Every card in Reading comprehension, Year 11: Paper 2 and non-fiction from the 1800s
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- Paper 2 has four reading questions. In order, they are worth 4, 8, ____ and ____ marks.
12; 16
HintTogether the four questions add up to forty.
WhyQuestion 1 (4 marks) picks out true statements. Question 2 (8) draws on both sources. Question 3 (12) is on the language of one source. Question 4 (16) compares the two writers.
- How many sources does Paper 2 print for the reading questions?
Two
HintRecall the paper's reading layout and the labels given to the texts.
WhyPaper 2 gives two linked non-fiction sources on one theme, from different periods. Paper 1 gives a single fiction source.
- One of the two Paper 2 sources always comes from the same century. Which century?
The nineteenth century (the 1800s)
HintPaper 1 is modern; recall the era of long sentences and formal vocabulary, Dickens's time.
WhyThe other source comes from the 20th or 21st century, so that the pair lets you compare viewpoints across time. Expect longer sentences and more formal words in the older text.
- Paper 2 question 1 prints eight statements about a few lines of one source. How many of them do you choose as true? (number only)
4
HintThink of the true/false split in a typical set of statements.
WhyYou shade the circles beside the four statements you think are true. Shading more than four is not allowed, so decide carefully and check each statement against the lines named.
- Paper 1 Section B sets creative writing: a description or a story. What kind of writing does Paper 2 Section B set?
Writing that presents a point of view
HintThink of the broad term for persuasive, opinion-led prose as in an article or speech.
WhyThe task gives you something to respond to on the theme of the two sources (in the 2026 sample paper, a statement) and names an audience, a purpose and a form, such as a speech to a local council. It is marked out of 40, like the Paper 1 task.
- Which assessment objective is tested on Paper 2 and not on Paper 1: AO3 (comparing writers) or AO4 (evaluating a text)?
AO3 (comparing writers)
HintRecall which objective needs two texts side by side; Paper 1 has just one.
WhyAn assessment objective is a skill the exam measures. AO3, comparing ideas and how they are conveyed, needs two texts, so it belongs to Paper 2 question 4. AO4, evaluating, belongs to Paper 1 question 4.
- Frederick Douglass wrote in 1845 about never being told his own age: 'A want of information concerning my own was a source of unhappiness to me even during childhood.' What does 'want' mean in this sentence?
A lack
HintIt is the older sense of the word, not the modern one of wishing for something.
WhyIn older writing 'want' often means an absence or shortage: 'for want of a nail'. Here Douglass is saying that not having the information made him unhappy. The words around a familiar-looking word show which sense is meant.
- Florence Nightingale wrote in the mid-1800s: 'Every woman, or at least almost every woman, in England has, at one time or another of her life, charge of the personal health of somebody, whether child or invalid,—in other words, every woman is a nurse.' Which belief of her time does the sentence take for granted: that nurses need long training, or that caring for the sick is women's work?
That caring for the sick is women's work
HintThink about what society in the 1800s assumed about who looked after patients at home.
WhyNightingale does not argue that nursing falls to women; she assumes it, as most of her readers did. Spotting what a writer takes for granted is how you read an attitude that belongs to its time.
- A Victorian letter says: 'I was much gratified by the intelligence you sent from Bath.' What does 'intelligence' mean here?
News
HintIn this period the word could describe information passed on, as in some government agencies' names.
WhyIn the 1800s 'intelligence' commonly meant information or news, a sense that survives in 'military intelligence'. The verb 'sent' is the clue: you can send news, but not brains.
- One sentence in an 1850s article runs for nine lines, with six commas and two semicolons. What should you find first in order to follow it?
The main clause: who is doing what
HintCut away the subordinate extras to find the core subject and verb.
WhyLong Victorian sentences hang many extra phrases on one simple statement. Find the subject and its main verb, then add the other parts back one at a time.
- A Victorian traveller calls her inn 'tolerably comfortable'. Does she mean very comfortable, fairly comfortable or uncomfortable?
Fairly comfortable
HintThink of the verb 'tolerate': to put up with something.
Why'Tolerably' means to a moderate degree: good enough to bear. Older writers use many such measuring words ('exceedingly', 'passably', 'indifferently'), and the tone of a whole passage can turn on them.
- 'I was born in Tuckahoe, near Hillsborough, and about twelve miles from Easton, in Talbot county, Maryland.' This is the first sentence of Frederick Douglass's own account of his life, published in 1845. What form of non-fiction is it? (one word, beginning with a)
autobiography
HintThink about the relationship between narrator and subject; the word's first part means 'self'.
WhyAn autobiography is a person's account of their own life, so it is written in the first person. Readers expect the writer's own memories and feelings, and should remember that people choose how to present themselves.
- An account of a real person's life written by someone else
A biography
HintThe word comes from two Greek roots; the first is also found in 'biology'.
WhyA biographer works from letters, records and interviews, and writes in the third person. Readers expect research and a view from outside, which may be kinder or harsher than the subject's own.
- '12 March. Rain again. Did not go out. Mother's cough is worse.' Dated entries, written at the time and for the writer's own eyes. Which form of non-fiction is this?
A diary (or journal)
HintDated entries made as events happen, usually private: give the everyday name.
WhyA diary is written day by day, without knowing what happens next, and usually with no reader in mind. That makes it frank and immediate, and often clipped, with words left out as here.
- True accounts of real people and events that are told with a storyteller's techniques, as much travel writing and memoir is, are called ____ non-fiction.
literary
HintThe missing word describes writing that is valued for its craft.
WhyPaper 2 pairs non-fiction with literary non-fiction. The second kind is still about real people and events, but it uses description, character and structure as a novelist would.
- Which form sets out what happened, with the facts first and the writer's own opinion kept out: a news report or an opinion column?
A news report
HintThink about which form's job is to inform and which one's job is to persuade.
WhyBoth appear in newspapers, and both count as journalism. A report tells readers what happened; a column argues what the writer thinks about it. Knowing which you are reading tells you how much of it is fact.
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