1. Paper 2 100% exam First Entry 2017
AQA English Language
Paper 2
100% exam
First Entry 2017

2. Paper 2 The Basics
Section A: 2 non fiction extracts (19th century and 20th/21st century)
4 questions
Section B: Writing task – presenting a viewpoint
1hr 45mins
80 marks
Section A and B – equal weighting

3. Paper 2 Q1 2.4 % of marks on paper 4 marks
AO1 – identify and interpret
5mins (including reading)
Quick question – the start of the ‘progression journey’
Select the TRUE statements

4. Paper 2 Q2 5% of marks on paper 8 marks AO1 (synthesis)
17 mins (including reading)
Both sources - summarise the differences
SQI method is suggested as a ‘route through’
To be successful at top level, students need to:
Select textual detail connected to focus of question
Synthesise the detail from both texts
Provide perceptive interpretation – the ‘I’ of SQI is the high level skill
This task prepares students for the comparative Q4
Answer can merge the 2 extracts or have a separate paragraph for each linked by relevant discourse markers

5. Top Band Q2 Content
Eddie is a typical modern teenager who is cheeky and speaks to his father in a ‘mocking voice’ emphasising their close relationship and good humour with each other. Henry however is distant and formal with his father, addressing him in a respectful tone, “my dear Father” emphasising the difference in status between them.

6. Paper 2 Q3 7.5 % of marks on paper 12 marks
17 mins (including reading)
AO2 (language)
Explain, comment on and analyse how writers use language to achieve effects and influence the readers, using relevant subject terminology
This question assesses ‘Language’ – words/phrases/features/techniques/sentence forms
1 source only

7. Some ‘top band’ Q3 content
Henry uses direct address to his father which suggests familiarity, “you will not let..”, “you will let me come home” and shows how his future is in the hands of his father, but this is also contrasted with a much more distant and formal mode of address, “my dear Father”. The noun phrase is repeated in a number of places as an emotional tool to try and reinforce that his father is ‘dear’ to him – though the distance and time lapse of them being together suggests to the reader this may not be so – and is a deliberate choice by Henry to appeal to his father.

8. Paper 2 Q4 10% of marks on paper 16 marks 25 mins (read/plan/write)
AO3
Compare writers’ ideas and perspectives, as well as how these are conveyed, across two texts

9. Q4 – the ‘challenge’ question
This extended-form answer will enable students to compare the different attitudes or viewpoints, perspectives and ideas as an umbrella to capture what a writer is writing about and how they present it to the reader.
Focus on the comparison of ‘methods’ – language and structure and form. This includes irony/tone/satire and bias.
This question is synoptic – the final stage of the learning journey.

10. Some ‘top band’ Q4
Jay Rayner uses humour to good effect in his article and uses it both in his attitudes to parenting, “too busy killing things on Skype” – showing his warm, relaxed attitude to his son and in his attitudes to education. He refers to his own education using self deprecating humour however, using the simile, “like a line of Pac –Men doing a conga” to refer to his own grades. This is in direct contrast to…..

11. Section B Q5 Writing Task
24% of marks on paper
40 marks (24+16)
45mins (plan/write/edit)
AO5 and AO6
Writing to present a viewpoint

12. Q5 ‘Teach’
‘Homework has no value. Some students get it done for them; some don’t do it at all. Students should be relaxing in their free time’. Write an article for a broadsheet newspaper in which you explain your point of view on this statement