AQA GCSE English Language · Paper 2
Question 1: true statements
You’re given a list of eight statements about part of Source A and you shade the four that are true. It’s 4 marks, and careful reading gets all of them.
- Marks
- 4
- Minutes
- 5
- Tests
- AO1
What the question looks like
Read again the first paragraph of Source A. Choose four statements below which are true. Shade the circles of the ones you think are true. Choose a maximum of four.
A: The writer’s daughter leaves the house after nine o’clock. B: The daughter’s bag is very heavy. C: The bag holds seven textbooks. D: The daughter is sixteen. E: The timetable is in several colours. F: The writer asked the daughter a question last year. G: The daughter answered straight away. H: The daughter was looking forward to half-term.
Practice Source A: a newspaper column, 21st centuryRead it
Written by LycoLearn for practice.
Every morning at ten past eight, my daughter leaves the house carrying a bag that weighs more than our dog. In it are seven textbooks, three revision guides and a timetable in four colours. She is fifteen. I asked her last week what she was looking forward to, and she thought about it for a long time and said, “Half-term.”
I don’t blame her teachers. They are some of the kindest and most tired people I have ever met. But somewhere along the way, we decided that a childhood could be measured in grades, like flour on a set of scales. We weigh our children constantly. Mock results, target grades, predicted grades, a little coloured arrow on an app to tell me whether she is “on track”. On track for what? Nobody has ever been able to tell me.
She used to draw. She used to spend whole Sundays making maps of countries that didn’t exist. The maps stopped in Year 9, because maps were not on the timetable.
How to answer it
Box the lines
Only the named lines count.
Prove each statement
Go through the statements one at a time. Mark each one true or false, with your finger on the words that prove it.
Watch for one wrong word
False statements are often almost right: a number, “never” in place of “sometimes”, or a detail that belongs to somebody else.
Shade exactly four
Four at most: shading more can cost you marks. If you change your mind, cross out the whole box. To bring a crossed-out answer back, draw a circle around the box.
Worked answers
The answer
Why it scores
B is true.
“weighs more than our dog” tells us the bag is heavy, even though the word itself isn’t used.
C is true.
“seven textbooks”.
E is true.
“a timetable in four colours”.
H is true.
She says “Half-term” when she’s asked what she’s looking forward to.
A, D, F and G are false.
She leaves at “ten past eight”, she’s “fifteen”, the question was “last week”, and she thought “for a long time” before she answered. Each statement is wrong by only a detail or two: that’s how the traps work.
Exam tips
- Spend 5 minutes at most.
- Tick the statements you’re sure of first, then think about the rest.
What loses marks
- Shading more than four: the question says a maximum of four.
- Using lines outside those named.
- Choosing a statement because it sounds reasonable, not because the text says so.
Now try it
Questions people ask
- How many statements do I choose in AQA Paper 2 Question 1?
- Four out of the list of eight. Each right one is worth 1 mark. Don’t shade more than four.