Pearson Edexcel IGCSE English Language: Component 3 Non-Examined Assessment — Practice Questions (4EA1)

These are original questions written for Marlbridge, for revision and practice on this content. They are not reproduced past-paper questions, and they do not replicate the exam’s exact structure, question count or mark tariffs — examination boards hold copyright in their own papers. Use these alongside the official past papers available free from your board.

Related: Component 3 revision notes · Component 3 study guide

Component 3 of Pearson Edexcel International GCSE English Language A (4EA1) is assessed through two coursework assignments marked out of 30 each: Assignment A (three Anthology Part 2 texts, AO1 12 + AO2 18) and Assignment B (imaginative writing, AO4 18 + AO5 12). The tasks below follow the specification’s own task formats. Section A checks the rules; Sections B and C give full assignment tasks with indicative content and level guidance taken from the Pearson assessment grids.

Section A: Rules and task-setting

1. A student chooses “Disabled”, “Out, Out–” and “Still I Rise” for Assignment A. Explain why this choice does not meet the requirements, and suggest one change. [2]

2. State the marks for each assessment objective in Assignment A and Assignment B. [4]

3. A student’s Assignment B is a discursive essay arguing that school uniform should be abolished. Explain why this is unsuitable. [2]

4. A student’s Assignment A is 1450 words long. Explain whether this is penalised. [1]

5. After receiving a mark, a student wants to rewrite two paragraphs. Explain what the specification says. [1]

6. Rewrite this weak task so that it follows the specification’s suggested format: “Write about the three texts we read in class.” [2]

Section B: Assignment A tasks (30 marks each)

7. Discuss how the writers use language and structure to present sudden loss in “Out, Out–”, “Disabled” and “The Necklace”. [30]

In your response you should:

• discuss the ideas and perspectives of the writers about sudden loss
• discuss how the writers use language and structure to achieve their effects
• include textual references to illustrate the points you make.

8. Discuss how the writers use language and structure to present a longing for freedom in “The Story of an Hour”, “Still I Rise” and “An Unknown Girl”. [30]

Section C: Assignment B tasks (30 marks each)

9. “During the night the wind rose.” Write your own imaginative and descriptive piece that begins with those words. [30]

10. After reading “The Story of an Hour”, write an imaginative piece told by a character who receives news that changes everything. Your purpose is to narrate. [30]

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Answers

1. All three are poems [1]; at least one prose text is required, so replace one poem with a Part 2 prose text, for example “The Necklace” [1].

2. Assignment A: AO1 12, AO2 18 [2]. Assignment B: AO4 18, AO5 12 [2].

3. The purpose of Assignment B must be to narrate, describe or entertain [1]; an argument essay is transactional writing, which belongs to Component 1 [1].

4. No. The 1200-word guide is advisory and there is no penalty for exceeding it [1].

5. Work must not be rewritten after it has been marked [1].

6. Any version that names a focus and three Part 2 texts including a poem and a prose text, in the format “Discuss how the writers use language and structure to present [focus] in [text 1], [text 2] and [text 3]” [2].

Question 7: indicative content

AO1 (12 marks): ideas and perspectives

• Frost presents the boy’s death as abrupt and the adults’ response as unsettlingly practical: life carries on.
• Owen presents loss as slow and social as well as physical: the soldier has lost his body, his youth and the attention of women, and enlisted for vanity as much as duty.
• Maupassant presents loss as self-inflicted through vanity: one borrowed necklace costs Mathilde ten years.
• Perceptive answers compare perspectives: Frost’s detached, Owen’s angry pity, Maupassant’s irony.

AO2 (18 marks): language and structure

• Frost: the saw personified as it “snarled and rattled”; the narrative voice’s wish “Call it a day, I wish they might have said”; the short final sentences.
• Owen: contrasts of past and present, light and dark; the pathos of “Smiling they wrote his lie; aged nineteen years”; the repeated closing question.
• Maupassant: a twist ending that reframes the story; contrast of Mathilde’s dreams with her real home; a narrative structure that covers ten years in a few lines.

Level guidance. At AO2 Level 3 (7–10) the student “makes clear explanations of the effects of language and structure”. Level 5 (15–18) needs “subtle and discriminating selection” and “perceptive analysis”, such as explaining why the reader feels the shock of Maupassant’s final line differently from the inevitability of Frost’s ending.

Model paragraph (upper level). “All three writers structure loss around a moment that cannot be undone, but they place that moment differently. Frost delays it until the saw ‘leaped out at the boy’s hand’, after a long stretch of calm description, so the violence feels out of proportion to the peaceful setting. Owen places the loss before the poem begins, and builds the poem from memories that contrast with the present, so the reader sees what has been lost through the man’s own regret. Maupassant withholds the true scale of the loss until the very last line, turning ten years of suffering into irony.”

Question 8: indicative content

AO	Points a strong answer might make
AO1	Chopin’s Louise feels unexpected freedom on hearing of her husband’s death, ended by his return; Angelou’s speaker asserts freedom from oppression with defiance; Alvi’s speaker visiting an Indian bazaar from Britain, longs to belong to the identity the henna represents
AO2	Chopin: the open window and spring imagery, the repeated “free”; the ironic final sentence about “joy that kills”. Angelou: refrain “I rise”, rhetorical questions, similes of dust, air and moons and suns. Alvi: short lines; imagery of the mehndi on her hand; the “neon” setting
Comparison	Freedom is momentary in Chopin, collective and triumphant in Angelou, and divided in Alvi

Question 9: indicative content

AO	What the stronger response does
AO4 (18)	Sustains a clear descriptive purpose; controls viewpoint and tense; shapes the piece (for example zooming from landscape to one room); uses imagery and sound to build mood. Top level: “sophisticated use of form, tone and register”
AO5 (12)	Varies sentence length deliberately (short sentences for gusts, longer for calm); wide, precise vocabulary; accurate punctuation used for effect; clear paragraphing. Top level: “extensive vocabulary” used “strategically”

Common weakness. Turning the description into an action story with little detail, which reduces AO4, or long lists of adjectives, which do not count as “strategic” vocabulary.

Question 10: indicative content

AO	What the stronger response does
AO4 (18)	Clear narrative purpose; a controlled time-frame (the hour, the day); interior thought that reveals character; an ending that changes the reader’s understanding, as Chopin’s does
AO5 (12)	Dialogue punctuated correctly; paragraphing used to mark shifts in time and feeling; complex sentences for reflection, simple sentences for shock

Level guidance. AO4 Level 3 (8–11) “communicates clearly”; Level 4 (12–15) shows a “secure realisation of the writing task”; Level 5 (16–18) is “perceptive and subtle”.

Frequently asked questions

Do I have to compare the three texts in Assignment A? The suggested format asks how “the writers” present a focus, so the strongest essays connect texts by idea and method, though the grid rewards analysis of each text.

Can Assignment B be a poem? The specification asks for imaginative writing whose purpose is to narrate, describe or entertain; check with your teacher, who devises the task.

How much quotation should Assignment A include? Enough to support every point. The AO1 top level asks for “discriminating use of supporting quotations”, so choose short, precise references.

Official specification

Pearson Edexcel International GCSE in English Language (Specification A) 4EA1, Issue 7, Component 3 — qualifications.pearson.com.