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Teaching the anthology comparison question

One poem printed, one from memory, 30 marks. How to choose the second poem, what AQA’s examiners say about structure, and which quotations to learn, with examples from Power and Conflict.

Quick guide for teachers · 4 minute read

Section B of Literature Paper 2 names one poem from the student’s cluster, prints it on the paper and asks for a comparison with one other poem from the same cluster. In June 2023 the Power and Conflict question read: “Compare how poets present the effects of power in ‘My Last Duchess’ and in one other poem from ‘Power and conflict’.” It is worth 30 marks, split 12 for AO1, 12 for AO2 and 6 for AO3, with no marks for spelling, punctuation and grammar. Allow about 45 minutes.

The second poem is not printed, so every quotation from it comes from memory. Both poems count: AQA’s mark scheme lists a response to the named poem and one other from the cluster among the defining parts of the task, and an answer that leaves one out can be capped at the top of Level 2.

Choosing the second poem

AQA’s June 2025 report is blunt: “The choice of the comparative poem is critical to the success, complexity, and coherence of the response.” That year the named poem was ‘Exposure’. The most popular partner was ‘Remains’, followed by ‘Bayonet Charge’ and ‘Storm on the Island’, and the report shows how a partner can look right and still let a student down: “In Power and conflict many students who chose to compare ‘Exposure’ with ‘Storm on the Island’ then wrote about the weather in each but they were often less successful in trying to write about conflict in Northern Ireland.”

The lesson for teaching: a partner has to share the focus of the question, and a shared surface (weather, a soldier, a ruler) is only a starting point. Students choose in the exam, under time, so the thinking has to be done before.

  • For every poem, know two partners, one close and one in contrast, and the idea that links each pair. Then practise choosing against a question’s focus, for example the effects of conflict, memory, or pride in power, until it takes under a minute.
  • Keep a fallback. In June 2023, when the named poem was ‘My Last Duchess’, the examiners noted that the open question let students who were unsure of that poem choose a second one they knew well.

Comparison from the first sentence

The 2025 report found that “All choices of comparison were best served by students having a clear idea from the beginning of their essays as to why these poems were similar or different”. The opening sentence should name both poems, the idea they share and the difference that matters, for example: Both poets present men who expect their power to last, yet Shelley shows time destroying it, whereas Browning shows it still at work.

After that, the structure is a free choice. The report says so directly: “Centres are reminded that there is no requirement for students to write an integrated comparison, where both poems are compared throughout the response. While some are able to handle this very successfully, for others it leads to forced comparisons and rather hinders their flow.” It adds that writing about one poem and then the other is “absolutely fine” when the introduction sets up the comparison and the conclusion draws it together. The 2023 report had said the same: “comparison is not a discrete AO”.

So teach two shapes and let students pick the one they write well:

  1. Integrated: each paragraph takes one idea and moves between both poems with both, similarly, whereas or in contrast.
  2. Framed: a comparative opening, a section on each poem that keeps returning to the shared idea, and a comparative ending.

Either way, the comparison lives in the opening sentence, the links between the two halves and the last paragraph.

Quotations to learn

Students need short quotations for every poem, because any poem might be the partner. Lines that carry an idea and a method at once earn their place. Some examples from Power and Conflict:

  • ‘Remains’: “probably armed, possibly not”, the doubt that returns
  • ‘Bayonet Charge’: “King, honour, human dignity, etcetera”, ideals cut short by a shrug of a word
  • ‘London’: “mind-forg’d manacles”, chains made in the mind
  • ‘Ozymandias’: “The lone and level sands stretch far away”, nature outlasting a king
  • ‘Exposure’: “But nothing happens”, the refrain of waiting
  • ‘War Photographer’: “Belfast. Beirut. Phnom Penh.”, three places in three short sentences

Four short lines per poem, known for certain, are worth more than one long line half remembered. When a line will not come, a precise description of the moment still counts: the specification defines AO1 as using “textual references, including quotations”, so a reference need not be word for word.

Context counts for 6 of the 30 marks. Keep it inside the point about each poet’s purpose, one fact per poem, as in any What–How–Why paragraph.

For students, How to compare two poems covers the same ground in their terms, and Power and Conflict: the fifteen poems in brief gives a short guide to each poem. How many quotations should students learn? looks at the evidence on learning lines by heart.

Sources

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