Reading comprehension, Year 10: Paper 1 and evaluating a statement

80

提示Paper 2 carries exactly the same total.

为什么Paper 1 has 40 marks for reading (Section A) and 40 for writing (Section B). It lasts 1 hour 45 minutes and counts for half of the GCSE.

8; 8; 20

提示The final question is the biggest on the paper and the two middle ones match each other.

为什么Question 1 (4 marks) finds stated details. Questions 2 and 3 (8 marks each) are on language and on structure. Question 4 (20 marks) asks you to evaluate a statement about the text.

Prose fiction from the 20th or 21st century

提示Think of a passage out of a novel or a short story that is not very old.

为什么The source is an extract from a novel or a short story. It is never a poem, a play or non-fiction, and it is never a text you have studied: every text in the exam is unseen.

By choosing: you shade one circle in each part

提示Recall the format of the opening question in the 2026 sample paper.

为什么Since summer 2026 each part offers a few possible answers about a named set of lines, and you pick one by shading it. A mistake is corrected by crossing out the whole box.

16

提示It is the smaller of the two parts, and less than half of the total.

为什么Content and organisation (AO5) is worth 24 marks and technical accuracy (AO6) 16. The same split is used on Paper 2, so accuracy is worth 32 of the 160 marks for the GCSE: one fifth.

15; 45; 45

提示The three figures add up to 105 minutes, and the two sections get equal time.

为什么The paper itself prints this advice. Section A is the four reading questions and Section B is the one writing task, so reading and writing get the same time as well as the same marks.

Half

提示Recall how heavily the final question is weighted compared with the other three combined.

为什么Question 4 is the largest reading question on either paper. Leaving it until the last five minutes throws away more marks than any other mistake in Section A.

Yes

提示Think about whether the question demands a single fixed stance.

为什么The task asks to what extent you agree, so a full yes, a full no and a mixed view are all acceptable. What is marked is how well you support your view from the text.

Evaluating texts critically

提示It is the last of the reading objectives, after find, analyse and compare.

为什么An assessment objective is one of the skills the exam is built to measure. AO4 asks for a judgement supported by references to the text, and it is worth 12.5% of the GCSE, all of it on this one question.

The writer's methods

提示Besides your personal response, recall the mark scheme's second ingredient: the craft behind it.

为什么The question's bullets point to your impressions, to the methods used, and to references that support both. An answer that only retells events, or only lists techniques, covers half of what is asked.

B

提示Which opening could not be mistaken for a neutral summary?

为什么An evaluation starts from a judgement. Opening with how far you agree gives every paragraph after it a job: to prove that judgement from the text.