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AQA English Language Paper 1, question by question
5 minutes · captions available
Every question on Paper 1: what it asks, how many marks it carries, how long to spend and what a strong answer does.
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Introduction
This is English Language Paper 1, from start to finish. One hour and forty-five minutes, eighty marks, five questions. By the end of this video you'll know what each question wants, how long to spend on it, and the habits that cost marks. Get some paper. We'll work through it together. Section A is reading. You get one source, a piece of twentieth or twenty-first century fiction, and four questions worth forty marks. Section B is writing: one task, worth another forty. AQA advises fifteen minutes reading the source and the questions, about forty-five minutes on Section A, and about forty-five on Section B. A mark a minute is a useful guide. Question 1 is four marks, Questions 2 and 3 are eight each, Question 4 is twenty, and Question 5 is forty. That last one is half the paper. Use the fifteen minutes properly. Read the questions first, so you know what you're looking for. Then read the source once for the story: who, where, what happens. Then go back with a pen. Mark where the focus shifts, where the mood changes, and any words that stop you. You'll be grateful for those marks when you reach Questions 3 and 4. Question 1 asks about the first part of the source. Since 2026 it's four multiple-choice questions, each with three options. One mark each, about five minutes. Don't answer from memory of your first read. Go back to the lines the question gives you and find the evidence for your answer. Choose one answer for each question, and mark it exactly the way the paper tells you. If you change your mind, follow the paper's instructions for crossing out. Question 2 gives you a short section and asks how the writer uses language to describe something. Eight marks, about ten minutes. Here's the habit to break. Don't write 'the word snarled shows'. Name what it is: 'the harsh verb snarled'. Then go through what the writer shows, how the language does it, and why it matters. What, how, why. Two or three of those paragraphs, each built on a short quotation, will do more than a list of techniques. Zoom in on single words. The best answers spend a whole sentence on one word. Question 3 is about structure: how the writer has organised the whole text to create an effect. Since 2026 the question names the effect, so if it says tension, every point you make is about tension. Eight marks, about ten minutes. Think like a camera. Where does the text open? Where does it zoom in? Where does the focus shift, from outside to inside, from one character to another, from the present to a memory? And what's different by the end? Use words like opening, shift, zooms in, returns to and ends. Track the effect from the first line to the last. Question 4 is the big reading question: twenty marks, about twenty minutes. You get a statement about part of the text and you're asked to what extent you agree. You don't have to agree completely. Strong answers often agree with part of the statement and push back on the rest. Say where you stand in your first sentence. Then prove it, using the writer's methods and short quotations, and keep coming back to the words of the statement. This is evaluation: your view, backed by the text. Question 5 is the writing task, and it's worth forty marks: twenty-four for content and organisation, and sixteen for technical accuracy. You'll usually choose between a description, often with a picture to help, and the opening of a story. Plan for five minutes. You don't need to resolve a narrative. War and Peace wasn't written in forty-five minutes. Show the examiner how you write: precise vocabulary, a range of sentences, a clear structure with a shift or two, and paragraphs that do a job. Then leave five minutes to check spelling, punctuation and grammar. Sixteen marks depend on it. So that's Paper 1. Read with a pen. Choose carefully in Question 1. Name the word class in Question 2. Think like a camera in Question 3. Take a position in Question 4. And spend half your time on Question 5. If you'd like practice, there are free resources for Language Paper 1 at btl.education.
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