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This lesson pulls everything in the course together. You will work through a full worked example: two linked invented texts on a shared theme, with model answers to every kind of Paper 2 reading question and commentary on how each answer earns its marks. By the end, you should be able to run the same process on any pair of texts you are given on exam day.
This lesson consolidates AO1, AO2, AO3 and AO4 across both a 19th-century and a 20th/21st-century non-fiction text.
Both texts are invented for teaching purposes. The shared theme is the experience of travel, specifically the experience of arriving in a foreign city.
From a letter published in The Morning Recorder, written by James Hartley, a British clerk travelling through North Africa on business. The letter is invented; Hartley is a fictional author. Approximately 280 words.
Sir, — Having now been in Algiers for the better part of a fortnight, and having received, in that time, a sufficient quantity of impressions to warrant a first report, I venture to share with your readers such observations as may be of general interest. The town is, to an English eye, at once more handsome and more confusing than our coastal cities at home: its streets climb from the harbour in tiers of pale stone, set at angles which admit, at every turning, a view of the sea; and the colour of the light, even at nine of the morning, possesses a clarity which renders every surface unusually distinct. In these respects the eye is well served.
The senses are, however, less equally provided for. The air is thick with a great many sounds which English reserve would never permit — calls between neighbours across courtyards; the cries of sellers at the waterfront; the clattering progress of a great many small carts over cobbled ways; and, most insistently, a music issuing from windows above and around one, whose rhythm I confess I am not yet equal to. I have been told that I shall, in time, grow accustomed to it; I have not, as yet, done so.
The town possesses, I am assured, a great many private virtues. I have not, however, been long enough a guest to see beyond its public face. What I can report, at the end of a fortnight, is that I have received the hospitality of my hosts without exception, and the habits of the town without any settled opinion of my own. Yours faithfully, James Hartley.
Footnote: James Hartley is an invented author, writing in a 19th-century style for teaching purposes.
From an opinion column by Priya Malhotra, a British travel writer, published in a Sunday magazine. The column is invented; Malhotra is a fictional author. Approximately 300 words.
I have been in Algiers for eleven days and I am beginning to understand why every travel writer I have read about this city has apologised for what they wrote. It is not that Algiers is difficult to describe. It is that whatever you say about it turns out, a week later, to be embarrassingly incomplete.
Take the noise. On day one I was overwhelmed — the shouts across alleyways, the horns, the calls to prayer stacking on top of each other at sunset. I wrote home that the city was, frankly, exhausting. By day five I had started to hear the layers: the arguments that were not arguments but the city's way of agreeing loudly; the horns that were not aggressive but commentary; the calls to prayer that did not stack on top of each other but, I eventually noticed, occurred in a traceable local sequence, because of course they did. My first paragraph turned out to be about me, not about Algiers.
The honest thing, at day eleven, is to admit that I am still a beginner here. The local woman in my building has explained to me, three times and with increasing patience, the difference between a taxi and a shared taxi. I still, reliably, flag down the wrong one. I tip the right person, usually by accident. I have stopped trying to summarise.
I think this is what good travel writing used to know: that a city is not a thing a visitor can describe. It is a thing that describes the visitor to themselves. By day eleven, I have learned a few words of Arabic and almost nothing useful about Algiers. But I have learned a great deal about the limits of my own ear.
Footnote: Priya Malhotra is an invented author, writing in a modern style for teaching purposes.
Before any question, spend five minutes on each text. A strong candidate's first-pass notes might look like this:
Text A (Hartley, 1867):
Text B (Malhotra, 2023):
The shared theme: arrival in a foreign city, and the limits of a visitor's ability to describe it.
The key difference in perspective: Hartley positions himself as a reporter — carefully limiting his claims but still writing about Algiers. Malhotra positions herself as a student of her own limits — writing about her inability to write about Algiers.
From Text A, paragraph 1, give one thing Hartley tells us about the streets of Algiers.
Model answer:
The streets of Algiers climb from the harbour in tiers of pale stone.
Why it scores: specific, retrievable from paragraph 1, one clear fact.
From Text B, paragraph 2, give two things we learn about how Priya Malhotra's perception of Algiers changed over the first five days.
Model answer:
- On day one she was overwhelmed by the noise and wrote home saying the city was exhausting.
- By day five she had started to hear the noise as layers — arguments that were actually agreements, horns that were commentary, and calls to prayer in a traceable local sequence.
Why it scores: two distinct, traceable changes; each anchored to specific detail.
Using both texts, summarise what the writers tell us about arriving in Algiers as a visitor.
Model answer:
Both writers arrive in Algiers as British visitors and spend their first weeks trying to make sense of a city they find overwhelming at first. James Hartley, writing in 1867, reports that Algiers looks visually impressive — its streets climb from the harbour in tiers of pale stone with clear morning light — but that its sensory environment is harder to manage, with constant calls, cart noise and music he cannot yet tune into. He says he has been well received by his hosts but has not yet formed a settled opinion of the town.
Priya Malhotra, writing in 2023, similarly records an overwhelming first impression, particularly of the noise: she was initially exhausted by shouts, horns and overlapping calls to prayer. By day five she had started to hear these as patterns rather than chaos. Like Hartley, she stays humble about her understanding: she admits she still cannot reliably identify a shared taxi, and she has stopped trying to summarise the city. Both writers present arrival as a prolonged process of adjustment in which the visitor's own perception, rather than the city itself, is the main difficulty.
Why it scores: both texts covered; information attributed; neutral connectives (similarly, like Hartley, both writers); no comparative contrast; ends with a synthesis observation that stays aggregative.
How does Priya Malhotra use language in Text B to convey her changing understanding of Algiers?
Model answer:
Malhotra uses a tightly controlled register shift to stage her changed understanding. The opening sentence's hedged phrasing — "I am beginning to understand why every travel writer I have read about this city has apologised" — positions her from the first line as someone catching up with other writers' humility rather than announcing her own authority. This is ethos through confession: she earns the reader's trust by showing that she is not yet sure of what she is saying.
Her method then relies on parallel reconstruction of her own first reading. In paragraph 2 she quotes her own earlier judgement ("the city was, frankly, exhausting") and dismantles it in three parallel sentences, each using "that were not X but Y" to re-read what she had first heard as noise. The tricolon of reinterpretations — "arguments that were not arguments", "horns that were not aggressive", "calls to prayer that did not stack" — creates a rhythm of incremental correction, so that by the third item the reader has been taught to expect that her first impressions are wrong.
The language then tightens toward a conceptual close. The short declarative sentences — "I have stopped trying to summarise", "I have learned a few words of Arabic and almost nothing useful about Algiers" — deflate the expected rhetoric of the travel-writing form. The effect is an authorial voice that has moved, across the column, from the conventional confidence of a travel piece to a deliberate self-diminishment, and the diminishment is itself the writer's central insight.
Why it scores: specific devices (register shift, quoted self, tricolon, short declaratives); short precise quotations; each device linked to reader effect; conceptual close (the diminishment is itself the central insight).
How does James Hartley structure Text A to build the argument of his report?
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