, że… is also correct and is worth having as a variant. Jednak placed second in the clause is the natural Polish position for the adversative, and moving it to the front changes the emphasis rather than the meaning.

4. 04Add a mechanism rather than only an evaluation

   A paragraph that says supporters approve and critics disapprove is still empty. What does the Act actually do? It provides for a minority or regional language to be used as a język pomocniczy, an auxiliary language, in dealings with the authorities of gminy that meet the conditions it sets, and it permits additional place names in that language. Naming the mechanism is what makes the supporters' claim testable — and it also, without any editorialising, shows the reader how limited or how substantial the provision is. Do not attach a threshold figure you cannot source; the mechanism is the point, not the number.

5. 05Close with a conclusion you have earned, and mark what is still unsettled

   The conclusion must follow from what precedes it, so it cannot be a verdict on Polish tolerance in general. What the paragraph has actually established is narrower: that legal recognition and everyday respect are different things and that this one Act settles only the first. Write sama ustawa nie rozstrzyga więc sporu — note the genitive of negation, sporu and not spór — and close with nie ma zgody co do tego, czy to wystarczy. That final sentence is not weakness. It is the sentence that tells an examiner you know which parts of the question are open.

6. 06Run the grammar check the paragraph's own structures demand

   Five checks, in this order. Za plus the accusative after uznawać. The genitive after every attribution phrase you used — zdaniem, według, w opinii. Że with a finite clause after podkreślać, twierdzić and zwracać uwagę. The genitive of negation after nie rozstrzyga. And the agreement of any participle: spełniających in w gminach spełniających określone warunki is a present adjectival participle in the locative plural, agreeing with gminach, and getting that ending right is precisely the manipulation of complex language the AO3 descriptors name.

Result: Ustawa z 2005 roku o mniejszościach narodowych i etnicznych oraz o języku regionalnym uznaje kaszubski za jedyny język regionalny w Polsce. Zwolennicy ustawy podkreślają, że nie jest to gest symboliczny: w gminach spełniających określone warunki kaszubski może być używany jako język pomocniczy w kontaktach z urzędem, a miejscowości mogą mieć dodatkowe nazwy w tym języku. Krytycy zwracają jednak uwagę, że uznanie prawne to nie to samo co szacunek na co dzień, i że o innych językach ustawa milczy. Sama ustawa nie rozstrzyga więc sporu — pokazuje tylko, jak daleko sięga ochrona prawna. Nie ma zgody co do tego, czy to wystarczy.

Paper 3's translation gives you an English passage of at least 100 words and, distinctively, a supporting text in Polish supplying some of the vocabulary and structures you will need. Translate this practice passage — written for these notes, not taken from any examination paper — into Polish: 'After 2004 many Poles went abroad to work, above all to the United Kingdom, Ireland and Germany. They were looking for higher earnings and for steadier contracts than the ones they could find at home. Money sent back from abroad supported households and small towns for years. Today the picture is different: some of those who left have returned, and Poland itself has become a destination country, one that people come to for work.' The supporting Polish text supplies, among other things: emigracja zarobkowa, wyjeżdżać za granicę do pracy, przekazy pieniężne, migracja powrotna, kraj docelowy.

1. 01Read the supporting text first and mine it deliberately

   The supporting text is not decoration. The specification says it supplies some of the vocabulary and structures the translation will need, which means the examiner has already decided which parts are hard and has put help for them on the page. Read it before you read the English, and mark anything that is a phrase rather than a single word — phrases are where a candidate improvises and loses marks. Here it hands you przekazy pieniężne for money sent back, migracja powrotna for the return, and kraj docelowy for a destination country. Each of those saves you a clumsy paraphrase, and each is better Polish than what you would have built from scratch.

2. 02Sentence one: the date, the quantifier, the motion and the destinations

   Po 2004 roku — po takes the locative, and the year is read po dwa tysiące czwartym roku. Then wielu Polaków, genitive plural after the quantifier, with a neuter singular past verb: wyjechało, not wyjechali. Za granicę with the accusative, because this is movement. Do pracy with the genitive of purpose. The destinations decline as ordinary nouns after do: do Wielkiej Brytanii, where both words of the feminine name take the genitive; do Irlandii; and do Niemiec, which is a genitive plural, because Niemcy is a plural-only country name. Przede wszystkim renders above all.

3. 03Sentence two: aspect, and the two verbs that govern the genitive

   Szukali is imperfective past, masculine-personal plural, because looking is a process and not a completed act — a perfective here would be wrong in a way that changes the meaning. Szukać governs the genitive, so it is szukali wyższych zarobków i pewniejszych umów, both genitive plural. Pewniejszy is the comparative of pewny and is the natural Polish for steadier of a contract. Then the comparison: niż te, które mogli znaleźć w kraju. After niż the case is whatever the compared element would take anyway, not a special case — te is accusative here because it is the object of znaleźć. W kraju is locative and idiomatically means at home, back in Poland.

4. 04Sentence three: the supporting text's gift, and the aspect of a long-running effect

   Przekazy pieniężne z zagranicy — and note that z zagranicy is the genitive, the third form of the same word after za granicę and za granicą, so all three appear in one short passage. The verb decides the sense: przez lata utrzymywały is imperfective, because the support went on for years; utrzymały would be perfective and would say the support happened once and finished, which is not what the English means. Przez takes the accusative, so przez lata. Gospodarstwa domowe and małe miasta are accusative plural and non-masculine-personal, so they are identical in form to the nominative — a small mercy worth noticing.

5. 05Sentence four: the tricky agreement, and stać się with the instrumental

   Dziś obraz jest inny is a clean rendering of today the picture is different. Then the part that separates candidates: część tych, którzy wyjechali, wróciła. Część governs the genitive — tych, którzy wyjechali — and it is część, feminine singular, that the verb agrees with, so wróciła, not wrócili, even though the people are men and women. That agreement is exactly what the AO3 descriptors mean by manipulating complex language accurately. Finally, stać się takes the instrumental, so Polska stała się krajem docelowym, and the supporting text has already given you the noun phrase; the relative clause do którego ludzie przyjeżdżają do pracy renders one that people come to for work.

6. 06Check in one pass, in a fixed order, and never re-read for meaning

   Five sweeps, each looking for one thing only, because a general re-read finds nothing. First, the case after every preposition — po, za, do, z, przez, w. Second, aspect on every verb: is this a process or a completed act? Third, the masculine-personal plural on every past-tense verb with a human plural subject. Fourth, agreement of every adjective with its noun in gender, number and case. Fifth, the three forms of granica, which this passage happens to test all at once. Doing it in this order takes about three minutes and catches almost everything a Polish translation loses marks for.

Result: Po 2004 roku wielu Polaków wyjechało za granicę do pracy, przede wszystkim do Wielkiej Brytanii, Irlandii i Niemiec. Szukali wyższych zarobków i pewniejszych umów niż te, które mogli znaleźć w kraju. Przekazy pieniężne z zagranicy przez lata utrzymywały gospodarstwa domowe i małe miasta. Dziś obraz jest inny: część tych, którzy wyjechali, wróciła, a sama Polska stała się krajem docelowym, do którego ludzie przyjeżdżają do pracy.

The two sources below were written for these notes as practice material. They are not taken from any examination paper and no examination paper is quoted. HEARD SOURCE, about three minutes, two speakers, as at least one Paper 3 passage always has: pani Ewa, who spent twelve years in Ireland and has come back to a small town in Podlasie, and an officer of the same town's local authority. She says the money she saved let her open a small business at home, but that her children speak better English than Polish and did not want to come. He says the town has lost its young people and the school runs fewer classes than it did, but adds that a few families have returned in recent years and that the town now also employs people who came from Ukraine. WRITTEN SOURCE, a short opinion column: it argues that Poland has become a country of immigration while its public debate is still the debate of a country of emigration; it notes that workers from Ukraine and Belarus were arriving before 2022, that the special act of March 2022 regulated the stay of people arriving from Ukraine, and that Poland still has no fully articulated polityka migracyjna. UNSEEN QUESTION: «Na podstawie obu źródeł oceń, jak zmieniło się miejsce Polski w europejskich migracjach. Przedstaw własną reakcję i sformułuj wniosek.»

1. 01Split the question into its demands before you plan anything

   There are three imperatives and each is paid for separately. Oceń asks for evaluation, not description. Przedstaw własną reakcję asks for a personal reaction — which in this task means a reaction with a reason attached, not a feeling. Sformułuj wniosek asks for a conclusion drawn, not an opinion announced. And the opening phrase, na podstawie obu źródeł, is not decoration: it is the AO1 and AO2 symmetry restated as an instruction. Underline all four elements before you look at your notes, because a plan built from the sources rather than from the question is how candidates end up writing an excellent answer to a different question.

2. 02Take from the heard source what only the heard source has

   Ewa's savings and the business she opened; her children's Polish; the officer's fewer classes; the families that came back; the town now employing people from Ukraine. Two observations matter more than the list. First, the officer's testimony contains both a loss and a gain in the same breath, so an answer that reports only the depopulation has misheard him. Second, this is a two-speaker passage, and where Paper 3 gives you two speakers the relationship between them — agreement, disagreement, or two halves of one picture — is almost always where the AO1 marks concentrate. Note that relationship explicitly in your plan.

3. 03Take from the written source what only the written source has

   The general claim that Poland has become a country of immigration while the debate lags behind; the pre-2022 arrivals from Ukraine and Belarus; the March 2022 act; the absence of a fully articulated migration policy. Notice the asymmetry between the two sources: the column is analytical where the recording is anecdotal. That asymmetry is a gift rather than a problem, because the column supplies the frame in which Ewa's town becomes evidence rather than an anecdote. Saying so in the answer is the analysis both grids are asking for — the connection between the sources is worth more than either summary alone.

4. 04Budget the 200 words and decide where each conclusion sits

   Roughly fifty words on the heard source, fifty on the written source, fifty on analysis and personal reaction, fifty on the conclusion. But both AO1 and AO2 ask for evidence of drawing appropriate conclusions, so do not save every conclusion for the end: close each source block with one sentence that concludes something from that source alone. Z samego nagrania wynika, że… does this in seven words. Then write the personal reaction as an argument with a reason — what struck you and why it matters — because a reaction that reports only an emotion gives the AO grids nothing to reward.

5. 05Choose the structures before you write, so that composing costs no thought

   Attribution: pani Ewa podkreśla, że…; urzędnik zwraca uwagę na…; autor tekstu twierdzi, że… . Contrast: natomiast, chociaż, z jednej strony… z drugiej strony… . Conclusion: wynika z tego, że…, można zatem powiedzieć, że… . Reaction: moim zdaniem…, zaskoczyło mnie przede wszystkim to, że… . Check the government of each as you choose it: podkreślać and twierdzić take że with a finite clause; zwracać uwagę takes na with the accusative before a noun and że before a clause; wynikać z takes the genitive; moim zdaniem is a fixed instrumental. Choosing these in advance is what makes 200 words in the time available possible.

6. 06Draft, then check in one pass with a fixed order

   Six checks. Are both sources present, and roughly in balance? Are all three demands answered — evaluation, reaction, conclusion? Does at least one conclusion sit inside each source block rather than only at the end? Is every attribution phrase grammatical, with the genitive after wynika z and że after twierdzić? Is the aspect right on every verb, particularly the perfectives that mark completed change — stała się, wróciła, zmieniło się? And is the masculine-personal plural correct on every past-tense verb with a human plural subject? Then count the words and stop.

Result: Nagranie i tekst mówią o tej samej zmianie z dwóch stron. Pani Ewa podkreśla, że dwanaście lat w Irlandii pozwoliło jej odłożyć pieniądze i otworzyć własną firmę w Polsce, ale dodaje, że jej dzieci mówią lepiej po angielsku niż po polsku i nie chciały wracać. Urzędnik zwraca uwagę na dwie rzeczy naraz: miasteczko straciło młodych i szkoła ma dziś mniej klas, natomiast kilka rodzin wróciło, a w mieście pracują już osoby z Ukrainy. Z samego nagrania wynika więc, że emigracja i powroty dzieją się jednocześnie. Autor tekstu ujmuje to szerzej. Twierdzi, że Polska stała się krajem imigracji, chociaż debata publiczna wciąż jest debatą kraju emigracji; przypomina, że pracownicy z Ukrainy i Białorusi przyjeżdżali już przed 2022 rokiem, że specustawa z marca 2022 roku uregulowała pobyt osób przybywających z Ukrainy i że spójnej polityki migracyjnej nadal brakuje. Zaskoczyło mnie przede wszystkim to, że urzędnik mówi o stracie i o powrotach w tym samym zdaniu — to znak, że w małym mieście obie rzeczy dzieją się naraz. Moim zdaniem najciekawsze jest jednak to, że opowieść pani Ewy potwierdza tezę tekstu, choć wcale jej nie zna. Można zatem powiedzieć, że Polska jest dziś krajem i emigracji, i imigracji, a nazwanie tego wprost jest warunkiem sensownej polityki migracyjnej.