What the exam asks
In Paper 2, you answer one of four general questions using two literary works studied in your course. Whatever the question’s wording, your task is to compare and/or contrast the two works: how and why the writers explore the concept, technique or theme in the question. Under the 2026 assessment criteria, Criterion B is split in two:
- Criterion B1 (5 marks): Analysis and evaluation of textual features and/or broader authorial choices (marked on the quality of the analysis, not on how many features you cover).
- Criterion B2 (5 marks): Comparative analysis—how effectively you use similarities and/or differences to deepen your reading of both works.
In the individual oral, you examine how one literary work and one non-literary body of work present a common global issue. Unlike Paper 2, the oral does not directly mark comparison, but top-band responses give both extracts, and the wider work and body of work they come from, about the same attention (Criterion C) and analyse how each creator’s choices of content and form shape their perspective on the shared issue (Criterion B).
Core ideas
Meaningful similarity and difference
Any two texts can share a surface topic (e.g., “both are about family”), which earns very little credit. Top-band comparison connects four deeper layers:
| Layer | Weak comparison (surface) | Strong comparison (meaningful) |
|---|---|---|
| Content & concerns | Both works feature a strict father. | Both works examine how a father’s or a husband’s authority crushes another person’s sense of self, though to different ends. |
| Form & genre | One is a play and one is a novel. | Drama forces the audience to witness the protagonist’s entrapment in real time, whereas retrospective first-person prose filters trauma through memory. |
| Context (a clause at most) | Written in different centuries. | Used only to explain a choice: a play written for an audience that expected the last act to mend a marriage, so the unmended ending is the shock; a novel narrated by a child in a household where speaking is punished, so silence becomes the technique. |
| Authorial choices | Both use symbolism. | One uses a static stage prop to anchor the conflict, while the other uses a recurring motif that mutates as the narrator loses control. |
Multiple perspectives on one issue
Part of the Intertextuality: connecting texts area of exploration is recognizing that no single text holds the whole truth about a human experience. When two texts tackle the same theme—such as war, migration, or guilt—they offer multiple perspectives shaped by who wrote them, when, and for whom.