AQA Paper 2 Transactional Writing
Forty marks for one piece of writing that argues a case. The form is named for you, the audience is named for you, and both are marked.
Original RCF practice material
Every prompt, example and model answer here was written by RCF English. They are not AQA questions and no AQA mark scheme wording is reproduced.
Paper 2 Question 5 is worth 40 marks: 24 for content and organisation (AO5) and 16 for technical accuracy (AO6). You are given a statement and asked to write presenting your point of view, in a stated form - an article, a letter, a speech, an essay or a leaflet - for a stated audience. AQA advises about 45 minutes for Section B.
The forms, and what gives each one away
| Form | Opening signal | Voice | Closing signal |
|---|---|---|---|
| Article | A headline, then a hook - a question, a scene, a surprising fact | Semi-formal, aware of readers | A thought, not a summary |
| Letter | Dear Sir or Madam / Dear Mrs Bhatt, then your reason for writing | Formal, courteous, direct | Yours faithfully or Yours sincerely, and a request |
| Speech | Address the audience: Good morning, everyone | Spoken rhythm, direct address, rhetorical questions | A call to action |
| Essay | The issue stated without repeating the question | Formal, balanced, impersonal | Your view, stated once, at the end |
| Leaflet or text for a website | A heading and short sections | Clear, practical, second person | What the reader should do next |
The method: 45 minutes
Decide your line in 2 minutes
Agree, disagree, or agree with a limit. Any of the three earns full marks; changing your mind in paragraph four does not. Write your position at the top of the page and keep looking at it.
Plan three arguments in 3 minutes (RCF recommendation)
Three reasons, each with one example. Order them weakest to strongest, so the piece gains force. Add one counter-argument you will concede and answer.
Write for 35 minutes
Introduction, three argument paragraphs, one counter-argument paragraph, conclusion. Six paragraphs is a comfortable shape for the time.
Check for 5 minutes
Accuracy only. Sixteen marks are waiting here.
The counter-argument paragraph is worth writing
A piece that only asserts sounds like a pupil. A piece that concedes something and then answers it sounds like a writer. It costs one paragraph and it lifts the content and organisation mark more reliably than any rhetorical device.
- Concede honestly: It is perfectly true that...
- Limit the concession: What this argument overlooks is...
- Return to your line: Which is precisely why...
Original RCF model answer: an article
Question: "Students should be required to do at least one hour of unpaid work for their community each week. It would teach them more than any lesson." Write an article for a newspaper in which you explain your point of view on this statement. (Original RCF practice task, in the style of Paper 2 Question 5.)
Made to be kind
Last winter my neighbour spent every Saturday morning driving elderly people to a supermarket eleven miles away. Nobody made him do it. That, I have come to think, is the entire reason it worked - and the entire reason this proposal will not.
The argument for compulsory community work is not stupid, and it is worth stating fairly. Young people who have volunteered do report that it changed how they see their town. They meet people whose lives are nothing like theirs. They discover that a bus timetable is a political document. None of this is taught anywhere on a school timetable, and none of it is easily taught at all.
But the word doing the damage in this proposal is required. An hour that has been demanded is not a gift, and everyone involved knows it - including, most painfully, the person receiving it. There is a particular indignity in being helped by someone who is being marked for helping you, and I have never seen that indignity acknowledged by anyone advocating this scheme.
It is perfectly true that we require plenty of things whose value teenagers cannot yet see; nobody waits for a fourteen-year-old to develop a spontaneous enthusiasm for algebra. What that argument overlooks is that algebra does not have feelings. Compulsory kindness has a second party, and that party can tell.
There is a better version of this idea, and it is unglamorous: make volunteering easy rather than compulsory. Publish what needs doing. Arrange the transport. Let students go once and come back if they want to. My neighbour did not need a policy. He needed a car and a list.
Requiring people to be good is the shortest route to producing people who resent being good. If we want a generation that turns up, we should stop marking the register.
Why this answer works
- Form is unmistakable. A headline, an anecdotal hook, direct address to a general readership, and a closing line that turns rather than summarises. An examiner names the form in three seconds.
- Content and organisation (AO5). One line of argument held from the first paragraph to the last. The structure moves weakest to strongest: concede the case, isolate the flaw, answer the obvious objection, propose an alternative, close.
- The counter-argument paragraph does real work. It concedes something genuine, then limits the concession with a distinction - algebra does not have feelings - rather than dismissing it.
- Technical accuracy and range (AO6). Sentence lengths vary sharply; the shortest sentence in the piece, That party can tell, is placed where the argument turns. The italicised single word required isolates the point without needing a paragraph of explanation.
- The return at the end. The neighbour from paragraph one comes back in paragraph six, which closes the loop and makes the argument feel finished rather than stopped.
Practice, then check your own
Original RCF practice task. "Every school should abolish homework for students under fourteen and replace it with reading." Write a speech for your school's governing body in which you explain your point of view. 45 minutes. Then work through this list.
- Can a reader name the form from my first three lines?
- Have I addressed the audience the task named, not a general reader?
- Is my position identical in paragraph one and paragraph six?
- Do I have three arguments, each with an example rather than an assertion?
- Have I conceded one thing and answered it?
- Have I varied sentence length deliberately, including at least one very short sentence at a turning point?
- Did I spend five minutes on accuracy at the end?
Questions about Paper 2 Question 5
Do I have to agree with the statement?
No. You are asked to explain your point of view, and disagreement, agreement and a qualified position are all worth full marks. What is marked is how clearly and effectively you communicate the view you take, not the view itself.
How many rhetorical devices should I use?
As many as the argument needs and no more. A list of three, a rhetorical question and a piece of direct address are useful when they carry a point; strung together for their own sake they read as a technique checklist and do not lift the content and organisation mark. One well-placed short sentence usually does more than three rhetorical questions.
Should I invent statistics?
No. Invented figures are transparent and they weaken a piece. Specific, plausible detail from your own experience is more persuasive and costs nothing - the neighbour with the car in the model answer above does more work than any percentage would.
Does the form really matter if the writing is good?
Yes. AO5 covers selecting and adapting tone, style and register for different forms, purposes and audiences, so a strong essay submitted where a speech was asked for has left part of the objective unmet.
Next
Paper 2 question by question
Questions 1 to 4 with methods and worked examples.
Planning and structuring answers
Paragraph shapes for every question on both papers.
Revision strategies
How to revise an examination with no set texts.