Paper 2 Question 5

AQA Paper 2, Question 5 (40 marks)

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In this video, Mrs Wear explains AQA English Language Paper 2, Question 5, which is worth 40 marks (half the paper!). She stresses the importance of giving it enough time — at least 45 minutes, split into 10 minutes of planning and 35 minutes of writing.

The task will vary (different text types, purposes, and audiences), but students must always:

Write in the correct text type (speech, article, letter, etc.).
Match the purpose (persuade, argue, advise, etc.).
Adapt for the audience (teachers, peers, the public, etc.).

Beyond that, success comes from loading your writing with engaging techniques (like DEFOREST — direct address, emotive language, facts, opinions, rhetorical questions, examples, statistics, triples) and other creative devices. At the same time, students must demonstrate accuracy and sophistication in vocabulary, spelling, punctuation, and grammar.

This question is worth 40 marks. That's half the entire paper. So, it's incredibly important that you give it enough time. The minimum amount of time, ideally, that you give would be 45 minutes, giving you about 10 minutes to plan and 35 minutes to write. What exactly you're going to be asked to do can vary from question to question, but the basic idea is you're going to be asked to write in a particular text type for a particular audience for a particular purpose. So, you have to make sure that you are meeting the correct purpose, showing an awareness of your audience, and show that you are writing in the correct text type. After that, it comes down to, basically, jam-packing your writing full of de Forest and other

good writing techniques so that it feels engaging to read and engaging to listen to if it was supposed to be a speech, but also not forgetting about the accuracy and the sophistication of your vocab, spelling, punctuation, and grammar.

4 quick questions. Check what you remember from the video.

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