What examiners actually reward in Section C.

Most students treat Section C as a hunt. They read the article once, circle every technique they can name, and list them in the essay: a rhetorical question here, inclusive language there. Then the mark comes back lower than expected, and it feels unfair. It is not. Section C does not reward spotting. It rewards analysis of how an argument works on a reader.

Naming a device earns almost nothing

Writing "the author uses a rhetorical question" tells the assessor you can label a sentence. It does not tell them you understand the piece. The mark lives in the next step: what that move does to the reader, and how it pushes the writer's contention along. A technique with no effect attached is a dead end.

Track the argument, not the article

Before you analyse anything, read for the shape of the argument. What is the contention? What are the supporting arguments, and how does each build on the last? Where does the tone shift, and why there? An article is a machine built to move you from one position to another, and your job is to explain how the machine works.

• The contention, and how it is framed from the first line
• How each argument builds on, or answers, the one before
• Where the tone shifts, and what that shift is doing
• How any visual reinforces or extends the written argument

Write about effect, not features

There is a sentence pattern that reliably scores, because it forces you to analyse rather than list. It runs roughly: by doing X, the writer positions the reader to feel or think Y, which strengthens the contention that Z. Every strong Section C sentence is some version of that. The technique is only there to explain the effect.

Analyse the effect on the reader, and the techniques take care of themselves.

Once you write this way, you stop needing a long list of device names. A small, sharp vocabulary plus a genuine focus on effect will outscore a page of labels every time.