IB Examinations: Paper 2
You will have two hours to answer one question based on at least two of the Part 3 works you have studied. You may
include in your answer a discussion of a Part 2 work of the same genre if relevant. You will have a choice of answering
on drama, poetry, prose: the novel and short story, or prose: other than the novel and short story. [Choose a
question for the genre you studied.]
Range of question topics
 focus on various aspects of the texts that you have studied
 require different approaches and different kinds of responses, depending on the specific question
 objective: to allow you to show to the best of your ability your knowledge, understanding, and informed
critical response to the particular texts
Some question topics for “Prose: the novel and short story”:
 how writers create, present, and develop characters
 techniques writers use to open novels and short stories
 techniques writers use to bring their narrative to conclusions
 how writers present themes and ideas
 how writers use language to create different effects.
Approaching questions
 Read the question very carefully and make sure that you understand all parts of it.
 Identify which aspect or aspects of the text the question is about - use the key words approach
o identify the key words and the focus of the question: circle or underline the key words or phrases,
and then jot down in a few words of your own what the question is asking you to focus on
 Analyze the question and note down the key topic areas it deals with.
 Briefly plan how you intend to deal with these areas - this may mean only three or four points each,
summed up in a few words. The main thing is that you will have a checklist of the points you are going to
cover before you begin writing your essay.
Writing your essay
Here are some things to bear in mind when writing your answers.
 Always begin by addressing the question directly; use some of the words of the question in your
introduction. Your introduction should give a general indication of your response to the question or
summarize the approach you intend to take, perhaps stating your viewpoint; however, keep it brief and
never include biographical information or plot summary.
 An alternative way to begin your essay: start with a strong, perhaps contentious idea that captures the
reader’s attention immediately.
 Develop your points clearly, using evidence and references to the text to support your ideas.
 Assume that the examiner has read the text you are writing about; don’t explain the plot or who the
characters are.
 Deal with all parts of the question.
 Be relevant at all times.
 Use quotations that are short and relevant.
 Sum up your arguments and analysis. It is often through the conclusion that the relevance of certain points
you have made is brought into focus and the essay is given a sense of unity and completeness.
That you know the “facts” about a text, the story line, who the characters are, etc. is taken for granted. The
emphasis is much more on showing judgment, analysis, sensitivity, and perception in your responses.
Length
 marks are not awarded for the length of your essay but for what you have achieved in your writing
 create a balanced answer: essays that are very short often lack sufficient depth in the development of ideas;
over long essays can become repetitive, rambling and lacking in a coherent response
Technical accuracy: as free from technical errors as you
 Punctuation: poor punctuation can mean that your ideas are communicated to the reader less effectively
 Sentences: avoid long, convoluted ones
 Paragraphing: avoid one-sentence paragraphs and excessively long paragraphs
 Vocabulary: vary your vocabulary without becoming verbose; make sure that you are spelling the titles of
texts, the names of the characters, and the names of the authors correctly.
 Cliché, flattery, and slang: avoid them
 Quotation: If you are using quotation, make sure it is accurate. It is better not to use a quotation than to
misquote or worse still “invent” a quotation based on a rough idea of how it goes.
o two key points: quotation should be short and it should be relevant; 3-4 words are best
o weave them into the fabric of your writing
o not always necessary to use direct quotation to support your ideas; perfectly possible to refer to the
text without quoting verbatim from it
Assessment of your work
In reading the descriptors [in the rubric] you will see the key features that can bring you success. If you are to
achieve success there are certain things that you must do. You must make sure that:
 you have read your texts carefully several times
 you know your texts thoroughly
 you are fully aware of the issues, ideas, themes, etc. they contain
 you are aware of the stylistic features of the texts you have studied
 you can support your ideas and comments effectively
Know your material and know what you think about it. If you can show through your responses that you possess
independent opinions and you can use these to express your "knowledge" and "understanding" of the works, then
you will have every chance of achieving success.
Suggested activities
1. Look at a selection of essay questions on the texts you have studied. Go through them identifying clearly the
key words and the focus of each. It can be useful to work in pairs on this and to discuss your ideas with a
partner.
2. Choose two texts from one genre that you have studied as part of your course, and create a question based
on those texts. Your question should: (1) refer to a specific topic or idea, and (2) ask something quite specific
which will involve looking in detail at the texts. Exchange questions with a partner and plan an answer to
each other's questions. Discuss the plans you make.
3. Gather as many questions as you can on the texts that you have studied. Draft out a rough essay plan for
each of these questions. Do not spend more than two or three minutes on each plan. [See “Approaching the
question”]
Source: Druce, Elizabeth and Hannah Tyson. IB English A1 Course Companion: International Baccalaureate Diploma Program. Oxford University Press: 2007.
Print. 240-251.
Paper 2: Addressing Exam Questions
(adapted from E. Druce. UNIS.)
1.
Jot down the authors you have read for Part 3 to remind yourself of your choice.
ben Jelloun. The Sand Child.
Emecheta. Kehinde.
Hurston. Their Eyes Were Watching God.
Roy. The God of Small Things.
2.
Read the question carefully:
“Some novelists invite the reader to experience the fictional world from inside the consciousness of one or more of the
characters; other novelists remain omniscient. Neither method is better in itself: the sole concern is how well the
narrative method fulfills the author’s particular purposes.” Discuss either or both of these kinds of narrative technique in
relation to their appropriateness in two or three of the novels you have studied.
3.
Decide what you are being asked to do. Underline the phrase or section that you think will be the focus of your essay.
(1)
“Some novelists invite the reader to [experience the fictional world from inside the
(2)
consciousness of one or more of the characters]; [other novelists remain omniscient.]
(3)
Neither method is better in itself: [the sole concern is how well the narrative method
(4)
fulfills the author’s [particular purposes.]” Discuss with respect to two or three of the novels you have studied.
4.
Now turn this key sentence into a question or questions which you will aim to answer in your essay.
a.
b.
5.
6.
What ARE the authors’ particular purposes?
How WELL does their (chosen) narrative method fulfill their purposes?
Divide this essay question into component parts that will need to be addressed, and do this by turning each part into a
question. (You have already done this for the third and fourth parts.) Note the appropriate authors and texts under each
question.
a.
Who gets inside the consciousness of one or more characters?
Emecheta (Kehinde), Roy (Rahel, Estha, Ammu, Baby Kochamma, Mammachi, Chacko), Hurston (Janie), ben
Jelloun (wandering storyteller, Mohammed/Zahra, crowd members, blind troubador)
b.
Who remains omniscient?
Roy (?) because of the number of insights she provides, or is “omniscience” synonymous with “objective”; ben
Jelloun uses a quasi-omniscient point of view by focusing on multiple narrators with differing versions of the
same story, and by using a completely removed narrator (“movie camera narrator”)
Now begin your outline, keeping the main parts of the question in mind.
Hurston: What is her purpose in TEWWG? How does his chosen narrative method (focusing on flashback with first
person narration) suit his purpose?
Purpose: to show the growth and maturing of a young woman through a variety of experiences and chances to the point
where she appreciates the important of certain human and social values; and to reflect a society through these experiences.
Method suits purpose because we enter into the reality, conflicts, confusions of Janie’s different experiences, which invite
our understanding, and simultaneously we are guided to feel the significance and mistakenness of much of what happens
to her through the voice she uses to tell the story, the things she emphasizes and comments upon, and how that shapes our
critical sense.
Examples…
(Now continue in this way, dealing with at least one other author, perhaps in contrast.)
TRADASP: Answering exam questions
(Source: E. Druce. UNIS.)
1.
Titles – list the names of the Group 3 works you can use in this exam.
2.
Rewrite the question in your own words.
3.
Additional questions? If there is more than one part to the question, rewrite all the parts in your own words.
4.
Define any words in the question which can be ambiguous. You may wish to define the meaning by exclusion.
5.
Apply your rewritten questions to 2-3 of the titles you have already listed. If the question does not fit, choose another.
Remember, you can choose one of the two questions in your genre or one of the two in the general section.
Similarities and differences – although your essay will be concentrating on the similarities of the works chosen, do not forget
that those works may be very different.
6.
Plan your essay. The introduction should state what you intend to do and list the works you are going to use. Also include
definitions (if necessary). The body of the essay should consist of an application of all parts of the question to each work
chosen for discussion. The conclusion should contain a brief summary of your findings plus a consideration of the differences
between the works.
Examples
Question on the novel and short story: “Examine the ways in which rebels, outsiders or characters alienated in some other way
from their societies have been presented in the works you have studied.”
1.
Titles: Nineteen Eighty-Four; Remains of the Day; Things Fall Apart; Metamorphosis
2.
Rewrite: Why have some characters become alienated from their societies?
3.
Additional question(s): What techniques have the authors used to show that these characters are alienated?
4.
Define: “outsiders” and “alienated”
5.
Apply: Why are Winston (Nineteen Eighty-Four) and Gregor (Metamorphosis) cut off from the other characters in their
societies? How do Orwell and Kafka show this? Are these two works similar or different? In what ways?
6.
Plan.
Question on drama: “Compare the dramatic uses that the playwrights you have studied have made of the endings of their plays.”
1.
Titles: Glass Menagerie; Waiting for Godot; Harold and the Boys; A Doll’s House
2.
Rewrite: What happens at the end of the plays?
3.
Additional question(s): How dramatic are the endings? How do the endings relate to the plays as a whole? (theme, character,
mood, setting, etc.)
4.
Define: “dramatic uses”
5.
Apply: At the end of A Doll’s House Nora leaves the house – last sound is the door shutting. Importance of this
dramatically? Glass Menagerie ends with Tom telling audience what he did after he left home but his last words are about
Laura: “Blow out your candles, Laura – and so goodbye.” How does this ending fit in dramatically with rest of play? Why
are the endings different?
6.
Plan.
Paper 2 questions we have seen so far (in class discussion/essays and from this packet):
Drama
1.
Compare the dramatic uses that the playwrights you have studied have made of the endings of their plays.
Prose: novel and short story
1.
Discuss the ways in which at least two authors have used minor characters as a technique in their writing.
2.
How, and to what extent, have two or three of the works you have studied been concerned with the individuals within a society?
3.
Literature consists of victors and victims. Discuss how the idea of victors and victims has been presented in at least two works you
have studied.
4.
How far has the presentation of the narratives you have studied departed from the chronological? Looking at two or three works,
consider how appropriate the sequence of the narrative is to what each work is about.
5.
Compare and contrast the role and importance of point of view in two or three works you have studied.
6.
Discuss the interplay between setting and action as part of the meaning of the novels you have read.
7.
How, and to what ends, have authors incorporated family relationships into at least two works you have studied?
8.
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief,
it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of
despair.” Openings are crucial to works of literature. Discuss in detail the way in which the three authors we have studied have used
openings within their novels. What are the different effects achieved?
9.
“In the end is my beginning.” This is a statement made by an author to describe how he organizes his work. What do you understand
by the sentence, and how does it cast light on the literary strategies employed in the three works we have studied?
10. “Not rounding off, but opening out.” Comment upon the way the writers of the novel and short story deal with the ending in relation
to the whole. In your answer you should refer to two or three novels or short stories you have studied.
11. Some novels draw attention to the fact that they are inventions or constructions of the writer; others seek to conceal this artifice.
Consider chosen novels in the light of this distinction, and say what the procedures adopted add to the effect of underlining or
concealing the fictional status of the writing.
12. Authors use the portrayal of characters who are somehow trapped or imprisoned as a means to criticize society. Referring closely to
at least two of the works from your study, show to what extent and in what ways this statement is true.
13. “Some novelists invite the reader to experience the fictional world from inside the consciousness of one or more of the characters;
other novelists remain omniscient. Neither method is better in itself: the sole concern is how well the narrative method fulfills the
author’s particular purposes.” Discuss either or both of these kinds of narrative technique in relation to their appropriateness in two
or three of the novels you have studied.
14. Examine the ways in which rebels, outsiders or characters alienated in some other way from their societies have been presented in
the works you have studied.
15. “What is noticed has been made more noticeable:” How do writers of prose, other than the novel and short story, attract and sustain
the reader's interest? Compare two or three prose works, other than the novel or short story, in your answer.
General Questions:
1.
“With the exception, perhaps, of music and dance, in all kinds of art it is possible to distinguish the content from the form.” In what
ways do at least two works you have studied make use of this relationship between content and form?
2.
To what extent, and in what ways, do writers present humans as being dependent on the society they live in? Discuss with reference
to at least two works that you have studied.
Source: Druce, Elizabeth and Hannah Tyson. IB English A1 Course Companion: International Baccalaureate Diploma Program. Oxford University Press: 2007.
Print. 240-251.
The following is a student's answer to this essay question:
“What is noticed has been made more noticeable:” How do writers of prose, other than the novel and short story, attract
and sustain the reader's interest? Compare two or three prose works, other than the novel or short story, in your answer.
Read the essay carefully, making a note of its good points and where it might be improved.
For the works "Down and Out in Paris and London" and "Running in the Family", the themes of overall poverty and someone
searching for their family's past, respectively, have certainly been touched on before. Yet the authors of both of these works,
George Orwell and Michael Ondaatje, manage to make these noticed themes much more noticeable, by outing a fresh spin
on old themes to the end of attracting and sustaining the reader's interest.
In "Down and Out in Paris and London", George Orwell steers clear from many of the conventions in literature about poverty.
George Orwell writes about poverty based on his own experience, but stays away from the cheapness of self pity in this work.
He also limits, save for Chapter 22 and a few other spots, rhetorical comments on the nature of poverty, using this technique
quite effectively but sparingly. Instead, the bulk of "Down and Out in Paris and London" is Orwell relating his personal
experiences on the individual intricacies of poverty: "I should like to know people like Mario and Paddy and Bill the Moocher,
not from casual encounters, but intimately. I should like to know what really goes on in the souls of plongeurs and tramps and
Embankment sleepers," says Orwell. This attitude leads Orwell to fill the book with rich character sketches, like Charlie on the Rue
du Coq d'or, Boris in the hotel, or Bozo in London, that enrich the text by putting a face on the poverty that Orwell speaks of.
Orwell's dedication to relating the personal stories of poverty develops and sustains an interest in the reader that separates the
book from others in the genre of literature about poverty.
Orwell is also very effective at using the structure of his work to sustain interest. After relating his rich personal experiences, Orwell
sprinkles in generalized comments on poverty, which place the personal experience back in its grander context and sustains
interest. For example, in Chapter VII, Orwell hooks the reader in by talking about hunger, and how, after two days of not eating,
Orwell was too tired to go out and look for food "so [he] spent the day in bed reading The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes". After
drawing the reader in with an interesting and capturing phrase, Orwell goes on to make a point about how hunger reduces
one to a vegetable state. Orwell successfully bounces back and forth between personal experience and generalized
comments to sustain the reader's interest. Because of this, "Down and Out in Paris and London" is both a good read and a
pointed work with a strong message.
Like Orwell writing of poverty, someone writing of a search for their family has been done before but Michael Ondaatje, in
"Running in the Family", is able to bring a freshness to that theme in which he manages to create and sustain a high level of
interest. "Running in the Family" is strong because Ondaatje frees himself from the bonds of dictating a strict narrative of himself
and his family history and rather focuses on conveying the mood of his family:
"I must confess that this book is not a history but a portrait or 'gesture' ... I can only say that in Sri Lanka a well told lie is worth a
thousand facts," says Ondaatje about his work. This admission does wonders for the text in terms of sustaining interest. Ondaatje
takes an approach where, yes, the anecdotes and tales do matter, but the meat of the theme is in the mood that is created
by these stories. Ondaatje uses that mood very effectively to communicate the core essences of his family. It is not particularly
important, per se, to Ondaatje or the reader, how many times the train from Colombo to Kegalle was sent back and forth by a
drunk Mervyn Ondaatje, or for how many days Lalla hid an accused murderer under her neighbour's bed, or how many ways
the family poultry farm could kill snakes; what is important is the meaning behind these stories, that Michael Ondaatje comes
from an. eccentric, free willed, and determined family, whether or not the events happened exactly as they were portrayed in
the book. This approach keeps the theme very subtly sustained and maintains interest by keeping the reader constantly
guessing, forced on their own to come up with the essence 'of the family.
Ondaatje does provide, though, a plethora of resources to the reader to develop their own essence of the family which greatly
adds to the interest of the work. "Running in the Family" is a rich collage of different styles, different times, and different
approaches that serve to communicate a central mood. The chapter "Tabula Asiae", for example, uses the motif of maps for
Ondaatje to explore his family. Ondaatje has rich intertextuality in this chapter with references to Ptolemy, Mercator, and
others, and Ondaatje follows the history of Ceylon through the use of strong imagery associated with the maps, a sea monster
here and a Moorish king there. Then, Ondaatje is able to pull all of that back to his family, recounting how his Dutch ancestor
married his Ceylonese ancestor. If that approach doesn't work for some readers, then the sensory details of Monsoon Notebook
(i), (ii), and (iii), or the epigraphs, or the poetry, or the finely tuned narratives of broken down cars and wild parties will capture
the reader's interest. Although Ondaatje takes such a diverse approach in terms of style to this work, it is particularly strong in
that it manages to stick to a central theme. This makes what has been noticed (a man searching for his family) much more
noticeable by approaching the search for family from several angles.
Both Orwell and Ondaatje put a fresh spin onto the themes that they wrote about in their respective works. I now know Boris, an
odd former Russian soldier who hops around looking for work in the different hotels in Paris. Orwell's rich character sketches and
devotion to experiencing poverty intimately made the book very interesting and put a face on poverty, attracting and
sustaining a high level of interest. This is very similar to the way the rich and varied styles found in "Running in the Family" got me
acquainted with the Ondaatje family and sustained my interest. George Orwell and Michael Ondaatje, in "Down and Out in
Paris and London" and "Running in the Family" respectively, are successful in using their writing techniques to create and keep
alive interest, and thus make the noticed more noticeable in their works.