How to Answer Question 2 (Edexcel GCSE English Language)

Question 2 on Paper 2 of your Edexcel GCSE English Language exam is a quick, search and find question.

The following guide to how to answer Question 2 includes:

• Question 2 overview

• How to answer Question 2

• Exam tips

Question 2 overview

Question 2 will be based on certain lines from Text 1. You will be asked to identify two things from the extract, and you are being tested on your ability to scan a piece of text quickly and identify explicit or implicit information.

It is important that you do not use anything outside of the lines specified in the question, as you will not receive the marks if you do. You can use your own words or direct quotations from the text to answer the question, but you should avoid just copying out whole lines of the text.

This question is designed to ease you into the exam. It is only worth 2 marks, and you should spend no more than five minutes on both this and Question 1.

How to answer Question 2

Let’s look at Question 2 from the November 2022 exam (you can find the whole of Text 1 here):

The style of Question 2 is always the same, and it is most important that you identify what the focus of the question is.

In order to achieve 2 marks for this question, you should:

1. Read the question carefully and highlight its focus (what you are being asked to identify)

2. Scan the lines and highlight the exact words or phrases that answer the question

For example:

You only need to identify two ways the writer describes Elsa’s appearance. You could write your answers like this:

1. “Very fit” ✅

2. “Some scars” ✅

You could also have identified:

• “Plenty of flesh on her bones”

• She looked like she had put on weight

• Her wounds were not deep

• She had injuries which had “hardly penetrated the skin”

However, you would not receive a mark for:

• “She must have killed at least once since I left her”

• “She gave me a tremendous welcome”

These are not about Elsa’s appearance, which is the focus of the question.

Exam tips

• This is designed to be a question that can be answered quickly — it is therefore not necessary to write out the whole of the sentence for your answer, as this is not a good use of your time:

  • Try to keep your answer short and to the point

• It is essential that you only take your answer from the lines specified in the question:

  • No marks are awarded for answers taken from outside of the specified lines

• Read the question carefully to avoid any misunderstanding of what you are being asked to find in the lines:

  • Make sure that your selection answers the question that has been asked