Both of the Language A Language and Literature, and Literature courses for SL and HL include a Paper 2, which is an externally assessed, comparative essay on two studied literature works.
SL and HL candidates in the Language and Literature course as well as in the Literature course all receive the same 4 unseen questions, and choose 1 to answer in the allocated 1 hour and 45 minutes.
Even though the weighting for this assessment differs depending on the course level – 35% for SL and 25% for HL – the assessment criteria are exactly the same.
Here are some tips to help with Paper 2 preparation and hopefully reduce stress around the exam.
Planning Time
Most students split their exam time into 2 blocks – planning time and writing time – so that they don’t have to continuously think of ideas when they’re in the middle of a paragraph, but the lengths of these times depend on your personal preference.
Within your ‘planning time’ – whether that be 10 minutes or 40 minutes – it’s key to unpack the question in relation to your 2 studied works, which can help to create a plan for the paper. The length of this planning time is very individually based. If you want a brief outline with some quotes before you start, 15-20 minutes may be enough for you. But if you feel like you work better with a structured plan, with quotes, techniques, similarities and differences all explored and written down, so that you can just focus on writing it all in an essay manner, 20-30 minutes may work better for you. I wouldn’t recommend more than 35 minutes, because you still want to have time to write the essay itself and also editing time at the end (5-10 minutes).
What planning time usually begins with is choosing and unpacking a question/questions to see what one is the right fit or that you feel most confident writing about. To understand question and explore its meanings, you could unpack a question like this:
“Authors often write fiction as a means of social commentary. Compare how the authors of two works that you have read have written works of social commentary.”
- What do you define ‘social commentary’ as?
- Who are the authors of your 2 works, and in what historical context were the works written?
- Brainstorm ideas for ‘how’ in relation to your 2 works; through themes or techniques?
This jumping off point helps to decide on a question and makes sure you really understand what you’re being asked before you spend time planning and writing.
Style
A Paper 2 can either be formatted by technique or theme. I found it easier to prepare for my exam by sticking to one of these. I first recognised my preference after I completed two practice exams using one style each, and I personally found the thematic approach easier (but this is a personal preference and differs).
Thus, when revising I focused on themes of my works – like Gender, Power and Religion – which were common when answering any question provided, but the same can be done with common literary techniques. My structure was three paragraphs, each dedicated to one of the three themes. Within the paragraph I would have this general structure (this structure can be used with the technique style as well, just omitting the theme relation):
- Topic sentence to state my point
- Quote and technique from one work
- Explanation of that quote and technique and how it related to the theme and point
- Linking sentence that stated the other work had a similarity
- Quote and technique from other work
- Explanation of that quote and technique and how it related to the theme and point
- Linking sentence explaining however that the point isn’t always the case in the works
- Quote and technique from one work that goes against point
- Explanation of that quote and technique and how it relates to the theme but opposes point
- Quote and technique from other work that goes against point
- Explanation of that quote and technique and how it relates to the theme but opposes point
- Concluding sentence that makes point and links to next paragraph
Structure/s
No matter if you’re going the thematic elements or techniques route, it’s crucial to have an essay that flows, and the order of your paragraphs is crucial to obtaining marks in Criteria C – Organisation and Planning.
A key point of Criteria C is that it’s imperative that your paragraphs are structured in an intentional order, and so, for example, if you swapped two paragraphs around, the essay wouldn’t make sense. Therefore, having an idea that progresses through the essay and clear linking sentences will make sure that the essay flows.
You should also decide on your argument structure. As shown before, I preferred to do both my compare and contrast within one paragraph and then repeated this. You can also do sole comparison paragraphs and sole contrast paragraphs, but it is important to know that this may appear as a disjointed essay as it usually looks like two separate analyses rather than an interleaving approach, and thus can also affect Criteria C if not positioned correctly.
Quotes
In your Paper 2 it’s crucial to have quotes within your essay to provide evidence to back your claims – but it’s not like you can memorize your whole works. So, memorizing some key quotes can help.
The IB says that you cannot use works you’ve already used for other assessment pieces throughout the course. So, if you’ve used something studied in class for your IO or HL essay, you’re not allowed to use those works in your Paper 2. However, most classes have at least 2 communal studied works that will be used in their Paper 2, like for me, my class studied and revised the works of ‘The Crucible’ by Arthur Miller and ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ by Margaret Atwood. Others also recommended having a general understanding/few quotes from a third work just in case, but that’s up to personal preference.
I recommend looking back through class notes or activities to see what quotes from each text have been highlighted, and that incorporate language techniques but also include themes of the text. Then, personally, I also attempted a past Paper 2 as a practice, initially using the prior quotes I had memorized within the context of the question. But when I realized I had a gap in my quote knowledge, such as with contrasting ideas, I used my studied texts during the time to find other quotes.
As I attempted more Paper 2’s, I began to build a bank of quotes that I’d used – and interestingly, due to most of these quotes including both techniques and themes, they could be reused in many Paper 2 questions.
Overall, the Paper 2 in the Language A Language and Literature course and Literature course isn’t testing your skills to memorize books or write a perfect essay within exam conditions – it’s asking you to compare your previously studied works to an unseen question. By building your skills over time, attempting past papers and practicing planning and structuring, you can ace your Paper 2!