Paper 2 Section A: Modern Text Technique

Paper 2 Section A is the Modern Texts question. It is worth 34 marks (30 for the response plus 4 for SPaG) — the same total as the Shakespeare question, and the second and final place in the entire exam where SPaG marks are awarded. But one feature makes this question genuinely different from every other question on both papers: there is no extract. You must write the entire essay from memory. This lesson explains how to handle the no-extract challenge, how to pick between the two questions you will be offered, how to integrate modern-text context (which differs from Victorian and Jacobean context), and how to secure those 4 SPaG marks.

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The Question at a Glance

Key facts

Feature	Detail
Paper / Section	Paper 2, Section A
Marks	30 marks for response + 4 marks for SPaG = 34 marks total
Number of questions	TWO questions on your text — you choose ONE
Extract	NONE — you write entirely from memory
Assessment Objectives	AO1, AO2, AO3, AO4 (SPaG)
Closed book	Yes
Suggested time	Approximately 45 minutes (of Paper 2's 135 minutes)

What the questions will look like

For plays (An Inspector Calls, Blood Brothers, DNA, A Taste of Honey, The History Boys):

How does [Playwright] use [character] to explore ideas about [theme] in [title]?

OR

How does [Playwright] present [theme] in [title]?

For novels (Lord of the Flies, Animal Farm, Never Let Me Go, Pigeon English):

How does [Author] present [theme/character] in [title]?

OR (sometimes focused on a character):

How does [Author] use [character] to explore ideas about [theme]?

The no-extract challenge

This is the defining feature of Paper 2 Section A. You have:

• No printed text to analyse
• No quotations given to you
• No specific moment to start from

You are working entirely from memory. This means quotation learning is more important for your modern text than for any other text in the specification.

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Quotation Learning for Modern Texts

How many quotations do you need?

For Paper 1 (Shakespeare and 19th-century novel), you can lean on the printed extract. For Paper 2 Section A, you cannot. The numbers reflect this:

Text type	Recommended quotation bank
Shakespeare play	15–20
19th-century novel	15–20
Modern text	20–25
Anthology poem (each)	3–5

Organising your modern text quotation bank

The best structure is by theme and by character — not by scene order.

Theme / Character	Example quotation clusters (An Inspector Calls)
Responsibility	"We are members of one body", "fire and blood and anguish" (Inspector); "public men...have responsibilities as well as privileges"
Class	"hard-headed, practical man of business" (Birling); "We don't live alone" (Inspector)
Gender	"Girls of that class..." (Mrs Birling); "you and I aren't the same people who sat down to dinner here" (Sheila)
Mr Birling	"hard-headed", "the titanic...unsinkable", "a man has to mind his own business"
Sheila Birling	"pretty", "half serious, half playful", "these girls aren't cheap labour — they're people"

Choosing the right length

• 2–6 words is the sweet spot — embeddable, analysable, memorable
• Short phrases ("unsinkable", "cheap labour", "we are members of one body") are easier to remember under pressure
• A single word can be a quotation ("Priestley's choice of the adjective 'hard-headed' to describe Birling...")

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Picking Between the Two Questions

Unlike Paper 1 (no choice), Paper 2 Section A gives you a choice between two questions on your text. The choice matters.

How to choose (2 minutes)

1. Read both questions carefully. Underline the keywords.
2. For each question, brainstorm 3 potential paragraph points.
3. For each point, check: "Do I have a quotation I can use?"
4. Choose the question with the strongest quotation coverage.

flowchart TD
    A[Read both questions] --> B[Underline keywords]
    B --> C[Q1: Brainstorm 3 points]
    B --> D[Q2: Brainstorm 3 points]
    C --> E[Q1: Check quotation coverage]
    D --> F[Q2: Check quotation coverage]
    E --> G{"Which has stronger<br/>quotation support?"}
    F --> G
    G --> H[Commit to that question]
    H --> I[Plan thesis and paragraphs]

Common mistake: choosing the "easier-looking" question

Students often pick the question that sounds more familiar, only to find that when they try to write, they do not have the quotations. Always check quotation coverage before committing.

Common mistake: switching midway

Some students write a paragraph, realise they have run out of material, and switch to the other question. This almost always produces a rushed, incoherent essay. Commit after planning, and stick with your choice.

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The Three Assessment Objectives (Response, 30 marks)

AO1: Read, understand, respond, use textual references (~12 marks)

Same as Paper 1: clear response, quotation/paraphrase support, analytical style.

AO2: Analyse language, form, and structure (~12 marks)

Modern texts require a slightly different AO2 toolkit:

Area	For plays	For novels
Language	Dialogue, register, dialect, stage directions	Narrative voice, dialogue, imagery
Form	Three-act structure, well-made play, allegorical structure, dystopian satire	Dystopia, allegory, first-person narrative, magical realism
Structure	Scene placement, dramatic irony, curtain lines, stagecraft	Chapter structure, narrative pacing, perspective shifts

AO3: Show understanding of context (~6 marks)

Modern-text context is quite different from Shakespeare or Victorian context. More on this in the next section.

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Modern Text Context: Beyond Dates and Facts

Context for modern texts is often politically and culturally specific. A strong AO3 response connects the text to the ideas and events that shaped it.

Context by text

An Inspector Calls (Priestley, 1945, set 1912)

• Priestley was a committed socialist — the play is a socialist critique of Edwardian capitalism
• Written at the end of WWII (1945) and performed first in the USSR before London
• The 1912 setting lets Priestley point at dramatic irony: the audience knows about the Titanic, WWI, WWII, Spanish flu
• The Inspector's final speech ("fire and blood and anguish") is a direct reference to the wars

Lord of the Flies (Golding, 1954)

• Golding served in the Royal Navy during WWII and witnessed the Holocaust's aftermath
• The novel is a direct response to the optimistic boys' adventure genre (especially R.M. Ballantyne's The Coral Island, 1857)
• Post-war pessimism: Golding believed civilisation was a thin veneer over human savagery
• Nuclear anxiety: the novel's framing war is an atomic conflict

Animal Farm (Orwell, 1945)

• Orwell was a democratic socialist who turned against Stalinism
• The novel is an allegory of the Russian Revolution: Old Major = Marx/Lenin; Napoleon = Stalin; Snowball = Trotsky; Boxer = the working class
• Written at the peak of wartime alliance with the USSR — several publishers refused it
• Published just as the Cold War was beginning

Journey's End (Sherriff, 1928) — used in some schools

• Sherriff was a WWI officer in the trenches
• The play is based on his direct experience
• Written in 1928 when disillusionment with the war was crystallising

A Taste of Honey (Delaney, 1958)

• Delaney was 19 when she wrote it
• Part of the "kitchen sink" realism movement — working-class, northern, authentic
• Radical for its treatment of interracial relationships, teenage pregnancy, and homosexuality in 1958
• Shaped by post-war working-class experience in Salford

Blood Brothers (Russell, 1983)

• Written under Thatcher's government
• Critiques class mobility, Thatcherite individualism, and working-class poverty
• Mrs Johnstone's economic struggles directly reflect 1980s Liverpool unemployment

The rule for AO3 on modern texts

Context should explain why the writer made these choices at that historical moment. The writer is responding to their world — make that response visible in your analysis.

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The 4 SPaG Marks Here

SPaG is assessed on this question and Paper 1 Section A only. The mark scheme is the same.

The SPaG mark scheme (reminder)