Literally Everything about AQA GCSE Language Paper 1 Question 2
Mrs Wear runs through the five essentials for tackling Paper 1, Section A, Question 2 (the language analysis question):
What you need to do – The question is always phrased the same way: “How does the writer use language to describe X?” Your task is language analysis (not structure).
Marks and timing – It’s worth 8 marks. Spend around 10–15 minutes on it depending on your timing plan.
Analyse the right section – You’re given a specific line range, copied above the question on the paper. Only analyse that section — anything outside won’t earn marks.
What is language analysis – It means zooming in on the writer’s word choices and techniques (metaphor, imagery, semantic fields, etc.) and explaining how they create meaning linked to the question.
How much to write – Aim for roughly two paragraphs, which works out at about two AQA answer pages. This could be:
One idea explored in depth across two paragraphs, or
Two different ideas, one per paragraph (her recommended approach).
Handwriting size makes a difference to how much space this fills, but the content should be balanced and detailed.
She closes by stressing: if you can manage two clear ideas with strong analysis, that shows deeper understanding. But if you’re stuck, it’s better to do one idea really well than two with one weak one.
So, the questions then for this question is pretty much always the same. How does the writer use language to describe X? And what X is will vary depending on the question. And so, basically, this question is testing your language analysis skills. Pretty straightforward. So, this question is worth eight marks, and because of that, you should be spending 10 to 15 minutes answering it depending on the exam timing strategy that you've gone for. This question has a specific line range that it wants you to talk about. You can only analyze things from within that specific line range. Anything you talk about outside of that line range, you do not get marks for. So, stay in the line range. The good news is that they copy over that exact
line range into a box just above the question for you. So, you don't need to look back at the whole text insert, you just need to look at the chunk above the question and only talk about that chunk. Well, I do a whole video on what is analysis, so you should go check that out for a lot more detail. But, for the purposes of right now, language analysis basically means you're looking at the words and language techniques that the writer has used, and you're breaking down how those techniques create meaning. Again, this is all in reference to a particular question. So, if, for example, the question was how does the writer use language to describe the castle, you're looking at how the writer has used words
and language techniques to create meaning about that castle. Now, when I was an AQA examiner, I could often tell uh how strong an answer was going to be just on roughly how much the student had written. When they'd written too little, I immediately knew it wasn't going to do that well. When they'd written way too much, it could still potentially do well, but I knew they would have wasted a lot of exam time. The perfect amount for this question is about two paragraphs. Now, let me explain what I mean by two paragraphs. Firstly, that could mean that you have one idea to answer the question, so one idea on how the castle is presented, but you explore that in a lot of detail over two paragraphs. You might know this
from your school as like PEEL or PEAZL. I teach it as T, but basically, you've gone into a lot of detail analyzing a lot of different techniques. In terms of an actual AQA exam paper, what that looks like roughly is two pages. The page that the question comes on, which really is more like half a page, and then one page after that. You tend to be able to fill that amount. Of course, how much you fill the second page is going to come down to handwriting, too. I've seen students with minuscule handwriting, where they, you know, fill a page and a bit because their handwriting is so small. Whereas in the the members of the giant handwriting club, it becomes out as maybe a little over two pages, even though they're both
writing, you know, the exact same amount of content. So, keep in mind handwriting here and your handwriting and how that will make a difference, but roughly speaking, on the the pages the AQA print and and the line spaces they've got, is about two pages is your kind of maximum amount you want to be writing. The second way of looking at it is if you've got two ideas and each paragraph is a different idea. Again, still PEEL, PEAZL, T, but you've got two ideas on how the castle is presented. So, you look at multiple techniques going to one idea, multiple techniques going to the second idea. Again, having it last for a maximum of two of those AQA printed pages.