Paper 1 Question 2 Page 1 of 4

Question 2 is a straight-forward language analysis question. It is worth 8 marks (out of a total of 80 for this
paper) and justi es no more than 10 minutes of your time.

Refer to the sample AQA paper to see what it looks like.

What the examiner is looking for

This question assesses your ability to analyse the effects of a writer’s choice of language.
For a high mark, you must:
• use the bullet points in the question!
• show detailed and preceptive understanding when you analyse the effects (on the reader) of the writer’s
choices of language
• make sophisticated and accurate use of subject terminology appropriately, linking references to language
features to the results they produce
• select and use a judicious range of textual detail (quotations and examples) to support your analysis.

You don’t need to write an intro and a conclusion to your answer but, if you can, it’s a good idea to link your
points so that your answer reads smoothly.

Exercise 1
Read this sample text, question and following high-level answer:
The next second the huge ship started to pitch to port, and before I could grab him, Ned Johns went off
sliding down the new slope and smashing into the rail, gathered himself, stood up, looked back at me, and
then was wrenched across the rail and out of view. I knew we were holed deep under the waterline, I could
more or less feel it in my body, something vital torn out of the ship echoed in the pit of my stomach, some
mischief done, deep, deep in some engine room or cargo hold.

My other helper, Johnny ‘Fats’ Talbott, a man so lean you could have used him for spare wire, as poor Ned
Johns once said, in truth was using me now as a kind of bollard, but that was no good, because the ship
seemed to make a delayed reaction to its wound, and shuddered upward, the ship’s rail rearing up ten feet in
a bizarre and impossible movement, catching poor Johnny completely off guard, since he had been bracing
himself against a force from the other direction, and off he went behind me, pulling the trouser leg off my
uniform as he did so, sending my precious half-crowns firing in every direction.

Look in detail at these lines from the above source:

I knew we were holed deep under the waterline, I could more or less feel it in my body, something vital torn
out of the ship echoed in the pit of my stomach, some mischief done, deep, deep in some engine room or
cargo hold.

How does the writer use language to describe the experience of being on board a ship struck by a
torpedo?
You could include the writer’s choice of
• words and phrases
• language features and techniques
• sentence forms

This single, long sentence reflects the thoughts that move rapidly through the narrator's mind from
the moment he is aware of the torpedo strike. Each clause describes a stage in his understanding. The
use of the pronoun 'we’ to describe the ship implies that the ship and the crew are one entity and
'holed' is a violent verb that conjures up the image of a human wound.
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The narrator further develops the connection between man and ship in the second clause, where he
feels the blow to the ship as if it were his own body that was hurt. The use of the adverbial phrase
'more or less' is interesting because it injects an element of uncertainty: the narrator is in shock but
not entirely sure what he is feeling.
In the next clause, describing the feeling of ‘something vital torn out of the ship’ being echoed in the
pit of his stomach, he develops this connection between the ship and his own body further. The verb
‘torn’ in particular is very physical, painful language. It is as if the narrator is the ship and the ship is
in some way human. Perhaps he is also describing how his fear makes him feel as if he’s been hit in the
stomach.

Look at what the examiner is looking for (on previous page). Can you identify the strengths of this answer?
Can you see how it deepens each point without repetition?

To plan your P1 Q2 answer:

• underline key elements in the question
• mark up all relevant ‘evidence’ in the extract, noting the signi cance of the evidence in the margin
• PLAN. This means deciding on the three most signi cant points you’re going to make: about what the
writer does and the effect that this has on the reader. Three points because you’re aiming for 8 marks and
3 x PEE = 9
• see if you can link your points – preferably without using clichéd connectives like furthermore and
moreover, BUT the important thing is to get down three clear points. If, in the process of answering, you
can refer to more than three devices, that’s fantastic, but don’t panic if you can’t see more than three
because this question is only worth 8 marks.

Answer the question!

Remember that you’re being asked about what the writer does AND how this affects the reader – not just
how the reader responds. So make your point about what the writer does, not about what ‘we see’. Be aware
of the critical difference.
This means writing:
The author personi es the storm as an ‘enemy’ to impress on the reader that it feels like a deliberate attack
rather than:
We see that the storm feels like a deliberate attack from the word ‘enemy’.

NOTE: Answering the question also means wording your answer to relate it to the question.

Always embed your ‘evidence’ in your sentences

This means using short quotes, which you should never refer to as ‘quotes’ in your answer.
For example:
The author personi es the storm as an ‘enemy’ to convey the idea that it feels like a deliberate attack.
Refer to ‘word classes’, not just ‘words’
For example:
The adjectives ‘wet’, ‘black’ and ‘greasy’ describing Rosabel’s feet and petticoat contrast dramatically with
the metaphorical ‘fairy palaces’ she sees outside.
Or, better still:
The bleak, negative adjectives ‘wet’, ‘black’ and ‘greasy’ describing Rosabel’s feet and petticoat contrast
dramatically with the metaphorical ‘fairy palaces’ she sees outside.

Avoid over-stating the effect of language devices

• Remember that many language devices do not convey meaning: they emphasise it.
Don’t say, for example:
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The writer uses the rule of three to convey the fear which the man is feeling
… because it’s the words which convey what the man is feeling. I have deliberately not included the words,
so you can see what I mean. Always take a moment to think what the device actually achieves!

Avoid muddling tenses

You’re asked to write about what the author does in the present tense – so answer in the present tense
(even if the author may have been dead for hundreds of years and the text you’re writing about is in the past
tense). Check your work for tense mix-ups when you nish.

Exercise 2
Read the following extract from a short story called ‘The Street of the Blank Wall’ by Jerome K Jerome. The
narrator is walking through the streets of London.

I had turned off from the Edgware Road into a street leading west, the atmosphere of which had appealed
to me. It was a place of quiet houses standing behind little gardens. They had the usual names printed on
the stuccoed gateposts. The fading twilight was just sufficient to enable one to read them. There was a
Laburnum Villa, and The Cedars, and a Cairngorm, rising to the height of three storeys, with a curious
5 little turret that branched out at the top, and was crowned with a conical roof, so that it looked as if
wearing a witch’s hat. Especially when two small windows just below the eaves sprang suddenly into
light, and gave one the feeling of a pair of wicked eyes suddenly flashed upon one.

The street curved to the right, ending in an open space through which passed a canal beneath a low arched
bridge. There were still the same quiet houses behind their small gardens, and I watched for a while the
10 lamplighter picking out the shape of the canal, that widened just above the bridge into a lake with an
island in the middle. After that I must have wandered in a circle, for later on I found myself back in the
same spot, though I do not suppose I had passed a dozen people on my way; and then I set to work to find
my way back to Paddington.

I thought I had taken the road by which I had come, but the half light must have deceived me. Not that it
15 mattered. They had a lurking mystery about them, these silent streets with their suggestion of hushed
movement behind drawn curtains, of whispered voices behind the flimsy walls. Occasionally there would
escape the sound of laughter, suddenly stifled as it seemed, and once the sudden cry of a child.

It was in a short street of semi-detached villas facing a high blank wall that, as I passed, I saw a blind
move half-way up, revealing a woman’s face. A gas lamp, the only one the street possessed, was nearly
20 opposite. I thought at first it was the face of a girl, and then, as I looked again, it might have been the face
of an old woman. One could not distinguish the colouring. In any case, the cold, blue gaslight would have
made it seem pallid.

The remarkable feature was the eyes. It might have been, of course, that they alone caught the light and
held it, rendering them uncannily large and brilliant. Or it might have been that the rest of the face was 25
25 small and delicate, out of all proportion to them. She may have seen me, for the blind was drawn down
again, and I passed on.

There was no particular reason why, but the incident lingered with me. The sudden raising of the blind, as
of the curtain of some small theatre, the barely furnished room coming dimly into view, and the woman
standing there, close to the footlights, as to my fancy it seemed. And then the sudden bringing down of
30 the curtain before the play had begun. I turned at the corner of the street. The blind had been drawn up
again, and I saw again the slight, girlish figure silhouetted against the side panes of the bow window.

At the same moment a man knocked up against me. It was not his fault. I had stopped abruptly, not giving
him time to avoid me. We both apologised, blaming the darkness. lt may have been my fancy, but l had
the feeling that, instead of going on his way, he had turned and was following me. I|waited till the next
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Paper 1 Question 2 Page 4 of 4

35 corner, and then swung round on my heel. But there was no sign of him, and after a while I found myself
back in the Edgware Road.

Look in detail at this extract, from lines 8 to 17 of the source:

The street curved to the right, ending in an open space through which passed a canal beneath a low arched
bridge. There were still the same quiet houses behind their small gardens, and I watched for a while the
10 lamplighter picking out the shape of the canal, that widened just above the bridge into a lake with an
island in the middle. After that I must have wandered in a circle, for later on I found myself back in the
same spot, though I do not suppose I had passed a dozen people on my way; and then I set to work to find
my way back to Paddington.

I thought I had taken the road by which I had come, but the half light must have deceived me. Not that it
15 mattered. They had a lurking mystery about them, these silent streets with their suggestion of hushed
movement behind drawn curtains, of whispered voices behind the flimsy walls. Occasionally there would
escape the sound of laughter, suddenly stifled as it seemed, and once the sudden cry of a child.

How does the writer use language to describe a mysterious atmosphere?

Here are some notes to help you plan your answer

silence, repeated words, sibilance (these silent streets), hushed, sti ed, whispered, also suggest mysterious
force at work - the idea that there is something quiet going on that’s repressed and out of sight behind the
drawn curtains
isolation: few people, island in lake is symbol of isolation and dream-like, very mysterious
idea that narrator is lost (and deceived suggests mystery);
lurking mystery, escape, cry –
confusion
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