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Analysis and Investigation
Quick questions on Exam text analysis - Edexcel A-Level English Language
6short Q&A pairs drawn directly from our worked dot-point answer. For full context and worked exam questions, read the parent dot-point page.
What is selecting language levels under time?Show answer
You will not use every level on every text, and the exam does not reward you for trying. Read each text twice: once to grasp genre, audience and purpose, and once to mark the four or five features that most clearly serve that purpose. For a persuasive advert, graphology and lexis may dominate; for a conversation transcript, pragmatics and discourse structure will. Selecting the relevant levels is an analytical skill, and a planned answer built on the strongest evidence beats a rushed sweep through all six.
What is building the comparative argument?Show answer
The strongest exam answers read as a sustained argument: a thesis, points that compare both texts with precise evidence and metalanguage, and consistent attention to purpose and effect. A comparative paragraph follows a clear shape: a topic sentence making a comparative claim ("both texts construct authority, but Text A does so through institutional register while Text B relies on personal anecdote"), evidence from each text, named features, and a closing sentence on the differing effect. Connectives of comparison and contrast (whereas, similarly, by contrast, conversely) keep the comparison live on the page so the examiner never has to infer it.
What is writing to time?Show answer
Plan for two or three minutes, write for the rest. A workable split for a 20-mark comparison is a short framing of both texts' discourse parameters, three to four comparative points built on the most productive levels, and a one-line synthesis. Resist the urge to transcribe long quotations; embed short, precise evidence and spend your words on the effect. If you run short of time, a clear final comparative point is worth far more than an unfinished paragraph drifting back into feature-spotting.
What is q1?Show answer
What do mode, field and tenor each describe in the discourse framework? [3 marks]
What is q2?Show answer
How should you structure a comparison of two unseen texts? [2 marks]
What is q3?Show answer
Why does naming a feature without explaining its effect score poorly? [2 marks]
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