hello everybody and welcome to today's
video now we know that one of the
sources in the summer 2022 aqa english
language paper 2 exam will be a 21st
century piece of autobiographical
writing but how does that help us well
i've gone back through every past paper
mark scheme and exam report and today
i'll tell you four tips that stood out
from past exams where one source was
autobiographical tip one
autobiographical writing doesn't just
mean the first person story of my life
you might associate with the term like
these books on screen the term is
broader than that for example one year
the extract was from this book a jointly
written travel piece which was still
listed as an autobiographical account so
don't think too narrowly about what is
meant by autobiographical writing
tip two and note on perspectives we know
that paper two question four is always
about the writer's viewpoints and
perspectives now that we know one piece
will be autobiographical does that help
with this question well not necessarily
one past paper contained an
autobiographical piece with just one
perspective but others have included
numerous points of view in the paper
where there was more than one point of
view in the autobiographical text some
students struggle to make the
distinction between the attitudes of the
writer and the attitudes of the people
presented within the source let me give
you a quick example from sources i've
chosen these are not from past exam
papers here's a moment in a travel text
by paul theroux who is waiting for a
train in the morning we left her
acoustic for mongolia the people in the
group complained that the train was
three hours late but that didn't seem
bad after all it had come from moscow
which was almost four thousand miles
away in this extract it would be
incorrect to say that the writer's
attitude is one of frustration no that's
not the attitude of the writer the
people in the group complain but the
writer doesn't think the three-hour
delay of the train is bad or here's
another example from the travel writing
of francis bernie patagonia who would
ever think of going to such a place why
you'll be eaten up by cannibals what on
earth makes you choose such an
outlandish part of the world to go to
what can be the attraction why it is
thousands of miles away and no one has
ever been there before except captain
musters and one or two other adventurous
mad men these and similar questions and
exclamations i heard from the lips of my
friends and acquaintances when i told
them of my intended trip to patagonia
the land of the giants the land of the
fabled gold city of manoa in this short
extract can you see that everything in
the first paragraph is not the writer's
viewpoint it's the perspective of their
friends and acquaintances if you
presented these ideas as the writer's
viewpoint you'd be wrong right now these
are simple things to spot but in the
pressure of an exam it's easy to make
mistakes so the thing to do is this
don't assume that just because it's
autobiographical
everything written in the extract will
be the writer's viewpoint look carefully
to see if there's more than one point of
view in the text and make sure you
identify the point of view of the writer
a good thing to practice in the meantime
is reading some non-fiction and seeing
if you can work out the difference
between the viewpoint of the writer and
the viewpoint of other people mentioned
in the text
tip 3 although we know the piece will be
autobiographical think about when the
writer is writing about one past paper
contained a source where an adult writer
was writing about their childhood and
the march scheme from paper to question
four mentioned the significance of this
adult retrospective autobiography so
consider when the writer is writing
about final tip autobiographical writing
doesn't always mean using the personal
pronoun i one of the sources from a past
paper was an extract from an
autobiography but the writer used we and
us exclusively so don't make the
assumption that the personal pronoun i
will be used well i hope you found this
short video useful it's only short
because i didn't want to speculate about
the source i only wanted to give advice
rooted in past exam paper experience
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my paper to playlist the first five
videos are short animated videos that
will really help you prepare for this
exam