As with all of the questions in the language exam, the structure doesn't really change. There's just a few small changes based on the text that you're dealing with. When it comes to question four, you're always going to be asked to look at the whole of source A and the whole of source B, and you're always going to be asked to talk about how the two different writers of the two texts convey their attitude towards something. And that something is going to be the one thing that changes, and it's going to be whatever it is the two texts have in common. Question four in paper two is actually worth fewer marks than paper uh question four of paper one. It's worth 16 compared to paper one's 20. However,
this is still a really important question when we consider how many more marks it is worth than question two at eight marks and question three at 12 marks. So, it needs to get the full time. You're having to look at the entire of two texts when in paper one you only had to look at a section of one text. So, even though this question is fewer marks, I would say in terms of what it is you have to do in the time allowed, it's actually harder. So, if you've got 60 marks, I would recommend 20 minutes for answering this question. Um keeping in mind you would have also spent a bit of time in the reading time on this because you would have read the uh two texts and you would have thought about what you want to say for your
answer. So, 20 marks to basically write out your answer where hopefully you would have spent the 15 minutes doing a bit of planning. This question is the only question across the GCSE that is tested under this assessment objective AO3. Compare writers' ideas and perspectives as well as how these are conveyed across two or more texts. So, what you can see is that the skill they really are testing here is comparison. And therefore, when it comes to writing your answer, having an idea which is perceived by the examiner as being perceptive, is not going to come down to necessarily what you say about one of the texts on its own, but what you say about how the texts are similar or different. And that's why I would
recommend looking at at least one similarity and one difference, and ideally they would also be linked. So, it's like they're similar in this way, but actually there is a difference within that similarity as well. Or they're different in this way, but actually within that difference there is still a bit of similarity. Because that is what's going to help you get that more kind of nuanced perspective of the similarities and differences between the text. That being said, I appreciate sometimes you might get a combination where they are just really similar or they are just really different and you can't really see anything. It's not worth wasting loads and loads of time being like, "I must find one similarity
and one difference." And not moving away from that. Um, do just go for two similarities or two differences if if that's what you're finding. The other thing to keep in mind with this mark scheme is that the analysis is also a huge part of how your mark is decided. So, there's two main parts to it, right? There's the comparison and then there's the analysis. If you don't analyze, you're not going to get into level three. Well, actually you can get into like bottom of level three because of the quality of your comparisons, but that's about it. If you want to be getting the grade seven, the grade eight, the grade nine, analysis has to be in there. It has to be in there constantly. It has to be there for both
texts. So, you can think about your paragraphs for this answer as essentially being set out in a single sentence, a way that the texts are similar. Analyze how we see that viewpoint in text A. Analyze how we see that viewpoint in text B. Concluding sentence on therefore, what similarity we're saying. Rinse and repeat another time for a difference. Or, you know, your two similarities, two differences. It's also worth noting that they have a third bullet point in the middle there about your quotations. Now, you've probably heard me say this a million times before if you've watched my other videos, but it's worth noting that for the examiner, that's the kind of smallest bullet point in the mark scheme. Your quotes are not
going to be the decider of uh you getting the very highest marks. That being said, for you, it is really important to think about your quote choice because if you don't have a good quotation, you're not going to be able to analyze. So, make sure you've got a good quote that's going to give you a lot to say about it. As well as forgetting to analyze, another huge mistake that students make uh with this question is to not talk about the writer's viewpoint. Let's take for example this question where you've been asked to compare how the writers convey their different attitudes to the elephants. A lot of students will make the mistake of saying, you know, "The elephant in source A is big, the elephant in source B is small." That's
not the writer's viewpoint of the elephant, that's the elephant. You have to make sure you are focusing your answer on whatever the writer thinks or feels about whatever the topic is. A really easy way to help yourself do that is just in the way that you express yourself. So, if we look back for example at the mark scheme and the example answer that AQA provide for a uh full mark answer. "From the start, Orwell establishes that he is indecisive in his attitude towards the elephant as he did not know what he could do." Notice that focus. "Orwell establishes that he is indecisive." It's all focused on the writer Orwell. And we see that going through the entire thing. Orwell, Orwell, Orwell, and then we shift to
Bartlett. Man, this is some horrific circling. Try not to judge my circling too harshly. There we go. But you can see the idea, right? Their answer is constantly focused on the writer, the writer, the writer, the writer, the writer. It's constantly about what they are doing and what they are thinking and what they are feeling. And that's what you have to do in your answer. Constantly use the phrase "the writer thinks", "the writer feels", "the writer's view", "the writer's opinion". Constantly use that language, and then you know that you're you're you're talking about the right thing, basically. Another easy way you can kind of proofread your answer at the end of writing it is just to scan. How often
have you said "the writer"? How often have you said "the writer thinks", "the writer feels", "the writer's opinion", "the writer's viewpoint is"? Check your answer for how often you've used that language, and it's a useful indicator for how focused you've been on talking about the writer's view of the topic, rather than just what it is you learn about the topic itself, which is of course what you do in question two, not in question four. There's a legitimate issue with looking at texts in English, with something that we call like a student's cultural knowledge. How much they know about the world really impacts a student's ability to understand a text on a deep level. If you've got a student who is not from the UK and is reading a
text filled with UK specific language, subtle references to a UK kind of culture and ways of behaving, and they know nothing about the UK, they're going to really struggle to answer and and fully understand that text and answer a question about it. We are often limited from fully understanding understanding a text because we don't fully know everything there is to know about that particular topic. When it then comes to the paper two English language GCSE, and this question four in particular, we fall into this problem quite a bit, specifically with the 19th century text. Because actually, to deeply understand the 19th century text, to understand it just on an accurate level sometimes, you do need to know some stuff about the
19th century. If you did not know about the class system in Victorian England, or the inequality for women, or things like that, there have been texts they've given in the past that would kind of limit your understanding. Even if for example, basic things like, you know, the Industrial Revolution or or how far or how little we were with our technology technology advancement and science and things like that. However, what students then do is is when they do have that knowledge, they try to explicitly use that knowledge in their answer. So, if we've got a text that's got a woman in Victorian times in it, they'll try to explain that the woman has got her viewpoint because you know, she doesn't have the right to vote.
We're dealing with the 19th century and she's viewed as an object of her husband's and yada yada yada. The issue is AQA have explicitly said that this is not a history essay. Your general knowledge about the 19th century cannot be kind of used to explicitly increase your mark and increase your answer. The cynic in me wants to point out how impossible that is because even if you didn't explicitly write it down, it doesn't mean that that knowledge isn't influencing your understanding of the text. But whatever, they don't want you to explicitly write it down is the point. So, the key tip here is do not talk about your historical knowledge of the 19th century beyond anything already explicitly told to you or implicitly
told to you in this text. Only work with the information the text gives you. Imagine your knowledge of this subject of this time period cuz this does apply to the 20th and 21st century text, too. Imagine your knowledge of those time periods was exclusively limited to what you're given in the text. Only work with the information you're given in the text. You can of course allow it to influence your understanding of the text and and how you write about it, but don't explicitly be like, "Well, in the 19th century, this is what happened." I understand that that's what you do in English literature and that's the right thing to do with English literature when you're talking about context, but this
exam is not testing your understanding of context and therefore when you're writing this stuff out, it's not helping your answer. You'd be much better spent using your time just analyzing key quotations, but talking about history is a big no-no. No history, no general knowledge. Spend your time analyzing instead.