Cambridge A-Level English Language: Paper 1 Reading (9093)

This guide covers Paper 1 Reading, one of two AS Level papers in Cambridge International AS & A Level English Language (9093), Version 2. In Paper 1, candidates are primarily assessed on skills and techniques related to reading; the full A Level adds Paper 3 Language Analysis and Paper 4 Language Topics.

Where this fits in 9093

Paper 1 asks candidates to read widely across genres and styles and respond to unseen texts analytically, discursively and creatively. The knowledge and understanding developed here is shared directly with Paper 2 Writing, which the specification explicitly builds on the same foundation.

Syllabus coverage

CAMBRIDGE INTERNATIONAL AS & A LEVEL ENGLISH LANGUAGE (9093) — PAPER 1 READING

• 1.1 Knowledge and understanding — the conventions of a wide range of written textual forms (such as articles, reviews, blogs, autobiographies, travel writing and scripted speech); the linguistic elements and literary features of texts (including vocabulary, figurative language, phonology, tense, narrative perspective and paragraph- and text-level structure); the significance of audience in the design and reception of texts; and how genre, purpose and context contribute to meaning
• 1.2 Skills and techniques — reading a range of unseen texts; analysing how linguistic elements combine to create meaning; writing analytically about the effects of linguistic and literary features; selecting and interpreting quotations and evidence with precision; integrating evidence into a cohesive argument; and writing short, directed pieces in response to a text, including in the same or a different style

How to approach it

Because the knowledge and understanding in 1.1 is explicitly shared with Paper 2, building a genuinely wide reading habit across the example genres – news journalism, travel writing, speeches, blogs – pays off across both papers rather than only this one. The skills in 1.2 reward precision over volume: practise selecting a small number of well-chosen quotations and building sustained, specific commentary around them, rather than surveying a text broadly. The directed writing tasks – writing in the same style as a given text, or a different style while reusing its content – are distinctive to this specification, so practise both directions explicitly rather than assuming general creative writing skill transfers automatically.

Official syllabus

Cambridge International AS & A Level English Language (9093) syllabus for 2024, 2025 and 2026 — cambridgeinternational.org.

What the paper requires

Two things are tested together: analysis of an unseen text, and directed writing in which you reshape material for a different audience, purpose or form.

Both depend on the same underlying skill — recognising how choices of language create effects — but they apply it in opposite directions. Analysis takes a text apart; directed writing builds one to specification.

Analysing an unseen text

Work systematically through the frameworks rather than commenting on whatever catches the eye first.

• Form and structure — how the text opens, develops and closes; paragraph lengths; shifts in focus or time.
• Lexis — semantic fields, connotation, formality, concrete against abstract, monosyllabic against polysyllabic.
• Grammar — sentence types (simple, compound, complex, minor), sentence length and variety, active or passive voice, mood, modality.
• Imagery — metaphor, simile, personification, and crucially what the comparison implies.
• Tone and voice — the attitude conveyed, and whether it shifts.
• Point of view — first, second or third person, and the distance it creates.

Every observation needs the same three-part treatment: identify, quote, explain the effect. The explanation must connect to the writer’s purpose and the reader’s experience.

Directed writing

You will be given a form (letter, speech, article, diary, report), an audience and a purpose, and material to draw on.

• Form dictates conventions — a speech needs direct address and rhetorical patterning; a report needs headings and neutral register.
• Audience dictates register, vocabulary and assumed knowledge.
• Purpose dictates structure — to persuade, order arguments for impact; to inform, order them for clarity.

Use the source material but transform it: select what serves your purpose, reorganise it, and recast it in your own words. Copying stretches of the original is the most heavily penalised error in the task.

Adopting a consistent voice — a persona appropriate to the form — is what separates competent from strong responses.

Comparison and commentary

Where two texts are set, compare how they achieve their effects, not merely what they say. Structure by point of comparison rather than text by text, so the comparison is genuinely integrated.

A reflective commentary should explain your own choices in terms of audience and purpose — why this structure, this register, this opening — rather than narrating what you wrote.

Worked example

Analysing: “The factory stood silent, its chimneys cold, its gates chained.”

Tricolon              three parallel clauses build a cumulative sense of
                      finality
Personification       "stood silent" gives the factory human stillness,
                      suggesting death rather than mere closure
Lexical field of cold "silent", "cold", "chained" -- absence of heat,
                      sound and movement, all markers of industrial life
Asyndetic listing     no conjunctions; the clauses accumulate flatly,
                      mirroring resignation
Past tense, third person  detached observation, no consolation offered

Effect: the closure is presented as irreversible and the reader's
sympathy is directed at the loss rather than at any cause.

Common mistakes

Feature-spotting with no explanation of effect. Summarising content instead of analysing language. Lifting phrasing from the source in directed writing. Ignoring one of form, audience or purpose. Comparing texts sequentially rather than by point. Writing a commentary that narrates rather than justifies.

Quick revision checklist

• Work through form, lexis, grammar, imagery, tone and point of view systematically.
• Identify, quote and explain — every time, with the effect tied to purpose.
• Match form conventions, register and structure to the audience and purpose given.
• Transform source material rather than reproducing it.
• Compare texts by point of comparison, integrating both.
• Justify your own choices in a commentary rather than describing them.