IGCSE First Language English Paper 2: Directed Writing and Composition

One question in two parts, based on one or two texts totalling 550 to 650 words.

Question 1(a): 5 marks

A structured question that lets you analyse, evaluate and demonstrate your understanding of the text or texts. It tests R3 (analyse, evaluate and develop facts, ideas and opinions, using appropriate support) and R4 (how writers achieve effects and influence readers).

• This part is new for 2027, and R4 was not previously assessed on this paper at all.
• It is five marks. Answer it properly and briefly - about five minutes - and do not let it become an essay.
• Treat it as the reading you need anyway. The understanding it asks for is the understanding 1(b) is built on, so it is a free warm-up rather than an extra task.

Question 1(b): 35 marks

You use, develop and evaluate the information in the text or texts to write a discursive, argumentative or persuasive speech, letter, article or report of about 250 to 350 words.

It carries 10 reading marks (R1, R2, R3, R5) and 25 writing marks (W1 to W5).

• Twenty-five of the thirty-five marks are for the writing itself. The reading is the raw material; the marks are mostly for what you build with it.
• Develop and evaluate, do not summarise. Repeating the text in a new form answers only the reading half and answers it thinly. Take a position and argue it.
• The form is named, and it is assessed. A speech to an audience, a letter to a person, an article for readers and a report for a body all sound different. Signal the form in your first sentence.
• Use both texts if two are given. Ignoring one is the quickest way to lose reading marks here.
• 250 to 350 words is tight. Two or three developed points beat five thin ones, and a concession you then answer is worth more than another point.
• Time: about 55 minutes for the whole of Section A, including planning.

One question from a choice of four titles: two descriptive and two narrative. You use the title to develop and write a composition of about 350 to 450 words.

All forty marks are writing marks, across all five writing objectives - W1 to W5. There is no reading to do and nowhere to hide.

Choosing between descriptive and narrative

• Descriptive writing has no plot to rescue it. It is marked on the precision of the seeing and the control of the language, and it fails when it becomes a list of adjectives.
• Narrative writing has a plot to go wrong. In 350 to 450 words there is no room for a beginning, a middle, an end and a twist. One incident, told well, beats a whole story told at speed.
• Choose on which title gives you specific material, not on which type you prefer in the abstract. A vague title in your favourite mode is worse than a concrete title in the other one.
• Decide in the first two minutes and do not change your mind at minute fifteen.

What the forty marks reward

• W1 - articulate experience. Something has to be genuinely observed, even if it is invented. Precision is what makes invention convincing.
• W2 - organise and structure for deliberate effect. The order of your paragraphs should be a decision. A description that moves from far to near, or a narrative that opens after the event and looks back, is structured; one that simply proceeds is not.
• W3 - a range of vocabulary and sentence structures. Range means variety used for effect, not long words used for their own sake. A short sentence after three long ones is range.
• W4 - language appropriate to purpose and to engage the audience. The register has to hold from the first line to the last.
• W5 - spelling, punctuation and grammar. A fifth of the objectives on a forty-mark task.
• Time: about 55 minutes, including five planning and five checking.