Modern Texts and Poetry (8702): Practice Questions

These are original questions written for Marlbridge, in the style and at the standard of the examination, and do not reference any specific set text or named anthology poem – apply the method below to your own studied text and cluster. The two unseen poems in Section C are original short poems written for this resource, not reproduced past-paper questions or copyrighted anthology material. Examination boards hold copyright in their own papers and anthology poems – use these alongside the official past papers available free from your board.

Related: Modern Texts and Poetry revision notes

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Section A (practise using your own studied modern text)

Paper 2 Section A is a whole-text essay — unlike Paper 1’s Shakespeare question, there is no supplied extract to build outward from. AQA sets a choice of two essay questions for each set text; you answer only the one on the text you have studied.

1. Explore how the writer presents power (or another central theme) in your studied modern prose or drama text as a whole. [34]

1b. (Alternative question on the same text) Explore how the writer presents a central relationship in your studied modern prose or drama text as a whole. [34]

Section B (practise using your own studied poetry cluster)

2. Choose a poem from your studied anthology cluster that deals centrally with power or conflict, and compare how it and one other poem from the same cluster present this theme through their use of structure and language. [30]

3. (Alternative Section B question) Choose a poem from your studied anthology cluster that deals centrally with loss or separation, and compare how it and one other poem from the same cluster present this theme, focusing on structure as well as content. [30]

Section C (unseen poetry)

Read the two original poems below, then answer both questions.

The House After

The kettle’s cold. The chairs still face the window like they’re waiting still for someone’s key to turn the lock, a voice to fill the empty hall.

Dust settles soft on unwashed cups, the calendar stopped mid-July. A coat hangs where it always hung — too heavy now for me to move.

I leave the porch light on at night, though no one’s coming home to it. The house forgets him slower than the street outside forgets his name.

Tideline

The sea takes back what it once gave — a shell, a shoe, a child’s red pail — and leaves them scattered on the sand like sentences it can’t quite finish.

Each wave arrives with such conviction, certain this time it will stay, then loses nerve against the shore and drags its confidence away.

I used to think the tide was leaving. Now I know it always comes again — not the same wave, never quite, but close enough to call it home.

4. In The House After, how does the poet present the speaker’s experience of loss? [24]

5. Compare how the poets present ideas about permanence and change in The House After and Tideline. [8]

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Answers (worked approach — marks for Q1–3 depend on your studied text and cluster; AQA marks these holistically against level descriptors rather than by adding points for named features, so the bracketed sub-totals below are an illustrative guide to weighting, not the official mark scheme)

1. A top-band answer traces power as it is exercised, resisted or lost at several distinct moments across the whole text, analysing the writer’s language, form and structure at each moment chosen rather than simply retelling events, and using precise, memorised textual evidence throughout [24]. The strongest responses also weave in social and historical context relevant specifically to why the writer presents power this way (for a drama text, this may include staging or performance choices), rather than adding context as a disconnected final paragraph [6]. A further 4 marks are credited under AO4 for accurate spelling and punctuation and a range of vocabulary and sentence structures used for clarity and effect.

1b. As with Q1, a strong answer traces how the relationship develops across several distinct moments in the whole text, analysing the writer’s methods at each moment rather than narrating events, and using precise evidence throughout [24], with relevant context integrated throughout to explain why the relationship changes as it does [6]. The same 4 AO4 marks for accuracy apply as in Q1.

2. A strong response identifies the chosen poem’s method for presenting power or conflict — form, structure, and specific language choices — before turning to the second poem [12], then builds a genuine comparison rather than two separate descriptions: using connectives (“similarly,” “in contrast,” “whereas”) from the opening paragraph onward, and comparing structure and form as well as theme [14]. The strongest answers select the second poem specifically because it offers a clear point of connection or contrast worth exploring, decided in advance rather than under exam pressure [4].

3. As with Q2, a strong response opens by identifying how the first poem’s structure and language present loss or separation [12], then compares this against the second poem using active comparison throughout rather than saved for a conclusion [14], with a brief closing judgement on which poem’s method the candidate finds more effective and why [4].

4. A strong answer notices that the poem presents loss indirectly, through domestic detail rather than direct statement of grief — the cold kettle, the unwashed cups, the stopped calendar all suggest time frozen at the point of loss [1] [8]. The porch light left on is a key symbolic detail, showing the speaker’s inability to accept the loss is final, and could be compared with the coat “too heavy now for me to move,” which suggests both physical and emotional inability to let go [8]. The final line — “the house forgets him slower than / the street outside forgets his name” — personifies the house as sharing the speaker’s grief, and a top-band answer will comment on how this shifts the poem’s focus from the speaker alone to a shared, lingering absence, and on the effect of the enjambment across these closing lines, which delays and softens the poem’s final admission [7].

5. The House After presents permanence through domestic objects that resist change — the frozen calendar, the immovable coat — suggesting the speaker experiences change as something imposed and resisted [1] [2]. Tideline presents the opposite dynamic: change is presented as constant and inevitable (“it always comes again”), and the poem’s final stanza reframes what first seemed like loss (things being “taken back”) as a repeating, almost comforting pattern [1] [3]. A strong comparative answer notes that both poems use a concrete, physical image (a house; a shoreline) to explore an abstract idea, but reach different conclusions — one poem’s speaker resists change, the other’s comes to accept it — which could be linked to each poem’s structure: the settled, four-line stanzas of The House After versus the shifting, more uncertain rhythm of Tideline’s final stanza [1].

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Building a whole-text revision approach for Section A

Because Section A gives you no extract to build from, revision should focus on assembling a bank of specific, memorised evidence spread across the whole text, not on rehearsing a single pre-written essay. For each theme or character likely to come up, identify four or five key moments spread across the beginning, middle and end of the text, and practise retrieving a brief, precise quotation for each from memory. Then time yourself writing a plan (5 minutes) that sequences these moments and states, for each, which of the writer’s methods you would analyse and which piece of context is genuinely relevant there. This moment-by-moment structure — rather than a chronological retelling of the plot — is what the mark scheme rewards, and it is a skill built by repeated timed practice, not by re-reading the text alone.

Where marks are usually lost

• Section A answers that retell the plot chronologically instead of analysing the writer’s methods at a series of chosen moments.
• Section B comparisons that address theme only, ignoring the structure and form AQA credits equally.
• Choosing a second poem for Section B under exam pressure rather than deciding on a pairing in advance.
• Section C answers that describe what an unseen poem is about without analysing how language and structure create that effect.
• Running short on time for Section C because it feels the least prepared-for, even though it carries 32 of the paper’s 96 marks — not the same tariff as Sections A (34) and B (30), but still too substantial a share to under-time.
• Adding social or historical context as a bolt-on final paragraph instead of integrating it throughout the answer.

Approaching unseen poetry under exam pressure

The two questions above follow the real Section C structure: a longer single-poem analysis question, then a shorter comparison question worth roughly a third of the marks. On the single-poem question, resist the urge to summarise what happens in the poem — instead, work through what the poet’s specific choices of language, form and structure do, using brief, precise quotation rather than paraphrase. On the comparison question, decide quickly what the two poems share and where they differ before writing a single word, since a clear comparative plan in the first two minutes produces a far more focused answer than discovering the comparison as you write. Practising this two-question structure regularly, on poems you have genuinely never seen before, is the only preparation that transfers directly to the exam.