Notes · RussianUK · A-Levels

The media: Средства массовой информации

This topic carries the first sub-theme of Edexcel's Тема 2, Политическая и художественная культура в русскоязычном мире: Средства массовой информации, which the specification exemplifies as свобода выражения, печатная и онлайн пресса and влияние на общество и политику. It sits in an artistic-culture slot because that is where the specification puts it — Тема 2 is the theme of political and artistic culture together — even though its content is political throughout, and, like the rest of Тема 2, its scope is the whole Russian-speaking world rather than Russia alone. The material here is genuinely contested, so the notes teach the method the examination actually rewards: state what is documented, attribute what is disputed, and never adopt a position in your own voice that you could not defend if the examiner took the other side. Alongside that they give the media landscape from the federal television channels to the Telegram channel, the register and syntax of Russian news writing, which is the single most useful piece of reading preparation in the subject, and the specification's own checklist of complex language turned into a practical way of raising the AO3 range mark.

5 sections~36 min reading time4 competenciesLevel Standard 1 · Advanced 4

T·0444 / 13

Exam profile

AO1 · Understand and respond, in speech and in writing, to spoken Russian from broadcast and online mediaAO2 · Understand and respond, in speech and in writing, to written Russian journalism in its own registerAO3 · Manipulate Russian accurately, deploying the specification's complex language deliberately rather than decorativelyAO4 · Show knowledge and understanding of, and respond critically to, the media of the Russian-speaking world

Operators:описатьсравнитьобъяснитьпроанализироватьоценитьобосноватьперевести

basic level

At first-year standard the expectation is accurate description with a defensible opinion: naming the kinds of media in Russian, saying where different generations get their news, describing what a newspaper or a channel does, and giving a personal view, with a secure present tense, correct case after the commonest prepositions, and a working grasp of reflexive verbs used where English would use a passive.

higher level

The full A-Level expects the student to handle a contested field without either endorsing or denouncing. What does the Russian constitution say, and what do international monitors say, and who disputes what? What changes when the main source of news for one generation is a broadcast channel and for the next an anonymous Telegram channel? Answers must separate documented fact from disputed judgement, attribute every judgement to somebody, and use participles, gerunds, reflexive passives and correlative comparatives because the register of the subject demands them.

Depth

Text

Contents · 5 sections

The media: Средства массовой информации

Свобода выражения: the documented, the disputed, and how to tell them apart#

AdvancedPearson Edexcel 9RU0 Тема 2 - Средства массовой информации: свобода выраженияDfE GCE AS and A level subject content for modern foreign languages

Start from the documents, because a documented fact is something an examiner cannot argue with and a general impression is something they can. Article 29 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation guarantees freedom of thought and speech, guarantees the right to seek, receive, transmit, produce and disseminate information by any lawful means, and states in its final clause that censorship is prohibited — цензура запрещается. The founding statute of the sector is the 1991 law О средствах массовой информации, adopted in the last months of the Soviet Union. The federal regulator is Роскомнадзор. Those four facts — the constitutional guarantee, the constitutional prohibition of censorship, the 1991 law, the regulator — give you a factual base on which anything else can be built and against which anything else can be measured.

Then separate the levels, because the whole difficulty of this sub-theme is that the legal position and the assessments of practice do not coincide, and different observers assess practice differently. International monitoring organisations that publish annual press-freedom rankings place Russia low in their tables; Russian officials and some Russian commentators dispute the methodology of those rankings and argue that they measure a particular political model rather than freedom as such. Both of those are facts about who says what. Neither is a fact about the world, and an A-Level candidate who presents either as settled has made an analytical error rather than a political one. The Russian for the move you need is simple and repeatable: по оценкам международных организаций, … ; российские официальные лица с такими оценками не согласны и указывают на то, что …

One legal category needs to be known accurately because it appears constantly in Russian media texts and because a candidate who misuses it will be marked down: иностранный агент. It is a legal status, introduced for non-governmental organisations in 2012 and extended to media outlets in 2017 and to individuals in 2020, which imposes registration, reporting and labelling obligations on those designated. Its supporters describe it as a transparency measure comparable to registration requirements elsewhere; its critics describe it as a restriction that carries a deliberate historical connotation. Say which is which and attribute both. The related vocabulary — свобода слова, свобода выражения мнения, цензура, самоцензура, ограничение, регулирование, блокировка — should be used with the same precision: самоцензура, self-censorship, is a particularly useful word because it names something no law can be shown to require.

For the examination, the practical discipline is to build every claim in this sub-theme as a three-part sentence: the documented thing, the attributed assessment, and your own judgement clearly marked as yours. По Конституции цензура запрещена; при этом международные наблюдатели оценивают ситуацию критически, а российская сторона оспаривает их методику; на мой взгляд, спорить о рейтингах менее продуктивно, чем смотреть, откуда люди на самом деле берут новости. That sentence takes about fifteen seconds to say, it is unimpeachable, and it moves the conversation onto ground where you can be concrete. Two structures inside it are worth extracting: при этом, a discourse marker meaning at the same time, and на мой взгляд, the hedge that marks the following clause as opinion.

Worked example

Paper 3 Task 1: a spoken answer on contested ground

The stimulus card for the sub-theme Средства массовой информации carries this statement: «Сегодня каждый может свободно высказать своё мнение — интернет это гарантирует.» Build an answer that is analytical rather than political.

Announce the choice, then separate two questions
Я выбрал утверждение А, но сразу разделил бы два вопроса: есть ли техническая возможность высказаться и есть ли реальные последствия у высказывания. Разделить два вопроса is the move that saves the whole answer: it converts a political statement into an analytical one, and it does so in one sentence. Разделил бы is the conditional used as a polite hedge — I would separate — which sounds considered rather than assertive.
Concede the technical point, concretely
Техническая возможность действительно появилась: чтобы опубликовать текст, сегодня не нужны ни редакция, ни типография, ни лицензия. Не нужны ни … , ни … , ни … is a triple negative correlative, obligatory in Russian and impressive when handled cleanly; the nouns stand in the nominative after не нужны. Чтобы plus an infinitive expresses purpose. The concession is genuine, which is what makes the qualification credible.
Introduce the documented constraint, without editorialising
Но возможность и свобода — не одно и то же. По Конституции цензура запрещена, при этом существует, например, статус иностранного агента, который накладывает на издание обязанности по маркировке и отчётности. Note что: this sentence contains only things that are written down. Накладывать обязанности на кого-либо takes на plus the accusative. Обязанности по plus the dative names the area of the duty.
Give the two assessments, attributed
Оценивают это по-разному: одни считают такую норму мерой прозрачности, другие — ограничением. Международные организации, публикующие рейтинги свободы прессы, ставят Россию низко; российская сторона оспаривает их методику. Считать что-либо чем-либо takes the instrumental — мерой, ограничением. Публикующие is a present active participle, which is in the productive part of the grammar list. Attributing both positions in the same breath is what the AO4 grid means by evaluating issues.
Land your own judgement, marked as yours, and hand back
На мой взгляд, спорить о рейтингах менее продуктивно, чем смотреть, откуда люди на самом деле берут новости — и здесь за двадцать лет изменилось почти всё. А вы как думаете, важнее возможность высказаться или возможность быть услышанным? На самом деле is a listed discourse marker. Менее продуктивно, чем is a comparative with менее, which the grammar list names alongside более. The closing question is required by the Interaction grid and here it also reframes the topic productively.

Result: Я выбрал утверждение А, но сразу разделил бы два вопроса: есть ли техническая возможность высказаться и есть ли реальные последствия у высказывания. Техническая возможность действительно появилась: чтобы опубликовать текст, сегодня не нужны ни редакция, ни типография, ни лицензия. Но возможность и свобода — не одно и то же. По Конституции цензура запрещена, при этом существует, например, статус иностранного агента, который накладывает на издание обязанности по маркировке и отчётности. Оценивают это по-разному: одни считают такую норму мерой прозрачности, другие — ограничением; международные организации, публикующие рейтинги свободы прессы, ставят Россию низко, а российская сторона оспаривает их методику. На мой взгляд, спорить о рейтингах менее продуктивно, чем смотреть, откуда люди на самом деле берут новости. А вы как думаете, важнее возможность высказаться или возможность быть услышанным?

Typical mistakes

Presenting an international ranking as a fact about the world rather than as an assessment by a named kind of organisation.
Translating иностранный агент loosely or using it as a general insult; it is a legal designation with defined obligations.
Writing свобода речи. The Russian is свобода слова, or more formally свобода выражения мнения.
Confusing цензура with редактирование. Censorship is prohibition by authority; editing is what every publication does to every text.

Active revision

Напишите по-русски 140 слов на тему «Свобода выражения: что записано в законе и что оценивают наблюдатели». Постройте текст в три шага: документ, оценка со ссылкой на того, кто её даёт, и ваше собственное суждение с обоснованием. Используйте не менее двух оборотов со ссылкой на источник («по данным…», «по оценкам…», «как утверждают…»).

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: Pearson Edexcel Level 3 Advanced GCE in Russian (9RU0) specification (Pearson Edexcel)

Печатная и онлайн пресса: the landscape, generation by generation#

StandardPearson Edexcel 9RU0 Тема 2 - Средства массовой информации: печатная и онлайн прессаDfE GCE AS and A level subject content for modern foreign languages

Медиаландшафт: кто, кого и о чём

Fig. 1The Russian media landscape held by audience rather than by ownership, with the question each medium raises. The marked row is the Telegram channel: it is the media form with no British equivalent and the one an examiner is least likely to have heard described accurately.

The vocabulary first, because it is the part a listening passage will actually use. СМИ, средства массовой информации, is the collective term and is treated as a plural. An outlet is издание; a newspaper газета, a magazine журнал, a channel канал, an agency агентство. The people: журналист, корреспондент, репортёр, редактор, главный редактор, ведущий for a presenter. The products: статья, заметка for a short news item, репортаж, интервью, колонка for a column, передача for a broadcast programme, выпуск новостей for a news bulletin. The mechanics: тираж for a print run, подписка, реклама, аудитория, охват for reach, повестка дня for the agenda. And the two verbs that recur everywhere in the reading paper: освещать события, to cover events, and сообщать о чём-либо, to report on something.

The landscape divides most usefully by audience rather than by ownership. Federal television — Первый канал, Россия-1, НТВ — remains the principal news source for older viewers across the country, and it is the medium with the widest reach. The print press has shrunk exactly as it has shrunk everywhere, though titles such as Коммерсантъ and Ведомости retain professional readerships, and the news agencies ТАСС and РИА Новости function as the wholesale suppliers whose wording is repeated across other outlets. Online publications reach a younger and more urban readership. And then there is the form that is genuinely distinctive to the Russian-speaking internet: the Telegram channel, often anonymous, frequently very large, and now a primary news source for many younger readers — a media type with no exact British equivalent, which makes it excellent material for an examination answer.

Ownership and independence are the parts that need care, and the honest account has several strands. The Russian media system contains state-owned outlets, outlets owned by companies close to the state, and privately owned outlets, and this mixture was already established in the 1990s, when the media landscape was noisily plural and openly partisan. Independent journalism exists and has been internationally recognised: Дмитрий Муратов, the editor-in-chief of Новая газета, shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 2021. The environment has also changed substantially in recent years, with a number of outlets ceasing publication, changing legal status or relocating their editorial operations abroad, and Russian-language journalism is now produced in Latvia, Georgia, Germany and elsewhere as well as in Russia. That last fact belongs squarely in Тема 2, whose scope is the whole Russian-speaking world.

For an examination answer, hold the landscape as a generational contrast, because a contrast can be argued and a list cannot. Старшее поколение смотрит телевизор, среднее читает новостные сайты, младшее подписано на телеграм-каналы и на блогеров. Каждое поколение живёт в своей информационной среде, и разговаривать друг с другом им становится труднее. Подписано is a short-form past passive participle; разговаривать друг с другом is the reciprocal; становится труднее is an impersonal comparative with a dative. Add the qualification that keeps you honest — конечно, границы условны: телевизор смотрят и молодые, а телеграм читают и пенсионеры — and you have a complete, balanced treatment in four sentences.

Worked example

Paper 1 Section C: translation into English, worked sentence by sentence

Translate into English. Ещё двадцать лет назад для большинства россиян главным источником новостей оставался телевизор. Сегодня картина сложнее: старшее поколение по-прежнему смотрит федеральные каналы, тогда как молодёжь узнаёт о событиях из телеграм-каналов и от блогеров, которых она сама и выбирает. У этой перемены есть очевидное преимущество — выбор — и менее очевидный недостаток: чем уже круг источников, тем легче принять чужое мнение за собственное.

Ещё двадцать лет назад … главным источником новостей оставался телевизор
Ещё before a time phrase means as recently as. Для большинства россиян takes the genitive twice. The key structure is оставаться plus a predicate instrumental: телевизор is the nominative subject and главным источником the instrumental complement, so the television remained the main source. English will usually put the subject first — the main source of news was still the television — and either order earns the mark, but you must have seen which noun is the subject or the sentence will come out backwards.
Сегодня картина сложнее
Сложнее is the comparative of сложный used predicatively with no explicit standard of comparison — the picture is more complicated, implicitly than it was. Russian is comfortable with a bare comparative here where English usually needs the implied comparison to be audible; more complicated now, or the picture is now more complicated, both work.
старшее поколение по-прежнему смотрит федеральные каналы, тогда как молодёжь узнаёт о событиях
По-прежнему is still, as before. Тогда как is the neutral whereas and is the marker that this is a contrast rather than a sequence. Узнавать о чём-либо takes о plus the prepositional: learn about events. Note again that молодёжь takes a singular verb, узнаёт, and that its ё must be written: узнаёт, not узнает, which is a different form.
из телеграм-каналов и от блогеров, которых она сама и выбирает
Two different prepositions of source, and the difference is worth a moment: из plus the genitive for a thing or a place, от plus the genitive for a person. Которых is the accusative plural of который, animate, so it takes the genitive form. Сама agrees with молодёжь. The и before выбирает is again the emphatic particle, not the conjunction: whom they themselves choose, or whom they have chosen for themselves.
У этой перемены есть очевидное преимущество — выбор — и менее очевидный недостаток
У plus the genitive plus есть is the have-construction: this change has. The dashes set off an apposition exactly as in English. Менее очевидный is the analytic comparative with менее, the counterpart of более, and both are named in the grammar list; note that менее does not change the ending of the adjective, which continues to agree with недостаток.
чем уже круг источников, тем легче принять чужое мнение за собственное
Чем … , тем … is the correlative comparative — the narrower … the easier. Уже here is not the adverb already but the comparative of узкий, narrow, and confusing the two is the classic trap in this construction; the stress differs in speech and the context settles it in writing. Легче plus infinitive is an impersonal comparative. Принять что-либо за что-либо takes за plus the accusative: to mistake something for something. Чужой is somebody else's, собственный one's own.

Result: As recently as twenty years ago the main source of news for most Russians was still the television. Today the picture is more complicated: the older generation still watches the federal channels, whereas young people learn about events from Telegram channels and from bloggers whom they themselves have chosen. This change has an obvious advantage — choice — and a less obvious drawback: the narrower the range of sources, the easier it is to mistake somebody else's opinion for your own.

Typical mistakes

Treating СМИ as singular. It is an abbreviation of a plural: СМИ сообщают, российские СМИ.
Writing медиа as a countable noun. Russian says СМИ or издания; медиа exists but is collective and informal.
Saying журнал for a newspaper. Журнал is a magazine; a newspaper is газета.
Describing the whole Russian media as one bloc. There are state, state-adjacent and private outlets, and Russian-language journalism is now produced in several countries — saying so is both more accurate and better analysis.

Active revision

Опишите по-русски в 150 словах, откуда берут новости три поколения одной российской семьи. Для каждого поколения назовите тип СМИ, одну причину такого выбора и один риск. Закончите оговоркой о том, что границы между поколениями условны.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Влияние на общество и политику: agenda, trust and the anonymous channel#

AdvancedPearson Edexcel 9RU0 Тема 2 - Средства массовой информации: влияние на общество и политикуDfE GCE AS and A level subject content for modern foreign languages

The concept that does the most work in this aspect is повестка дня, the agenda, and it is worth naming explicitly because it lets you make a precise claim instead of a vague one. The claim is not that media tell people what to think; it is that they largely determine what is thought about. In Russian: СМИ не столько говорят людям, что думать, сколько определяют, о чём они думают. That sentence uses не столько … , сколько … , a correlative that expresses not so much as, and it is a genuinely sophisticated piece of Russian that costs nothing to memorise. From it follow the two secondary concepts: доверие, trust, which differs sharply between generations and between media types, and фейк or дезинформация, whose antidote is проверка фактов, fact-checking.

The anonymous Telegram channel deserves a paragraph, because it is the phenomenon that most sharply distinguishes the Russian-language information environment from the British one, and because it produces a genuine analytical puzzle. A large channel may have an audience comparable to a national newspaper's while publishing under no name, taking no legal responsibility and carrying no masthead. Readers nonetheless assign it credibility, sometimes on the basis of its track record and sometimes on the basis of nothing at all. The exam question this generates is a good one and you can answer it in Russian: можно ли доверять источнику, который не подписан? Аудитория, судя по всему, доверяет не источнику, а его репутации, и это принципиально другой механизм. Судя по всему, apparently, is a gerund-based idiom worth having.

The generational split in trust is measurable in ordinary conversation and easy to describe honestly without quoting a survey. Older viewers trust television because it is institutional and has always been there; younger readers distrust it for exactly the same reason and trust individuals instead — a blogger with a face and a voice. Each group regards the other's source as naïve. The analytical point, and the one worth making, is that both are trusting a proxy rather than the information itself: одни доверяют институту, другие — человеку, но проверяют факты и те и другие одинаково редко. That formulation is even-handed, which is what makes it safe as well as interesting, and it ends on a claim you can defend.

Finally, the political dimension in the specification's own words is влияние на общество и политику, so the answer must reach politics. Do it structurally rather than partisanly. Media influence politics through what they place on the agenda, through the vocabulary they establish — the word a country uses for an event shapes the argument about it — and through the speed at which a story spreads before it can be checked. All three of those are true everywhere and all three are describable in Russian without adopting a position: СМИ влияют на политику тремя способами: они выбирают темы, они задают слова, которыми об этих темах говорят, и они распространяют новость быстрее, чем её успевают проверить. Note the instrumental relative словами, которыми, and the быстрее, чем comparative with a subordinate clause.

Worked example

From a bare fact to a paragraph of argued Russian

You have one fact: young Russians increasingly get their news from anonymous Telegram channels. Build it into a paragraph that analyses rather than deplores.

State the fact without an implied judgement
Всё больше молодых россиян узнаёт новости из телеграм-каналов, у которых нет ни редакции, ни имени. Всё больше plus the genitive is the trend structure; узнаёт stays singular after всё больше. The relative у которых нет ни … , ни … carries a negated existential with two coordinated genitives — редакции, имени — and it is doing real work: it establishes the puzzle without calling it a problem.
Refuse the obvious moral, and name the mechanism instead
Осуждать это бессмысленно, пока не объяснено, почему так происходит. Осуждать is imperfective because the point is the activity of condemning in general. Бессмысленно is an impersonal predicate. Не объяснено is a short-form past passive participle in a negated impersonal construction — until it has been explained — and it is exactly the register the sub-theme lives in.
Give the mechanism as a comparison of two proxies
Старшее поколение доверяет институту, младшее — человеку: у канала есть репутация, накопленная за годы, и она заменяет подпись. Доверять takes the dative. The dash in младшее — человеку stands for the repeated verb. Накопленная is a long-form past passive participle agreeing with репутация, and за годы is за plus the accusative for a period over which something accumulated. Two proxies, one sentence, no moralising.
Make the analytical claim explicit with a correlative
То есть речь идёт не столько о доверии к информации, сколько о доверии к репутации — а это принципиально другой механизм. Не столько … , сколько … is the precise correlative for not so much as, and доверие к чему-либо takes the dative after к. Ending the clause on принципиально другой механизм names what you have found rather than restating the facts.
Close with the political consequence, stated neutrally
Отсюда и политическое следствие: тот, кто первым назовёт событие, во многом определит, как о нём будут спорить. Отсюда и is a compact therefore with an emphatic particle. Тот, кто takes a singular verb. Назовёт and определит are both perfective futures, because the sentence describes a single completed sequence, and назвать что-либо here means to name or to label. The sentence is a claim about how information works, not about who is right, which is what keeps it defensible.

Result: Всё больше молодых россиян узнаёт новости из телеграм-каналов, у которых нет ни редакции, ни имени. Осуждать это бессмысленно, пока не объяснено, почему так происходит. Старшее поколение доверяет институту, младшее — человеку: у канала есть репутация, накопленная за годы, и она заменяет подпись. То есть речь идёт не столько о доверии к информации, сколько о доверии к репутации — а это принципиально другой механизм. Отсюда и политическое следствие: тот, кто первым назовёт событие, во многом определит, как о нём будут спорить.

Typical mistakes

Claiming that media tell people what to think. The defensible claim is about what is thought about; the stronger one cannot be supported.
Writing доверять кому-то as доверять кого-то. Доверять governs the dative: доверять источнику, доверять журналисту.
Using пропаганда as a neutral descriptive term. In Russian as in English it is an evaluation; if you use it, attribute it.
Saying влиять на политике. Влиять takes на plus the accusative: влиять на политику, влиять на общество.

Active revision

Напишите по-русски 150 слов на тему «Как СМИ влияют на политику». Назовите три механизма (повестка, слова, скорость), приведите по одному примеру на каждый и закончите оговоркой, которая признаёт ограниченность этого влияния. Используйте конструкцию «не столько … , сколько …» хотя бы один раз.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Язык медиа: the register of Russian journalism, and how to read it fast#

AdvancedPearson Edexcel 9RU0 Paper 1 Section B - texts authentic or adapted from authentic sources, factual and abstractPearson Edexcel 9RU0 Тема 2 - Средства массовой информации: печатная и онлайн пресса

Russian journalism has a register of its own, and learning it is the highest-return reading preparation available in this qualification, because the reading and listening papers draw on authentic and adapted authentic sources including online media. The register has four visible habits. It attributes constantly: как сообщает, по данным, по словам, как утверждают, по информации плюс genitive. It prefers reflexive verbs and impersonal constructions to explicit agents: сообщается, что; отмечается, что; ожидается, что; стало известно, что. It is dense with participles, both present active — публикующие, работающие — and past passive, both long and short: опрошенные корреспондентом, текст был смягчён. And it uses a stock of fixed collocations that carry meaning compactly: вступить в силу, принять поправки, обсуждать законопроект, ввести ограничения, повестка дня.

The architecture of a news item is equally fixed and equally exploitable. The заголовок is the headline and may be a nominal phrase with no verb at all. The лид, the opening sentence, normally answers who, what, where and when, and is where a comprehension question most often finds its answer. The body then expands in decreasing order of importance, which means that skimming the first sentence of each paragraph reliably reconstructs the argument. Direct speech appears as прямая речь with a dash, and reported speech as indirect statement introduced by что — where the tense of the original is preserved, so он сказал, что готовит документ means he said he was preparing the document. Knowing this shape lets you locate an answer in seconds rather than reading linearly.

There is also a habit of the register that a candidate must learn to notice rather than to imitate: hedging. Russian news writing distinguishes carefully between what is asserted and what is reported, and the markers are small. Якобы means allegedly and quietly withholds endorsement. По утверждению plus the genitive means according to the claim of, and is cooler than по словам. Не исключено, что means it is not ruled out that. Как ожидается is as is expected. In a comprehension question these words often carry the answer, because a question that asks whether the text states something as a fact is testing exactly whether you saw якобы. Missing one is a comprehension error, not a stylistic one.

For your own writing, take three habits from the register and leave the rest. Take the attribution formulas, because they let you report without asserting, which is the core skill of this whole topic. Take the reflexive passive — сообщается, обсуждается, ожидается — because the grammar list explicitly names avoidance of passive constructions and this is how Russian does it. Take one or two participles per paragraph, where the meaning genuinely calls for them. Do not take the nominal headline style, do not take the abbreviations, and do not pile up three participles in one sentence: the AO3 grid rewards complex language that is deployed, not complex language that is displayed, and an essay written entirely in news register reads as pastiche.

Worked example

Decoding a paragraph of Russian news register

Read and unpack this paragraph as you would under timed conditions in Section B. Как сообщает пресс-служба ведомства, новые правила вступят в силу с первого сентября. По данным издания, поправки обсуждались более полугода; при этом, как утверждают эксперты, опрошенные корреспондентом, окончательный текст был существенно смягчён по сравнению с первоначальным вариантом.

Find the attributions first, before reading for content
There are three: как сообщает пресс-служба ведомства, по данным издания, and как утверждают эксперты. Marking them takes five seconds and immediately tells you that nothing in this paragraph is asserted by the writer in their own voice. If a comprehension question asks whether the text states that the rules will come into force, the answer is that a press service says so — and that distinction is very often the mark.
Read the лид for the four facts
Новые правила вступят в силу с первого сентября. Вступить в силу is the fixed collocation for come into force. Вступят is a perfective future. С первого сентября is с plus the genitive of the ordinal date, the standard way of saying from the first of September; note that Russian writes the date as an ordinal in the genitive and that getting the case right here is a common translation mark.
Unpack the reflexive passive
Поправки обсуждались более полугода. Обсуждались is the imperfective past of обсуждаться, a reflexive verb doing the work of the English passive: the amendments were discussed, or were under discussion. The imperfective is doing real work — it tells you the discussion went on, rather than that it concluded. Более полугода takes the genitive: for more than six months.
Unpack the participles
Эксперты, опрошенные корреспондентом — опрошенные is a long-form past passive participle from опросить, agreeing with эксперты in the nominative plural, with the agent in the instrumental: experts surveyed by the correspondent. Текст был существенно смягчён — смягчён is the short form of the same participle type, used predicatively with был: the text was substantially softened. One long form as a modifier, one short form as a predicate: that is the standard division of labour and recognising it makes the sentence readable at speed.
Answer the question the register is hiding
По сравнению с первоначальным вариантом takes с plus the instrumental. Now ask what the paragraph actually establishes. It establishes a date, attributed to a press service; a duration of discussion, attributed to a publication; and a judgement that the text was softened, attributed to experts. Nothing here is the writer's own claim. An answer that says the text became milder is wrong; an answer that says опрошенные эксперты считают, что текст стал мягче is right, and the difference is one attribution.

Result: В абзаце нет ни одного утверждения от лица автора: дата вступления правил в силу приводится со ссылкой на пресс-службу ведомства, продолжительность обсуждения — со ссылкой на издание, а вывод о смягчении текста принадлежит экспертам, опрошенным корреспондентом. Правильный ответ на вопрос о смягчении должен сохранять эту ссылку: по мнению опрошенных экспертов, окончательный вариант мягче первоначального.

Typical mistakes

Missing якобы and reporting an allegation as a statement of fact; this is a comprehension error and is marked as one.
Writing по словам with a nominative. It takes the genitive: по словам министра, по словам экспертов.
Shifting the tense back in reported speech on the English model: он сказал, что готовил when the original was готовит.
Writing an essay entirely in news register. Borrow the attribution formulas and the reflexive passive; leave the nominal headlines behind.

Active revision

Возьмите короткую русскую новостную заметку. Подчеркните в ней все ссылки на источник, все возвратные глаголы в значении пассива и все причастия. Затем перепишите заметку в трёх предложениях своими словами, сохранив ссылки на источник, но убрав все причастия.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Exam technique: earning the AO3 range mark with the specification's own checklist#

AdvancedPearson Edexcel 9RU0 Paper 2 - Range of grammatical structures and vocabulary (AO3), 20 marks per essayPearson Edexcel 9RU0 - the specification's definition of complex language for the range grid

The specification does something unusually helpful for Russian: it prints its own definition of complex language for the range grid, and the list is specific enough to be used as a checklist. It names extended sentences that convey justified argument; all cases across nouns, adjectives and pronouns; comparatives and superlatives including common irregulars; short-form adjectives; cardinal and ordinal numerals including in oblique cases; verbal aspect; sequence of tenses in reported speech and indirect questions; the passive voice including present active and past passive participles; gerunds; the conditional mood; verbs of wanting and commanding with чтобы and further uses of бы; compound conjunctions; relative pronouns; and synonyms and variety of expression. Straightforward language, by contrast, is defined as simple sentences with limited linking and high-frequency structures. The grid rewards the first list and caps you on the second.

The temptation is to sprinkle, and sprinkling is visible. An essay in which a gerund appears once, unnecessarily, and a participle is misformed, reads worse than a plain essay written accurately, because the accuracy grid is separate and will punish the failed attempt twice. The productive discipline is different: write the paragraph in the plainest Russian you can, then upgrade it structurally, one operation at a time, keeping only the upgrades that the meaning actually wanted. Four operations do most of the work. Join two sentences with a relative pronoun. Turn a second finite verb into a gerund. Turn a stated agent into a reflexive passive or a short participle. Replace a repeated adjective with a comparative or a synonym.

Two of the list's items are Russian-specific and are where marks are most often left on the table. The first is aspect. Aspect is not an ornament — it is a meaning — and an essay whose verbs are all imperfective because imperfectives are easier is not merely dull, it is inaccurate. Ask of every past-tense verb whether you mean the activity or its completion. The second is word order. Russian marks new information by position, so an essay in rigid subject-verb-object order throughout is failing to use one of the language's main resources; moving the subject to the end of a sentence when the subject is the point is a structural upgrade that costs nothing and reads as native.

Two items on the list also carry a trap. The suffixal superlative in -айший and -ейший is marked receptive only, so recognise крупнейший in a reading text but write самый крупный in an essay. The past active participle — открывшийся, написавший — is likewise receptive only, so do not attempt it in production; use a который clause instead, which is what the grammar list expects you to produce. Present active participles and past passive participles, long and short, are productive, and gerunds are productive. Knowing which half of the participle system you are expected to write is worth more than any amount of general advice about complexity.

Worked example

Raising a paragraph from straightforward to complex, one operation at a time

Here is a paragraph in straightforward Russian, the kind the range grid describes as simple sentences with limited linking. Молодые люди не смотрят телевизор. Они читают новости в интернете. Это хорошо, потому что там больше информации. Но там много неправды. Поэтому надо проверять факты. Upgrade it.

Operation one — join two sentences with a relative pronoun and move the object forward
Молодые люди почти не смотрят телевизор: новости они читают в интернете, где выбор источников несравнимо шире. The colon replaces a full stop and creates one extended sentence out of two. Где is a relative adverb doing the work of в котором. Fronting новости before the subject они marks it as the known topic and puts the new information later, which is the Russian word-order resource. Шире is the irregular comparative of широкий, and несравнимо intensifies it.
Operation two — turn a bare evaluation into an attributed one with a relative clause
У этого есть очевидное преимущество, о котором часто говорят, — доступ к разным точкам зрения. The flat это хорошо has become a noun with a modifier, and о котором часто говорят is a relative clause in the prepositional that reports the evaluation instead of asserting it. Доступ к takes the dative. The paragraph has moved from a personal verdict to a described position, which the AO4 grid also rewards.
Operation three — replace the vague там много неправды with a passive and a gerund
Однако там же публикуется и то, что никем не проверено, и, не проверив информацию сам, читатель рискует принять чужое мнение за факт. Публикуется is a reflexive passive. Никем не проверено is a short-form past passive participle with the agent in the instrumental and the obligatory double negative — checked by nobody. Не проверив is a negated perfective gerund sharing its subject with читатель, which is the condition a Russian gerund must meet. Рисковать takes an infinitive.
Operation four — replace the flat conclusion with a correlative comparative
Чем больше источников, тем важнее умение выбирать. Поэтому надо проверять факты has become a general claim with a structure. Чем … , тем … is on the specification's list as a comparative resource; больше источников takes the genitive; важнее is a predicative comparative and умение выбирать an abstract noun with a dependent infinitive.
Add one closing sentence that earns its length
Свобода информации без привычки к проверке превращается в свою противоположность. Привычка к takes the dative; превращаться во что-либо takes в plus the accusative; свою is the reflexive possessive, correct because the subject is свобода. Now audit the result against the checklist: relative pronouns, a reflexive passive, a short-form past passive participle with an instrumental agent, a negated perfective gerund, three comparatives including an irregular one, a correlative construction, and deliberate word order — every one of them required by the meaning rather than inserted for display.

Result: Молодые люди почти не смотрят телевизор: новости они читают в интернете, где выбор источников несравнимо шире. У этого есть очевидное преимущество, о котором часто говорят, — доступ к разным точкам зрения. Однако там же публикуется и то, что никем не проверено, и, не проверив информацию сам, читатель рискует принять чужое мнение за факт. Чем больше источников, тем важнее умение выбирать: свобода информации без привычки к проверке превращается в свою противоположность.

Typical mistakes

Inserting a gerund whose subject is different from the subject of the main clause; a Russian gerund must share the main clause's subject.
Attempting a past active participle in production. Use a который clause: клуб, который открылся в 1981 году.
Writing every past-tense verb in the imperfective because the perfective feels risky; aspect is meaning, and a wrong aspect is an accuracy error.
Displaying three participles in one sentence. The grid rewards language deployed for a purpose, not language exhibited.

Active revision

Возьмите любой свой абзац на 60 слов, написанный простыми предложениями. Перепишите его четырьмя операциями: соедините два предложения относительным местоимением, замените один глагол деепричастием, превратите одно действующее лицо в возвратный пассив или краткое причастие и замените один повтор сравнительной степенью. Сравните две версии и отметьте, где смысл действительно выиграл.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: GCE AS and A level subject content for modern foreign languages (Department for Education)

References & sources

Sources

Pearson Edexcel

Pearson Edexcel Level 3 Advanced GCE in Russian (9RU0) specification

Department for Education

GCE AS and A level subject content for modern foreign languages

The media: Средства массовой информации

5 sections~36 min reading time4 competenciesLevel Standard 1 · Advanced 4

The media: Средства массовой информации

Key points

Paper 3 Task 1: a spoken answer on contested ground

Key points

Paper 1 Section C: translation into English, worked sentence by sentence

Key points

From a bare fact to a paragraph of argued Russian

Key points

Decoding a paragraph of Russian news register

Key points

Raising a paragraph from straightforward to complex, one operation at a time

Sources

The media: Средства массовой информации

Key points

Paper 3 Task 1: a spoken answer on contested ground

Key points

Paper 1 Section C: translation into English, worked sentence by sentence

Key points

From a bare fact to a paragraph of argued Russian

Key points

Decoding a paragraph of Russian news register

Key points

Raising a paragraph from straightforward to complex, one operation at a time

Sources