AQA GCSE English Language · Paper 2
Question 4: comparing perspectives
You compare the two writers’ ideas and attitudes on a shared subject, and how they convey them. It’s the biggest reading question on the paper. The focus is on their perspectives; the methods are how you prove them.
- Marks
- 16
- Minutes
- 20
- Tests
- AO3
What the question looks like
For this question, you need to refer to the whole of Source A, together with the whole of Source B.
Compare how the writers convey their different feelings and perspectives about school.
In your answer, you could: compare their different feelings and perspectives; comment on the methods the writers use to convey them; support your response with references to both texts.
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.
Practice Source B: a school inspector’s report, 19th centuryRead it
Written by LycoLearn for practice, in the style of the 1860s.
Sir, I have now inspected the National School at Hartley, and I am happy to report that the improvement since my last visit is remarkable. Upon my entrance the whole of the hundred and twelve children rose as one, and remained standing in perfect silence until directed otherwise. Not a boot scraped.
The master, a man of excellent character, assures me that he has not had occasion to use the cane above twice in the month. The children read their lessons clearly and repeat their tables without error.
It is true that they are pale, and that several of the younger ones appeared drowsy, for many are at work in the mill before they come to school; but idleness is the greater danger, and a child who has learned to sit still has learned the first lesson of life. I recommend that the grant be continued.
How to answer it
Sum up each writer in a line
What does each one feel, and where are they writing from? A worried parent. A satisfied official. That’s your whole answer in miniature.
Plan three pairs
One idea, with a detail and a method from each text. For example: how each one measures success.
Compare in every paragraph
One paragraph, both writers: their different views, then the method each uses, joined with “whereas” or “in contrast”.
Comment on methods as evidence
Tone, anecdote, metaphor, sentence forms and how each text ends. Choose the ones that show the feeling best.
Use their situations
Writing in the 1860s for a government office isn’t the same as writing a newspaper column as a parent. Use that to explain the difference, in a phrase or two.
How it’s marked
- Level 413 to 16 marks
- A perceptive, detailed comparison. You really understand their ideas and perspectives, and analyse how their methods convey them, with well-chosen evidence from both.
- Level 39 to 12 marks
- A clear comparison of ideas and perspectives, with clear explanation of methods and relevant evidence from both.
- Level 25 to 8 marks
- An attempt to compare, with some comment on methods and some evidence from one or both.
- Level 11 to 4 marks
- Simple links between the texts, with little on methods.
In our own words. Your teacher can show you AQA’s full mark scheme.
If you write about only one source you can’t get beyond a low mark, because you haven’t compared.
A model answer
The answer
Why it scores
Both writers are judging how well schools treat children, but they come to opposite conclusions because they’re looking for different things. The inspector in Source B is an official measuring order, and he’s satisfied. The writer of Source A is a parent looking at one child, and is full of doubt.
A short overview that sets up the comparison and explains why the views differ. Sets a clear perspective for each writer.
Their tones show this straight away. Source B is confident and formal: he’s ‘happy to report’ that the improvement is ‘remarkable’, and his complete, balanced sentences suggest that nothing could disturb his view. By contrast, Source A has a weary, personal tone. It opens with an anecdote about a bag that ‘weighs more than our dog’, a joke that comes with some sadness, and later asks ‘On track for what?’. That rhetorical question shows no confidence in the system at all, whereas the inspector hasn’t a single question to ask.
Compares in one paragraph. Each method (formal tone, anecdote, rhetorical question) proves a feeling. “Whereas” is used to compare the ideas, not just to join two sentences.
They also see children very differently. To the inspector, they’re a group: ‘the whole of the hundred and twelve children’, valued for having learned ‘to sit still’. To the writer of Source A, this child is an individual, and we get the specific, loving detail that she spent ‘whole Sundays making maps of countries that didn’t exist’. The first writer’s numbers make the children seem like a result; the second writer’s detail makes a person’s loss seem real. Living in the 1860s, when many poor children worked, he may honestly see school as a rescue from idleness, while the parent writes in a time when being measured has become the problem.
A second comparison that’s about people, not features. Context is short and explains the difference, which is how it should be used.
The way each text ends sums this up. The inspector closes with a calm instruction, ‘I recommend that the grant be continued’, as if all were settled. Source A closes on a loss, with the maps stopping ‘because maps were not on the timetable’, and the plain statement is bitter. One writer ends with money continuing, and the other with something being taken away.
Comparing endings is a structural comment, and it adds range. The last sentence is a neat, memorable final comparison.
What a weaker answer looks like
Source A uses a rhetorical question ‘On track for what?’. Source B uses formal language ‘remarkable’. They are both about school. Source A is more modern.
Why it stays low: It lists a method from each without saying what either writer feels or why. That’s Level 1 to 2.
How to lift it: Lead with feelings: “The parent doubts the whole system, whereas the inspector is entirely satisfied”, and then use the methods to prove it.
Exam tips
- Comparing words for differences: whereas, by contrast, however, unlike. For similarities: both, similarly, likewise.
- Three well-developed comparisons in 20 minutes will reach the top. You don’t need everything in the texts.
What loses marks
- Writing all about Source A, then all about Source B, with “similarly” at the end.
- Listing methods without saying what feeling they convey.
- Long paragraphs on the 19th century. Context is a phrase or two, not a history essay.
Now try it
Questions people ask
- How many paragraphs for AQA Paper 2 Question 4?
- A short overview and three comparing paragraphs is a good target for about 20 minutes.
- Do I need context for AQA Paper 2 Question 4?
- Only a little. Use when each text was written to explain why the perspectives differ, in a sentence or two at most.