AQA GCSE Paper 2 exam Guide fully solved & updated

Question One - answer-In Q1, You will be directed to a certain portion of one of the sources and asked to pick out a number of truths from a list of statements. This is AO1 and assesses your understanding of the obvious and subtler parts of the extract. The question is worth 4 marks, and you should spend around 5 minutes answering it. Question Two - answer-Q2 requires you to write a summary of the differences between the two texts. This assesses your ability identify the explicit and implicit meanings in a text. It is is worth 8 marks and should take around 10 minutes. Question Three - answer-Q3 is a language analysis question that assesses AO2: 'analyse writer's use of language, using relevant subject terminology'. The question is worth 12 marks, and you should spend around 15 minutes answering it. Question Four - answer-Q4 requires you to compare everything about the two sources. It assesses AO3: 'compare writers' ideas and perspectives'. It is worth 16 marks, and you should spend around 20 minutes on it. Question Five - answer-Question 5 is the writing section of the exam. You will be asked to give your own opinion on a theme that has been raised in section A. You will be given a specific purpose, audience and form for this question. One third of the marks are for SPaG. The question will be a strong opinion that attacks something. You will then be asked to explain your point of view in response to said view. Inserts - answer-You will get one insert with two sources. They are often articles or viewpoint pieces of writing. They will be written in different centuries and will have views on the same topic. The topic is likely to be something that has changed over time. The Extracts - answer-The Extracts are free to annotate, you should certainly block off or highlight the sections appropriate to each question so your attention is focused in these sections. Section A - answer-Section A contains 4 questions: you must answer all of them. The first question is a short question worth 4 marks. Questions 2 and 3 are longer questions worth 8 and 12 marks respectively, and question 4 is an extended question worth 16 marks. As with paper 1, the idea is that the early questions warm you up for the harder ones, which follow on later. Section B - answer-Section B is the writing section of the exam. You will be asked to give your own opinion on a theme that has been raised in section A. The Paper as a whole - answer-The paper will be 1 hour and 45 minutes; there are a total of 80 marks available. This includes time to check your work - section B has 1/3 of the marks for SPaG, so check your spelling!