What the exam asks
In Paper 2, you answer one of four general questions in a 1-hour 45-minute closed-book essay comparing two literary works studied in class. Questions never name a specific literary form, so you must adapt general prompts (such as how works represent memory, conflict, or authority) to the unique conventions of prose non-fiction or graphic narratives.
To reach the top band (5 out of 5) in Criterion B1 (Analysis and evaluation of textual features and/or authorial choices), you must analyse how the writer or artist constructs meaning using the tools of their specific form—such as the double perspective of memoir (the younger self who lived the events and the older self who tells them) or panel layout in a graphic novel.
Core ideas
1. Constructing a self and a claim to truth in prose non-fiction
Prose non-fiction (memoir, autobiography, biography, literary essays, letters, and travel writing) makes a claim to truth—sometimes called the autobiographical pact—promising the reader that these events happened to a real person. However, memory is selective. Writers do not simply record life; they construct a self and shape a narrative of experience.
Always distinguish between two voices in retrospective non-fiction:
- The experiencing self: the younger persona living through the moment in the past.
- The narrating self: the older, wiser writer looking back, selecting details, and judging the past.
2. Personal experience and wider context
Memoirs and literary essays rarely stay purely private. Writers use anecdote (a specific personal story) as a springboard into reflection on wider historical, political, or cultural contexts. For example, in a collection of essays like James Baldwin’s Notes of a Native Son, a personal memory of a father’s funeral becomes an indictment of systemic racial injustice in 1940s America.