AQA Paper 1 Question 3: Inside Tips from an Ex-Examiner
Hello!
I’m Steve Flock, and I teach English at Humanitas Learning.
I have a lifetime’s teaching experience preparing a wide range of ability candidates for GCSE and, in addition to this, worked for the AQA Examinations Board, both as an examiner marking candidates’ papers and as a Subject Adviser, going round the country, giving advice to teachers on what examiners were looking for in candidates wishing to obtain the highest grades. The following help sheet on Structure is a step-by-step guide to a question which many candidates find challenging.
AQA Paper 1 Question 3 - Structure
The structure question (Question 3 in Paper 1 in AQA English Language) asks how the passage is written as it is, specifically to affect the reader.
As with ALL questions on the English and English Literature papers worth more than a couple of marks, the examiners want you to focus on two central points:
* What is the writer trying to get the reader to think or feel?
* What means is the writer using to get them to think or feel like this?
You should aim in each of your answers, whether in Language or Literature, to always include (preferably twice) a sentence such as ‘At this point the writer is trying to encourage the readers to feel………… and they do this by………’
Do NOT worry if this seems formulaic when used in every question, because each question you write will be marked by a different examiner.
Do NOT simply tell the examiner what the reader is supposed to feel or simply that the writer is using, for example, a metaphor or a simile. This last is called ‘feature spotting’ and will gain you few, if any, marks. You must say what effect a writer is trying to create by using each device such as a simile or metaphor.
Do NOT, in the structure question, analyse language unless specifically asked to do so.
From 2026, in AQA English Language, the structure question has been narrowed down so that they will ask you, for example, how the passage is structured to show the increase in tension. It is very important that you know the effect (e.g. tension/calm/comic) you are being asked to examine, and that you repeat this word from the question throughout so that both you and the examiner know that you are sticking to the focus of the question.
When you begin to answer the structure question, initially ask yourself these questions:
* How does the passage begin? Where are we? What is happening? What is the mood (e.g., calm/happy/threatening)?
* How have things changed by the end of the passage? Are characters better or worse off? Have they learned anything? Has the mood changed? In rare cases, have we returned to the point we started from?
* How did the change come about? Can I see the gradual progress through the passage?
A Practical Method to Prepare for the Structure Question
1. Make sure you are sure about whether the examiner wishes you to look at the whole passage or part of it. If the latter, then mark off the top and bottom so that you do not stray outside the relevant parts.
2. Jot down a few words beside each paragraph (e.g. ‘description of the church’ or ‘what the man feels’).
3. Now write your answer, noting down the changes between paragraphs. Learn to use phrases such as the following:
- our attention now switches to…..
- the mood suddenly changes to one of……
- we are introduced to…..
- in the next paragraph we learn that…..
- the writer now focuses on…..
