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AQA English Language Paper 2, question by question
4 minutes · captions available
Every question on Paper 2: the two sources, summary, language, comparison and the viewpoint writing task.
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Introduction
This is English Language Paper 2. Like Paper 1, it's an hour and forty-five minutes and eighty marks. This time you're reading two pieces of non-fiction, one from the nineteenth century and one from the twentieth or twenty-first, and then writing to give your own point of view. Let's go through it question by question. Question 1 is four marks, about five minutes. Question 2 is eight marks, about eight minutes. Question 3 is twelve marks, about twelve minutes. Question 4 is sixteen marks, about twenty minutes. Question 5 is forty marks, about forty-five minutes. Add fifteen minutes to read the sources and the questions, and that's the paper. Read the questions first. Then read Source A and Source B, and for each one ask two things: what is this writer's view, and how do they feel about it? A nineteenth-century writer can sound formal and distant, but there's almost always strong feeling under the long sentences. Mark the moments where you can hear it. Question 1 gives you eight statements about part of Source A. Four of them are true. Choose exactly four, and mark them the way the paper tells you. Read only the lines the question points you to. A statement can be true somewhere else in the source and still be wrong for this question. Check every one against the text before you choose it. Question 2 asks what you can infer about the differences between something in Source A and something in Source B. It might be two places, two people or two experiences. The word that matters is infer. Don't retell what each source says. Make a point about a difference, back it with a short quotation from each source, and say what it suggests. Then do it again. An answer that only uses one source can't get far, so make sure both are in every paragraph. Question 3 is on one source only, usually a section of Source A, and asks how the writer uses language to achieve something, such as influencing the reader. Twelve marks, about twelve minutes. Treat it like Paper 1, Question 2, with more time. Name the method, zoom in on single words, and explain the effect on the reader. In older sources look out for capital letters, lists, direct questions to the reader and sarcasm. Victorian writers were rarely as polite as they look. Question 4 is the comparison: how the two writers convey their different feelings and perspectives, and the methods they use to show them. Sixteen marks, about twenty minutes. Compare as you go. Each paragraph takes one idea, shows how the first writer handles it, then how the second does, with words like whereas and similarly doing the work. If you write all of Source A and then all of Source B with no links between them, you've written two answers instead of one comparison. Question 5 asks you to write your own point of view on a topic linked to the sources, in a form such as an article, a letter or a speech. Forty marks again: twenty-four for content and organisation, sixteen for technical accuracy. You are not a sixteen-year-old sitting in an exam hall. You're a journalist, a campaigner or a speaker, so pick a persona and a strong opinion. Plan for five minutes. Open with something that makes the reader keep going, build your argument in paragraphs that each do one job, deal with the other side, and end with something they'll remember. Then check your accuracy. So that's Paper 2. Read for views and feelings. Pick exactly four in Question 1. Infer from both sources in Question 2. Zoom in on language in Question 3. Compare as you go in Question 4. And argue with a voice in Question 5. Free practice for Language Paper 2 is at btl.education.
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