Paper 1: Guided literary analysis
Duration: 2 hours 15 minutes

Weighting: 35%

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Paper 1 contains two previously unseen literary passages and students are instructed to write a separate guided analysis of each of these passages. A guided analysis in this context refers to an exploration of the passage supported by a guiding question, which asks students to consider a technical or formal aspect of the passage. The passages could be taken from any of the four literary forms on the Prescribed reading list. Each of the passages will be from a different literary form.

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The passages for analysis may be either a complete piece of writing or an extract from a longer piece, and wherever possible they will not have been written by authors listed on the Prescribed reading list nor be taken from works likely to have been studied in class.

One guiding question will be provided for each passage on a central technical or formal element that may provide an interesting point of entry into the text. Although it is not compulsory to answer this question, students should be aware that it is expected that the analysis will be focused on a particular aspect of the text. Students may propose an alternative point of entry about any other technical or formal element of the text they feel important in order to provide such a focus.

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The assessment criteria for this paper are the same at HL and SL. 20 marks will be allotted to each answer. The maximum mark for paper 1 is 40.