literature in english paper 1

Prose - IGCSE Literature in English 0475

Topic outline.

• Resource Plus Prose 

Important notice

Resource Plus is a supplementary support for the Cambridge IGCSE / IGCSE (9-1) Literature in English course and is not intended as an exhaustive guide to the teaching and assessment of the subject. We encourage teachers to try out different approaches to suit different learning styles and encourage candidates’ to explore their own writing styles and personal responses to the texts that they study.

Videos: Assessment objectives

Teaching packs.

• Set Text animation
• Language, structure and form
• Unseen Prose - Using quotations
• Unseen Prose - Tone and voice
• Unseen Prose - Writer's techniques
• Great Expectations
• Picnic at Hanging Rock
• Purple Hibiscus
• The Namesake
• The War of the Worlds
• To Kill a Mockingbird
• Fire on the Mountain
• Things Fall Apart
• Show detailed knowledge of the content of literary texts in the three main forms (drama, poetry and prose), supported by reference to the text.

• When you use selected quotations, and develop explanations of meaning, significance and context in your paragraphs then you are addressing AO1 and AO2
• When you use these same quotations to analyse the range of effects created by the writer’s use of language and structure devices, then you are meeting AO3
• AO4 relates to the entirety of a candidate’s response, but it can be explicitly addressed and reinforced in a well-developed conclusion.
• In poetry you have a wide range of structural devices to draw upon which are absent in Prose
• In drama you can consider and discuss the use of stagecraft in your responses
• In Prose, the narrative style is an important element that can be different from techniques used in Drama and Poetry texts
• Understand the meanings of literary texts and their contexts, and explore texts beyond surface meanings to show deeper awareness of ideas and attitudes.

• Recognise and appreciate ways in which writers use language, structure and form to create and shape meanings and effects.

• Communicate a sensitive and informed personal response to literary texts.

We have selected a few of the Set Texts as an example of a type of activity teachers may use to engage their learners when introducing a Set Text. The content of these videos will need to be expanded on to cover what candidates are expected to know and be able to comment on in an examination.

• Chapters 1-6
• Chapters 7-11
• Chapters 12-15
• Chapters 16-18
• Chapters 19-27

• Introduction

IB English Paper 1 Explained

Ace your IB English Paper 1 exam with the #1 IB English Resource for 2022 as Voted by IB Students & Teachers

IB English Paper 1 is one of those nerve-wracking experiences that everyone has to endure. It's especially scary because you have no idea what you'll end up writing for your final exam–and your grades depend on it!

The best preparation you can do is be acutely aware of the exam structure and proven strategies that have worked for past IB7 graduates.

If you want to fully wrap your head around the IB English Paper 1 guided analysis, then this quick guide is for you.

Meet your instructor Jackson Huang, Founder of LitLearn. His mission is to make IB English as pain-free as possible with fun, practical lessons. Jackson scored an IB45 and was accepted to Harvard, Amherst, Williams Colleges, and full scholarships to University of Melbourne & Queensland.

What is a Paper 1 exam?

In a Paper 1 exam, you are given two mysterious, unseen texts . Each text is between 1-2 pages in length.

For SL students, you're in luck! Your task is to write a guided analysis on just one of the two texts. Total marks: 20. You have 1 hour and 15 minutes.

For HL students, you're in less luck… Your task is to write two guided analysis essays–one on each of the texts. Total marks: 40. You have 2 hours and 15 minutes.

The mystery text types you'll get for Paper 1 depend on whether you're in IB English Language & Literature or IB English Literature.

For IB English Literature , Paper 1 text types belong to four neat categories (hooray!):

• Fictional prose (e.g. short stories, extracts from novels)
• Non-fiction prose (e.g. scientific articles, extracts)
• Dramatic plays

For IB English Language and Literature , your text types could be… really… anything. Be prepared to be surprised. Typically, at least one of the text types will include some visual element like an image, photo, or cartoon. Here's the (non-exhaustive) list of Lang Lit text types:

• Magazines, blogs, articles and editorials
• Speeches, interview scripts, radio transcripts
• Instruction manuals, brochures
• Comic strips, political cartoons
• … and the list goes on…

What do I write in a guided analysis?

For each Paper 1 text, the IB English Gods pose a short, open-ended question.

This question is called the guiding question , and your essay must focus on answering this guiding question using analysis (we'll explain “analysis” in a second).

Examples of guiding questions:

• How does the writer characterize the protagonist's state of mind?
• How and to what effect do textual and visual elements shape meaning?
• How is narrative perspective used to create meaning and effect?

Even though you're technically allowed to choose your own focus and ignore the default guiding question, it's highly recommended that you go along with what's given… unless you really don't know how to answer it, or you're super confident in your Paper 1 skills.

Now, what are we supposed to do with the guiding question?

Guiding questions always ask you to explain how and why certain language or visual choices are used to build one or more central ideas .

And so the vague instruction "Answer the guiding question" actually translates to something very specific:

Explain  how and why the writer uses specific language to build their central idea(s).

This sentence pretty much sums up not just IB English Paper 1, but the gist of analysis and IB English overall.

Writing Deep, Insightful Analysis

If you want to get a high score on Paper 1 (and every IB English assessment in general), you must know how to write deep, insightful analysis.

After helping numerous IB English students at LitLearn, we've found that weak analysis is the #1 reason students struggle in IB English.

Biggest Mistake

The main mistake you're likely making is that your analysis doesn't dig deep enough .

Students make the mistake of only touching the surface-level meaning of the texts. For example, common mistakes include:

• only recounting the plot
• mentioning techniques and ideas without digging into the how and why
• not identifying the most relevant techniques for analysis.

The diagram below shows the difference between surface-level meaning, deep analysis, and deeper analysis.

If you're unsure about how to write strong analysis for IB English, or you're not confident in what to look for in your texts, then you should watch this free 7-minute video lesson from Learn Analysis: Analysis Foundations.

Learn Analysis

No sign up or credit card required.

Essential Techniques you need to know

So how do we write strong analysis that scores highly on Criterion B?

First things first, we need to know how to analyze the major literary and visual techniques (visual for Lang Lit), so that we can quickly find and analyze them under exam stress.

If you're cramming for Paper 1, here are the 7 most important techniques and concepts that you should know for IB English Paper 1. They apply to all text types in Lang Lit as well as Literature:

• Tone, atmosphere and mood
• Diction and voice
• Metaphor, simile, and personification
• The 4 main types of imagery
• The 3 types of irony
• Juxtaposition and contrast
• Grammatical and structural techniques

There's a bunch more, but these 7 categories make a great starting point. The first step is to learn their names and definitions, and flashcards are an excellent way to do this.

Of course, memorizing isn't enough. We also need to know the common effects and purposes behind each of these core techniques, so that we can build a mental library of the most common ways to deeply analyze each technique. If you don't study each technique in detail, it's much harder to invent deep analysis on-the-spot during an exam.

We go deep into each of the techniques in Learn Analysis . Here are just a couple of them to get you started.

Level 1 Techniques

Your One Mission in Paper 1

Let's quickly recap what you need to do in a Paper 1.

• You need to discuss the characters, themes and plot of a chosen  literary text, OR the visual and stylistic elements (diagrams, headings, titles, images) for a non-literary text.
• You then need to explain how and why these aspects were achieved by the writer or artist.

These two points are helpful as a basis for understanding, but they won't help you get concrete words onto the exam page. What we need now is a practical guide to writing an actual essay:

• Deciding on a good  thesis
• Choosing the right  points
• Choosing the right structure

A Practical Guide to Writing a Paper 1 essay

An IB English Paper 1 essay boils down to 3 separate parts:

• An introduction paragraph : contains a thesis and an outline of your points
• A body (usually 3 paragraphs) : contains your points
• A conclusion : wraps up the essay

Choosing a thesis

The thesis or subject statement is a single sentence in the introduction of the guided analysis that states how the writer achieves their overall purpose.

This is also the main argument that you are trying to prove in your essay, and it's typically related to the guiding question . The examiner can usually judge the strength of your analytical skills JUST from your subject statement alone, so it needs to be well-written!

Choosing the right essay structure for IB English Paper 1

Every text works best with a specific paragraph structure. Finding this match isn't always easy, but it's also one of the most important things to get right in your Paper 1 guided analysis.

You can organise your essay by:

• ideas or themes
• sections (sequential, e.g. stanza by stanza for poems)
• the ‘Big 5'
• and probably a whole host of other acronyms that English teachers love to invent.

Criterion C for IB English Paper 1 is Organisation . It's worth a whole 5/20 marks, so it's definitely in your best interest to choose the most appropriate structure for your essay.

Pro Tip: I recommend students to stay away from the Big 5 . Sure, it's useful as a memory device to tell you what elements to look for in a text, but it's not a good essay structure for analysis.

Why? Because analysis is about examining the causal interplay between techniques, stylistic choices, audience, tone, and themes. The Big 5 and SPECSLIMS artificially silo these components in your discussion.  Heed my advice or pay the price! (notice that rhyme?)

So in my opinion, there are only two types of structure that are most  conducive (yep, another new vocab, omnomnom) to getting a 7. Ideas/themes  and Sections . Take this as a hot tip and run with it. If your teacher is forcing you to use other structures, then you'll need to know why this is recommended.

We go into much more depth and explain it all inside Learn Analysis.

Pro members only

Writing body paragraphs: Why and How

Once you've chosen the best structure for your essay and decided on a strong thesis as your central argument, the rest of the essay needs to revolve around proving  this argument.

How do you prove this subject statement? You do it by looking at individual points. These smaller points support smaller, more specific aspects of the overall thesis.

The idea is that each body paragraph, or point, aims to prove a separate, smaller aspect of the bigger thesis. It's like a jigsaw puzzle : You must piece together smaller, more manageable pieces to build the bigger argument (i.e. the thesis).

In reality, this translates into writing 2, 3 or 4 points, each of which fits snuggly it its own paragraph or multiple paragraphs (depending on the complexity of the point).

In each point, you must include:

• Quotes, references to images, titles, headings, or visual elements. This is the evidence.
• Analysis of language and literary techniques.  Use specific quotes from the text and explain how and why they are used by the writer to shape his/her message.

Obviously, this is a quick summary of how to write a high-quality body paragraph. We dive deeper into the specific details of how to structure a body paragraph in the guided analysis.

Planning ahead

Ironically, the most important part of IB English Paper 1 is not the analysis itself (well it is, but not really). The part you have to get right the first time is the plan. Most students do not know how to plan effectively, or get flustered in the exam and don't plan, or don't even try to plan because they think they're above it. Big mistake!

Before you even begin writing, you should plan out your essay in sufficient detail. You will lose track of time, thought and sanity if you do not have a clear road map of every part of your essay before you begin writing.

You can learn how to annotate and plan quickly & efficiently using the flowchart method, which we demonstrate inside Learn Analysis and Paper 1 .

In the Pro lesson below, we go into detail on exactly how to plan a Paper 1 essay effectively and efficiently under exam conditions.

How do I practice for Paper 1?

Most students think that doing a lot of practice papers is the best way to improve in Paper 1. However, there's a much more efficient, targeted method to study for Paper 1.

We work our way up from the smallest, most manageable chunks of analysis to the full Paper 1 exam. It's a good idea to reserve real IB English past papers for 2 months before your final exam so that you don't run out of past papers--they are the best preparation for the final exam. Also, if your analysis skills aren't already strong, doing real past papers is a waste of an excellent exam prep resource.

Questionbank

Quote analysis exercises with exemplar IB7 solutions

Short guided analysis exercises with exemplar IB7 solutions

1 hour practice exams with detailed markschemes or video solutions

IB past paper solutions: Exemplar essay plans and full essay responses

Question​bank

Paper 1 Practice Exams

Past Paper 1 Solutions

Paper 2 Guide

From Struggling to Succeeding in IB English

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We are aware of some issues with pdfs on the website after last night's update. Some should now be fixed and others will be later today.

AQA Paper 1 (8702)

Nathan M. ★ 5.0 (2)

University of york - ma philosophy.

Philosophy Master's Graduate from York with a passion for language, learning, and everything academic!

You can find all AQA English Literature GCSE (8702) Paper 1 past papers and mark schemes below:

Question Papers

• June 2017 QP
• June 2018 QP
• June 2019 QP
• June 2020 QP
• June 2021 QP - 1M
• June 2021 QP - 1N
• June 2021 QP - 1P
• June 2022 QP - 1M
• June 2022 QP - 1N
• June 2022 QP - 1P
• Specimen (2022) QP - 1M
• Specimen (2022) QP - 1N
• Specimen (2022) QP - 1P
• Specimen QP

Mark Schemes

• June 2017 MS
• June 2018 MS
• June 2019 MS
• June 2020 MS
• June 2021 MS - 1M
• June 2021 MS - 1N
• June 2021 MS - 1P
• June 2022 MS - 1M
• June 2022 MS - 1N
• June 2022 MS - 1P
• Specimen (2022) MS - 1M
• Specimen (2022) MS - 1N
• Specimen (2022) MS - 1P
• Specimen MS

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GCSE English Literature

• Specification
• Planning resources
• Teaching resources
• Assessment resources
• Introduction

Specification at a glance

• 3.1 Shakespeare and the 19th-century novel
• 3.2 Modern texts and poetry
• Scheme of assessment
• General administration

Assessments

All assessments are closed book: any stimulus materials required will be provided as part of the assessment.

All assessments are compulsory.

May 2023 Papers for CAIE Qualifications Available Now! Read More.

Cambridge O levels

Cambridge IGCSE

Cambridge Int'l AS & A Levels

📌 Update(s): 13/08/2023 NEW! AS/A Level latest papers added!

If any paper is still missing, please report using the Contact Us! tab.

• Other Resources
• Specimen Papers

Common Search Terms:

Resource Guide for File Naming System.

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AQA GCSE English Literature Past Papers

This section includes recent GCSE (9-1) English Literature (8702) past papers from AQA. You can download each of the AQA GCSE English Literature past papers and marking schemes by clicking the links below.

June 2022 AQA GCSE (9-1) English Literature (8702) Past Exam Papers

June 2022: Paper 1M: Modern Prose/ Drama (8702/1M) Download Past Paper     -     Download Mark Scheme

June 2022: Paper 1N: 19th century novel (8702/1N) Download Past Paper     -     Download Mark Scheme

June 2022: Paper 1P: Poetry anthology (8702/1P) Download Past Paper     -     Download Mark Scheme

June 2022: Paper 2: Shakespeare and unseen Poetry (8702/2) Download Past Paper     -     Download Mark Scheme

November 2021 AQA GCSE (9-1) English Literature (8702) Past Exam Papers (Labelled as June 2021)

November 2021: Paper 1M: Modern Prose/ Drama (8702/1M) Download Past Paper     -     Download Mark Scheme

November 2021: Paper 1N: 19th century novel (8702/1N) Download Past Paper     -     Download Mark Scheme

November 2021: Paper 1P: Poetry anthology (8702/1P) Download Past Paper     -     Download Mark Scheme

November 2021: Paper 2: Shakespeare and unseen Poetry (8702/2) Download Past Paper     -     Download Mark Scheme

November 2020 AQA GCSE (9-1) English Literature (8702) Past Exam Papers (Labelled as June 2020)

November 2020: Paper 1: Shakespeare and the 19th Century Novel (8702/1) Download Past Paper     -     Download Mark Scheme

November 2020: Paper 2: Modern Texts and Poetry (8702/2) Download Past Paper     -     Download Mark Scheme

June 2019 AQA GCSE (9-1) English Literature (8702) Past Exam Papers

June 2019: Paper 1: Shakespeare and the 19th Century Novel (8702/1) Download Past Paper     -     Download Mark Scheme

June 2019: Paper 2: Modern Texts and Poetry (8702/2) Download Past Paper     -     Download Mark Scheme

June 2018 AQA GCSE (9-1) English Literature (8702) Past Exam Papers

June 2018: Paper 1: Shakespeare and the 19th Century Novel (8702/1) Download Past Paper     -     Download Mark Scheme

June 2018: Paper 2: Modern Texts and Poetry (8702/2) Download Past Paper     -     Download Mark Scheme

June 2017 AQA GCSE (9-1) English Literature (8702) Past Exam Papers

June 2017: Paper 1: Shakespeare and the 19th Century Novel (8702/1) Download Past Paper     -     Download Mark Scheme

June 2017: Paper 2: Modern Texts and Poetry (8702/2) Download Past Paper    -     Download Mark Scheme

Specimen Papers

Specimen Paper 1: 8702/1 Shakespeare and the 19 th Century novel Download Paper    -    Download Mark Scheme

Specimen Paper 2: 8702/2 Modern Texts and Poetry Download Paper    -    Download Mark Scheme  

For more GCSE English Literature past papers from other exam boards  click here .

Literatures in English

We need YOUR help

Past papers are very hard to find.

So if you have access to any past papers that are missing from this website, such as CSEC 2019 - 2024 and CAPE 2022 - 2024 , please email them to [email protected] .

By doing so, you will be helping out tens of thousands of students, just like you, from around the Caribbbean region.

Unit 1 Past Papers

• CAPE Literatures in English 2022 U1 P2.pdf
• CAPE Literatures in English 2021 U1 P2.pdf
• CAPE Literatures in English 2019 U1 P2.pdf
• CAPE Literatures in English 2018 U1 P2.pdf
• CAPE Literatures in English 2017 U1 P2.pdf
• CAPE Literatures in English 2017 U1 P1.pdf
• CAPE Literatures in English 2016 U1 P2.pdf
• CAPE Literatures in English 2016 U1 P1.pdf
• CAPE Literatures in English 2015 U1 P2.pdf
• CAPE Literatures in English 2014 U1 P2.pdf
• CAPE Literatures in English 2013 U1 P2.pdf
• CAPE Literatures in English 2012 U1 P2.pdf
• CAPE Literatures in English 2011 U1 P2.pdf
• CAPE Literatures in English 2010 U1 P2.pdf
• CAPE Literatures in English 2009 U1 P2.pdf
• CAPE Literatures in English 2008 (TT) U1 P2.pdf
• CAPE Literatures in English 2008 (ROR) U1 P2.pdf
• CAPE Literatures in English 2006 U1 P2.pdf
• CAPE Literatures in English 2005 U1 P2.pdf
• CAPE_Literatures_in_English_2021_U2_P2.pdf
• CAPE Literatures in English 2022 U2 P2.pdf
• CAPE Literatures in English 2019 U2 P2.pdf
• CAPE Literatures in English 2018 U2 P2.pdf
• CAPE Literatures in English 2017 U2 P2.pdf
• CAPE Literatures in English 2017 U2 P1.pdf
• CAPE Literatures in English 2016 U2 P2.pdf
• CAPE Literatures in English 2015 U2 P2.pdf
• CAPE Literatures in English 2015 U2 P1.pdf
• CAPE Literatures in English 2014 U2 P2.pdf
• CAPE Literatures in English 2014 U2 P1.pdf
• CAPE Literatures in English 2013 U2 P2.pdf
• CAPE Literatures in English 2012 U2 P2.pdf
• CAPE Literatures in English 2011 U2 P2.pdf
• CAPE Literatures in English 2010 U2 P2.pdf
• CAPE Literatures in English 2009 U2 P2.pdf
• CAPE Literatures in English 2008 (TT) U2 P2.pdf
• CAPE Literatures in English 2008 (ROR) U2 P2.pdf
• CAPE Literatures in English 2006 U2 P2.pdf
• CAPE Literatures in English 2005 U2 P2.pdf