AQA English Language Paper 2 question 5 is the writing question in Paper 2.
It is a 40 mark question, with 24 marks awarded for a05, and 16 marks awarded for a06
Section B builds on Section A. In Section A you were given two sources presenting viewpoints
on a topic or theme, and you’ve answered questions on how the writers present those
viewpoints. In section B, you have an opportunity to present your own personal view-point.
In this question, you’ll be presented with a controversial statement, and asked to respond
with your viewpoint. Let’s look at a typical question:
'School uniform is the number one most important factor in ensuring that students behave well
and achieve academic success at school'. Write a letter to your head teacher arguing
for or against the abolition of school uniform.
Now it’s worth pointing out here that, historically, 3 out of the 4 past live papers have given
you the choice of agreeing or disagreeing with the statement. Just once there has been
a statement where you’ve not been asked to agree or disagree, but asked to explain
your view on something. For example, the question was something like this: ‘Most lessons are
boring. Write a letter to your teacher explaining what you think makes a good school lesson.’
So in that case, you couldn’t choose to agree or disagree, but you still had the freedom
to decide what to write about in what you decided made a good school lesson.
The question will always set out a clear audience, purpose and form.
Now form is an interesting one, because there is a minimum expectation of what to include
for each form of writing, and other features you might include:
For example, with a letter, at a minimum it needs to be clear that you are sending a letter
to someone - you might achieve that through writing ‘Dear Mr Smith’ at the beginning.
And you have to write in paragraphs too. You can then take that all the way through to
what we know of the letter form: address, date, formal mode of address with ‘Dear
Sir / Madam’, and an appropriate sign off like ‘yours sincerely / faithfully’. Now
for me, I think it’s easier to use all of the features of the given form, rather than
to have to stop and try to remember which ones I need to include and which ones I don’t.
The forms you might be asked to write in include: A letter
An article The text for a leaflet
a speech An essay.
Now we don’t have time to go through all of those here, but they are all covered in
Mr Bruff’s Guide to GCSE English Language, available in paperback on Amazon or eBook
at mrbruff.com.
You’ll also be given a specific purpose for your work. This could be be worded as
writing to explain, instruct, advise, argue or persuade. There’s also a chance it could
be worded as something different again, but the key thing is that, whatever the wording
of the question, you’re being asked to present your viewpoint on a topic.
The third thing is audience, and this is something many students overlook. Now, one of the skills
for high marks in this question is to actually write an answer that is highly plausible,
made up of convincing ideas. Let me give you an example from a real exam a number of years
ago to show you what I mean.
The question was ‘write a letter to your parents in which you persuade them to let
you go on holiday with a friend this summer.’
I was an examiner on this exam, and I marked over 300 attempts at this question. Thinking
about audience was so important with this question, and I’ll tell you why.
Most students realised that, with their parents as their audience, they would need to persuade
them of the benefits of the holiday such as learning a new language, experiencing a new
culture, and developing independence. These students were thinking carefully about what
their audience - their parents, would be persuaded by.
Some students did not think about this at all. They wrote about going to Ibiza, staying
out all night, getting drunk. And of course, these answers were not convincing. They did
not take into account who their audience was, and how they could best persuade that audience.
A tiny percentage of top mark students thought carefully about their audience and used that
connection with their parents to be subtle. They wrote things like ‘Dear mum and dad.
I know I’ve been moody during my exams, and you deserve a break. I know you want me
to grow up to be independent, and not reliant on you forever. Well here’s a solution to
both of those issues: let me go on holiday with a friend this summer.
You see, the top mark skills of writing something Highly plausible, Enthralling, Original and
subtle are only likely to come if you think carefully about your audience and how you
can best present your viewpoint to them.
Another thing to think about is your structure - less successful answers are made up of separate
ideas presented with no sense of sequencing. Better answers present a line of argument,
well structured. Perhaps you can have a cyclical structure, where you begin and end with the
same idea for emphasis. Perhaps you can begin simply and move on to develop more complex
ideas. Thinking about your structure is very important.
As with paper 1 question 5, 16 marks are awarded for technical accuracy. That means you need
to give yourself plenty of time to check your work, both as you are writing and also at the end.
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