How Paper 2 is built

2 hours, 80 marks, two answers — one from each section. That is roughly an hour each, including planning and checking.

• Section A — Directed Writing (40 marks). One question in two parts, based on one or two texts totalling 550–650 words, printed on the insert. Part 1(a) is a structured question that asks you to analyse and evaluate the text(s) (5 reading marks). Part 1(b) asks you to use, develop and evaluate the information to write a discursive, argumentative or persuasive speech, letter, article or report of about 250–350 words.
• Section B — Composition (40 marks). A choice of four titles: two descriptive and two narrative. You write about 350–450 words, marked for writing skills only.

Marks split, Section A 1(b): 10 reading marks + 25 writing marks (plus the 5 reading marks from 1(a)). So the text is not decoration — it is a third of the section.

Form, audience, purpose

Before you write a word of Section A, answer three questions. Cambridge calls this audience, purpose and form.

• Form — speech, letter, article or report? Each has its own conventions and layout expectations.
• Audience — a head teacher, a council, readers of a magazine, an assembly of students? This fixes your register: how formal, how warm, how technical.
• Purpose — to discuss (weigh both sides), to argue (drive one case with reasons), or to persuade (drive one case with feeling as well as reasons)?

The most common self-inflicted wound: writing a good general essay when the question asked for a speech to your year group. Form and audience are worth marks (W4), and they cost you nothing but attention.

Reading the task properly

Using the text — not copying it

The reading marks in Section A come from what you do with the text. Cambridge asks you to use, develop and evaluate the ideas.

• Use — take a point from the text and put it into your own words.
• Develop — carry it one step further: what follows from it, who is affected, what would change.
• Evaluate — judge it: is it convincing, one-sided, exaggerated? Whose interests does it serve? Answering 1(a) well trains exactly this.

Structuring the argument

A 250–350 word response has room for about four to five paragraphs. Organise them deliberately — W2 rewards structure for effect.

• Open by establishing your voice and your position in one or two sentences.
• Build two or three developed points, each anchored in an idea from the text and pushed further.
• Concede and rebut — acknowledge the strongest objection, then answer it. This is what separates a real argument from a rant.
• Close with the point you most want remembered — a call to action for a speech, a firm recommendation for a report.

Discursive vs persuasive: a discursive piece genuinely weighs both sides before reaching a view. A persuasive piece has already decided and is bringing you with it. Check which the question asked for.

Which is the stronger topic sentence?

Section B — descriptive writing

Two of the four Section B titles are descriptive. A description is a picture, not a plot. Cambridge wants ideas and images that build a convincing, well-defined scene with varieties of focus.

• Vary the focus. Move deliberately: wide shot (the whole market), mid shot (one stall), close-up (a cracked thumbnail pressing a coin into a palm) — then back out again.
• Use more than sight. Sound, smell, texture and temperature are what make a place feel inhabited.
• Choose precise nouns and verbs before you reach for adjectives. The crowd surged beats the very big crowd moved quickly.
• Control the mood. Every image should pull in the same emotional direction — or change direction on purpose.

The trap: a description that turns into a story. If a robbery breaks out in paragraph three, you have written a narrative under a descriptive title — and the examiner cannot reward what was not asked for.

Section B — narrative writing

The other two titles are narrative. Cambridge asks for a plot that is well defined and developed, with description, characterisation and convincing details. You have about 350–450 words — that is one incident, not an epic.

• One crisis. A single moment of change, properly built and properly landed, beats five events sprinted through.
• Characterise through action. We learn who someone is from what they do when it costs them something.
• Shape the time. Slow down at the crisis; summarise the travel. Uniform pace is what makes a story feel flat.
• Earn the ending. Twists that cancel the story (it was all a dream) throw away everything you built.

Show, do not tell: instead of she was nervous, write she read the same line of the timetable four times. The reader does the feeling — which is the whole point of W1.

Description, narrative or directed writing?

Tap a feature, then tap the kind of writing it most belongs to.

Descriptive or narrative?

Persuasive move to its effect

Tap a persuasive technique on the left, then the effect it has on an audience.

Sentence variety, vocabulary and accuracy

Two of the five writing skills are about the texture of your sentences (W3) and about accuracy (W5). They are the easiest marks to lose and the easiest to protect.

• Vary sentence length on purpose. Several long, layered sentences, then a short one. The short one lands.
• Vary sentence openings. If four paragraphs in a row begin with I or The, rewrite one to start with a verb, an adverbial or a subordinate clause.
• Choose vocabulary precisely, not extravagantly. A thesaurus word used slightly wrongly does more damage than a plain word used exactly.
• Punctuate speech and clauses properly. Comma splices (two sentences joined by a comma) are one of the most common accuracy errors at GCSE.

Five-minute check: spend the last five minutes of each hour re-reading. Look for missing full stops, agreement slips (they was), and paragraphs that never got a break.

Fixing the comma splice

Five minutes that are worth ten marks

Both sections reward organisation for deliberate effect (W2). That is a planning mark, and it is won before you write.

• Section A plan (3 minutes): jot your position, then three points, each with the text idea it grows from and the objection you will concede. Number them in the order that builds best.
• Section B plan (3 minutes): for description, list five focal points and the order you will move through them. For narrative, write the crisis first, then decide where to start so you reach it by the middle.
• Decide the ending before you begin. Writers who discover their ending at the bottom of the page usually run out of both words and time.

Timing: roughly one hour per section — say 5 minutes planning, 45–50 writing, 5 checking. The two sections carry equal marks, so never let Section A eat Section B.

Where do the reading marks live?

The big ideas to know

You have now covered both halves of Paper 2 and the writing skills that carry the marks. Press Finish to see your score.