Paper 2 Q4: comparing perspectives – GCSE English Language exam technique & model answers

16 marks · About 20 minutes

Q4 – comparing perspectives on going into the sea

Source A: an original 21st-century newspaper article written for this practice paper. The writer describes her experience of swimming in the sea in winter.

The cold truth: why I swim in the sea all winter

[1] It is seven o’clock on a January morning, the beach is dark, and I am standing in my swimming costume while a man walking a labrador looks at me as though I have lost my mind. Perhaps I have. The thermometer clipped to my bag says the sea is eight degrees.

[2] I started winter swimming three years ago, after a friend dared me to join her ‘just once’. I expected to hate it. Instead, I discovered the most honest feeling I have ever had. When the water closes over your shoulders, every thought you brought to the beach – the emails, the bills, the argument you replayed all night – is simply switched off. Your body has one job: breathe. For about thirty seconds you gasp like a landed fish. Then something astonishing happens. The panic drains away, your skin begins to fizz, and you are suddenly, ridiculously awake.

[3] I won’t pretend it’s glamorous. My feet turn the colour of raw sausages. Getting dressed afterwards, with numb fingers and a towel that refuses to stay put, is a slapstick routine I have never once performed with dignity. But nobody on our beach cares about dignity. There are a dozen of us most mornings: a retired headteacher, two nurses coming off night shifts, a teenager training for a triathlon. We have nothing in common except the sea, and it turns out that is plenty. We hold each other’s flasks and cheer each other in.

[4] A word of caution: cold water can be dangerous, and nobody should leap in alone or stay in too long. Go in gradually, never swim alone, and get out while you still feel good. Respect the sea and it will reward you.

[5] Because it does. Every time I walk back up the shingle, red-skinned and grinning, I feel I have stolen something from the day before it has properly started. People ask me why I do it. The truth is, I don’t think I could stop.

Source B: an original letter written for this practice paper in the style of the 1850s. A young woman writes to her sister from a seaside resort, where a doctor has told her to bathe in the sea for her health. (At this time, bathers changed inside wooden ‘bathing machines’ that were pulled into the water by horses. At some resorts, female attendants called ‘dippers’ – an old-fashioned custom by the 1850s – still plunged bathers under the waves. ‘The German Ocean’ was an old name for the North Sea.)

[1] My dearest Kitty,

[2] You asked me to tell you everything about the bathing, and so I shall, though I blush to set it down. Dr Hale is quite determined that the sea air and the salt water will restore me, and Mamma is quite determined to obey Dr Hale, and so every morning at seven I am marched down to the sands like a prisoner to the scaffold.

[3] The bathing machines stand in a row at the water’s edge – wooden huts upon great wheels, painted a cheerful blue that deceives nobody. One climbs inside, undresses in a darkness smelling powerfully of damp wool and old seaweed, and puts on a flannel gown so heavy that I am sure it was designed to drown the wearer. Meanwhile a horse is harnessed to the front, and the whole contraption lurches out into the waves, rattling and groaning, until one is quite sick before one has so much as wetted a toe.

[4] Then the door opens, and there stands Mrs Prowse, the dipper. Kitty, she is as broad as a church door and has arms like a ship’s ropes. She takes one by the shoulders, says ‘Now then, Miss,’ in the tone a butcher might use to a goose, and plunges one beneath the water three times together. The cold is beyond anything I can describe. It seizes the breath from one’s body. I came up spluttering and weeping, with my hair in my mouth and the whole German Ocean, I am persuaded, in my ears.

[5] I must be honest and confess one thing more. On the fourth morning, when Mrs Prowse released me, I stood a moment in the waves and felt the sun upon my face, and for that one moment I was not miserable at all. I shall deny it if you tell Mamma.

[6] The gentlemen, I may add, bathe at the other end of the beach, at a most proper distance, and are rumoured to enjoy it.

[7] Your loving and half-frozen sister,
Louisa

Question 4 For this question, you need to refer to the whole of Source A, together with the whole of Source B.

Compare how the writers convey their different perspectives on going into the sea.

In your answer, you could:

compare their different perspectives on going into the sea
compare the methods the writers use to convey their perspectives
support your response with references to both texts.

[16 marks]

What is being assessed

AO3: compare the writers’ ideas and perspectives across two texts, and how each writer’s methods convey them.

What examiners reward

Comparison of PERSPECTIVES (attitudes, feelings, viewpoints) – not just the content of what happens.
Comparison of METHODS: tone, structure, imagery, voice, form (article vs letter/report), and how each conveys the perspective.
An integrated, point-by-point structure moving between the sources, using comparative connectives.
Judicious quotations from BOTH sources and the WHOLE of each source.
Awareness of how the writers’ different times and purposes shape their perspectives.
Recognising nuance – where a perspective is mixed or shifts within a source.

Level	Marks	What it looks like
Level 4	13–16	Perceptive and detailed: compares the writers’ ideas and perspectives with insight, analyses how their methods convey those perspectives, and uses judicious quotations from both sources.
Level 3	9–12	Clear and relevant: compares ideas and perspectives clearly, explains how methods are used, and supports points with relevant quotations from both sources.
Level 2	5–8	Some comparison: attempts to compare ideas and perspectives with some comment on methods and some references from one or both sources.
Level 1	1–4	Simple and limited: simple cross-reference of ideas, little comparison of perspectives, and simple references.
Level 0	0	Nothing worthy of credit.

How to plan it

Sum up each perspective in one line: A – the sea as chosen joy, freedom and community; B – the sea as an imposed, humiliating ordeal, with a guilty flicker of pleasure.
Choose three comparison points: (1) overall attitude and tone; (2) how each presents the physical shock; (3) endings – what the sea means to each writer.
For each: perspective A + method + quotation → comparative connective → perspective B + method + quotation → why they differ (purpose, era, choice).
Use the whole of both sources, including the endings.

Show the top-band model answer

Both writers describe the shock of entering cold sea water, but their perspectives are almost opposite¹: the modern writer presents the sea as a source of freedom and joy she has chosen, while Louisa presents it as an ordeal imposed on her – though both, interestingly, admit to a moment of unexpected pleasure.

The difference in perspective is clear from their openings. The writer of Source A begins with self-deprecating humour, imagining a dog-walker thinking she has ‘lost my mind’, before agreeing, ‘Perhaps I have.’ This confident, conversational tone shows² she is happy to be thought eccentric because swimming is her own choice. Louisa, by contrast, uses the simile ‘like a prisoner to the scaffold’ to frame bathing as a punishment, and the repetition of ‘quite determined’ for both the doctor and her mother emphasises that the decision belongs to others. Her perspective reflects the limited control a young woman of the 1850s had³, whereas the modern writer’s independence is taken for granted.

Both describe the physical shock, but they interpret it differently. In Source A, the gasp ‘like a landed fish’ is quickly followed by a structural turn – ‘Then something astonishing happens’ – and a list of rising sensations ending in ‘ridiculously awake’. The shock becomes a gateway to clarity. Louisa’s account, however, dwells on discomfort at every stage: the hut smelling of ‘damp wool and old seaweed’, the gown ‘designed to drown the wearer’, the machine ‘rattling and groaning’. Her hyperbole is comic, but it conveys a perspective of indignity, and the cold remains ‘beyond anything I can describe’. Where Source A’s writer finds the sea strips away worries, Louisa finds it strips away her dignity.⁴

The writers also differ in how they present other people. Source A’s list of fellow swimmers – ‘a retired headteacher, two nurses… a teenager’ – celebrates a diverse community united by the sea, and the inclusive ‘We hold each other’s flasks’ conveys warmth. Louisa’s only companion is Mrs Prowse, described through the comic but intimidating similes ‘as broad as a church door’ and ‘arms like a ship’s ropes’, and the tone of ‘a butcher… to a goose’ makes Louisa an object being handled rather than a person⁵. Her wry final remark that the gentlemen ‘are rumoured to enjoy it’ hints at resentment that freedom and pleasure belong to men.

Finally, their endings reveal a surprising similarity within their difference⁶. The modern writer ends with total commitment – ‘I don’t think I could stop’ – while Louisa confesses she was ‘not miserable at all’ for ‘one moment’, but adds ‘I shall deny it if you tell Mamma’. Both recognise the sea’s power to uplift, but only the modern writer is free to say so openly. Her article’s purpose is to celebrate and persuade⁷; Louisa’s private letter allows a secret, reluctant honesty, which makes her single moment of joy all the more touching.

1. Opening overview compares perspectives directly – the examiner sees AO3 focus immediately.

2. Links a METHOD (tone) to the PERSPECTIVE it conveys.

3. Explains WHY the perspectives differ – context used to deepen comparison.

4. A crisp, balanced comparative sentence – the kind of synthesis that marks a Level 4 answer.

5. Perceptive analysis of method in service of comparison.

6. Nuance: recognises the mixed perspective in Source B instead of oversimplifying.

7. Compares form and purpose (article vs private letter) – an often-missed method.

Where marks are usually lost

Writing all about Source A, then all about Source B, with only a token comparison at the end.
Comparing what happens (content) rather than the writers’ attitudes and feelings.
Only using the first half of each source when the question says ‘the whole’.
Treating Source B as entirely negative and missing Louisa’s secret moment of enjoyment.
Language analysis that never connects back to perspective.

16 marks · About 20 minutes

Q4 – comparing perspectives on children and young people working

Source A: an original 21st-century newspaper column written for this practice paper. A parent writes about their fifteen-year-old son’s first Saturday job.

My son, the Saturday waiter

[1] When my fifteen-year-old son announced he had got a job, I assumed he meant a new level on a video game. He did not. He meant six hours every Saturday at the café on the corner, clearing tables, loading the dishwasher and, as he put it with enormous gravity, ‘dealing with the public’.

[2] I’ll admit I had doubts. He has exams next summer. He has never, in my presence, voluntarily loaded a dishwasher. I imagined broken plates and complaints. What I did not imagine was the boy who came home after his first shift, smelling of coffee and fried onions, and talked to me – actually talked – for forty minutes about a customer who had sent back the same omelette three times.

[3] That was four months ago, and something has quietly shifted. He sets an alarm without being nagged. He has learned that adults can be rude for no reason, and that you can stay polite anyway. He knows, to the penny, how long he must work to buy the trainers he wants, and so – remarkably – he has decided he doesn’t want them after all.

[4] There are rules, of course, and they matter. Young teenagers can only work limited hours, never during school time, and the café owner, a brisk woman called Mags, keeps to them carefully. She also, I suspect, keeps an eye on him in ways he hasn’t noticed.

[5] Not everyone has this chance. Plenty of young people work because their families need the money, not because they want new trainers, and juggling shifts with homework is no small thing. I don’t want to romanticise it. But for my son, this small, tiring, ordinary job has done something that years of school reports could not: it has shown him that he is capable.

[6] Last Saturday I went in for a coffee. He brought it over, set it down, and said, ‘Will there be anything else, madam?’ with a perfectly straight face. I have never been prouder of anyone holding a tray.

Source B: an original extract written for this practice paper in the style of a mid-19th-century newspaper report. The writer describes meeting a child who worked as a crossing-sweeper in London. (Crossing-sweepers swept a path through the mud and horse dung of the street so that people could cross, hoping to be given a coin.)

[1] At the corner where the great road meets the market, and where the mud lies thickest after rain, I found the boy whom the carters call ‘Little Ned’. He could not have been more than nine years of age. His broom was taller than himself and had worn down to a few bristles, and he wielded it with a gravity that would have become a bishop.

[2] His trade, if such a word may be used, is to sweep a path through the filth of the street, so that ladies and gentlemen may cross without soiling their boots; and for this service he hopes, though he does not always receive, a halfpenny. He is at his post, he told me, ‘afore the lamps is out,’ and he leaves it when they are lit again. On a good day he may take fourpence. On a wet day, when the mud is deep and the gentlemen are in a hurry, he may take nothing at all, and yet the mud must still be swept.

[3] I asked him whether he had been to school. He looked at me as though I had asked whether he had been to the moon. ‘Got no time for school, sir,’ said he. ‘Mother’s poorly, and there’s the little ’uns.’

[4] His feet were bare and of a colour I shall not describe. His jacket had belonged, I judge, to a man thrice his size, and he had rolled the sleeves so many times that they formed two great cuffs, like the wings of some ragged bird. Yet he was not without pride. When a carriage splashed his newly-swept crossing, he stamped his small foot and swore at the coachman with a fluency that would have astonished a sailor; and then, without a moment’s pause, he set to work again.

[5] I gave him a sixpence. He turned it over twice, bit it, and stared at me with frank suspicion, as though no one had ever given him anything without a reason.

[6] Reader, this child is one of thousands. We step around them as we step around the mud. I ask you: in a city that calls itself the richest in the world, is this the best that we can do?

Question 4 For this question, you need to refer to the whole of Source A, together with the whole of Source B.

Compare how the writers convey their different perspectives on young people working.

In your answer, you could:

compare their different perspectives on young people working
compare the methods the writers use to convey their perspectives
support your response with references to both texts.

[16 marks]

What is being assessed

AO3: compare the writers’ ideas and perspectives across two texts, and how each writer’s methods convey them.

What examiners reward

Comparison of PERSPECTIVES (attitudes, feelings, viewpoints) – not just the content of what happens.
Comparison of METHODS: tone, structure, imagery, voice, form (article vs letter/report), and how each conveys the perspective.
An integrated, point-by-point structure moving between the sources, using comparative connectives.
Judicious quotations from BOTH sources and the WHOLE of each source.
Awareness of how the writers’ different times and purposes shape their perspectives.
Recognising nuance – where a perspective is mixed or shifts within a source.

Level	Marks	What it looks like
Level 4	13–16	Perceptive and detailed: compares the writers’ ideas and perspectives with insight, analyses how their methods convey those perspectives, and uses judicious quotations from both sources.
Level 3	9–12	Clear and relevant: compares ideas and perspectives clearly, explains how methods are used, and supports points with relevant quotations from both sources.
Level 2	5–8	Some comparison: attempts to compare ideas and perspectives with some comment on methods and some references from one or both sources.
Level 1	1–4	Simple and limited: simple cross-reference of ideas, little comparison of perspectives, and simple references.
Level 0	0	Nothing worthy of credit.

How to plan it

One-line perspectives: A – a chosen, regulated job as character-building (with an awareness that not all young workers are so lucky); B – child labour as an injustice that steals childhood and shames society.
Comparison points: (1) why the young person works; (2) how work affects them; (3) how the writers position the reader (tone, ending).
Note a shared idea: both find dignity in their young worker.
Integrate both sources in every paragraph.

Show the top-band model answer

Both writers present a young person at work with affection and even admiration, but their perspectives differ sharply¹: the parent in Source A sees a part-time job as a positive, chosen experience that builds confidence, while the writer of Source B sees Ned’s work as a cruel necessity that steals his childhood and shames society.

The writers’ perspectives are shaped first by why the young person works. In Source A, the son works by choice, and the parent’s humorous opening – assuming the ‘job’ was ‘a new level on a video game’ – sets a light, affectionate tone that frames work as a novelty. The money is for luxuries like ‘trainers’, and there are ‘rules’ that ‘matter’, so the job is safe and regulated. By contrast, Ned works because ‘Mother’s poorly, and there’s the little ’uns’. By letting Ned speak in his own dialect², the writer makes his necessity painfully direct: he is not earning for treats but supporting a family. The writer of Source A does briefly acknowledge this other reality – ‘Plenty of young people work because their families need the money’ – which shows a more balanced perspective³, but the parent quickly returns to their son’s positive experience.

The writers also differ in what they think work does to a young person. The parent lists changes in short, positive statements: ‘He sets an alarm without being nagged’, and he has learned that ‘you can stay polite anyway’. The climax of this structure⁴ is that the job has ‘shown him that he is capable’, presenting work as more educational than ‘years of school reports’. In Source B, however, work has replaced education entirely: Ned looks as if he has been asked about going ‘to the moon’ when school is mentioned. Rather than growth, the writer shows deprivation through details such as bare feet and a jacket belonging to ‘a man thrice his size’, suggesting a child swamped by an adult’s burden.

Interestingly, both writers find dignity in their young workers, but convey it to different ends⁵. The son’s ‘perfectly straight face’ as he asks, ‘Will there be anything else, madam?’ makes the parent ‘prouder’ than ever, so his seriousness is a sign of maturity. Ned’s ‘gravity that would have become a bishop’ and his pride in his crossing are also admirable, yet the writer uses them to make his situation more tragic: a child should not need to be so serious.

Finally, the writers position their readers differently. Source A ends on a warm, personal anecdote, inviting readers to share the parent’s pride. Source B ends with direct address – ‘Reader, this child is one of thousands’ – and the accusing rhetorical question ‘is this the best that we can do?’, turning the report into a call for social change. The modern column celebrates one family’s experience; the Victorian-style report uses one child to expose a national injustice, reflecting how differently child labour was viewed⁶ when it was common and street work was largely unregulated.

1. Clear comparative overview that names both perspectives precisely.

2. Explains how a method (direct speech in dialect) conveys the writer’s perspective.

3. Nuance: recognises that Source A’s view is not one-sided.

4. Compares structural methods, not just language – broadens the range of methods analysed.

5. Perceptive comparison: a shared detail used for opposite purposes.

6. Contextual insight used to explain the difference in perspective.

Where marks are usually lost

Assuming Source A is simply ‘for’ and Source B simply ‘against’ young people working – both are more nuanced.
Forgetting to compare methods (tone, anecdote, direct address, structure), so the answer stays at the level of content.
Unequal coverage – a long answer on Source A with one line on Source B.
Inventing historical facts that the source does not support; keep contextual comments general and relevant.
Not using comparative connectives, so the answer reads as two separate essays.

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