English Language, paper 2 Q1–Q4

Links to articles

Last Tuesday, I shared an article on how to answer Q4 for the second English Language paper, but embarrassingly I accidentally titled it Q2.

I’ve since updated the article heading but I just want to make it clear if anyone was confused and share links to the first 4 questions of English Language paper 2 for your convenience.

Q1 and Q3

Q2

Q4

I’ve put a lot of time and thought into these articles, so do check them out and attempt the questions yourself after reading the articles for practice.

It’s important that you practice these questions. There’s no better way to prepare yourself for your exams, but to make good progress you need to set yourself modest targets.

If you set yourself the goal of sitting down to complete a whole paper, you’ll most likely never get around to it. But you can probably find the time and motivation to complete one or two questions per week and systematically work your way through all of your papers. This is what I’m hoping some of you have been doing with this English Language series, and it’s how I approach working with my students as a tutor.

A great quote I picked up last year is this:

‘The only thing that is doing the thing is doing the thing.’

This is preceded by a long list of things which are not doing the thing which you can read here.

I like this quote because it reminds me of how we often procrastinate about doing hard things like practice questions for an exam with stuff that just feels productive.

That’s not to say that reading my articles isn’t helpful, but it’s like going to gym. If you just listen to someone give advice on how to get stronger, it isn’t in itself going to make you any stronger. You have actually go to the gym and do the recommended workouts.

If you want to get strong, lift heavy stuff. If you want to get better at exams, do more practice papers.

Best,

Morgan