Edexcel IGCSE English Language: Non-fiction Texts and Transactional Writing — Practice Questions

These are original questions written for Marlbridge, in the style and at the standard of the examination. They are not reproduced past-paper questions — examination boards hold copyright in their own papers. Use these alongside the official past papers available free from your board.

Related: Non-fiction Texts and Transactional Writing revision notes

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Section A

1. Name four forms of transactional writing and state one convention of each. [4]

2. Explain what is meant by a writer’s purpose and give four possible purposes. [3]

Section B

3. A travel writer writes: “The bus was late, the seat was torn, and the driver had clearly decided that indicators were a matter of personal taste.”

(a) Identify the tone and explain how it is created. [4] (b) Explain the effect of the listing structure and the final clause. [3]

4. Explain how to compare two non-fiction texts effectively, giving four points of comparison and one common error. [6]

5. You must write an article for a school magazine advising students on managing exam stress.

(a) Identify the audience, purpose and tone. [3] (b) Explain three features of an article you would use. [6] (c) Explain two ways to make advice sound helpful rather than preachy. [4]

6. Explain the difference between analysing a writer’s viewpoint and simply summarising what the text says. [3]

Section C

7. Explain the difference between an inference question and a language analysis question, and explain why a candidate who is confident at identifying facts can still lose marks on either. [4]

8. A non-fiction writer opens a paragraph with a statistic and follows it with a short anecdote about one individual. Explain the purpose of each. [4]

9. Correct the errors in this sentence and name each error: “The report was late, it’s conclusions were unclear and every readers opinion was ignored.” [3]

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Answers

1. Any four: a letter — address, date, appropriate salutation and sign-off [1]; an article — headline, subheadings, an engaging opening [1]; a speech — direct address to the audience and a call to action [1]; a report — title, headed sections, formal impersonal register, recommendations [1]; a review — description followed by evaluation and a recommendation.

2. The writer’s purpose is what they want the text to achieve in the reader [1]. Purposes include to inform, to persuade, to entertain, to advise, to argue, to describe [1] [1].

3. (a) The tone is wry, ironic or gently comic [1]. It is created by the understated euphemism “a matter of personal taste” applied to something that is actually a safety requirement [1]; by the deadpan delivery, in which the writer reports irritation without complaining directly [1]; and by the contrast between formal phrasing and a trivial complaint, which invites the reader to share the joke rather than the anger [1]. (b) The tricolon lists three complaints of escalating seriousness [1], so the reader is led from minor inconvenience to genuine danger [1]. Placing the funniest and most serious item last gives it the weight of a punchline, which softens the criticism while sharpening it [1].

4. Points of comparison, any four: purpose — what each writer wants to achieve [1]; tone and attitude towards the subject [1]; structure — how each text is organised and where its emphasis falls [1]; language choices — imagery, register, formality [1]; use of evidence — statistics versus anecdote [1]; audience each is written for [1]. Common error: writing about one text and then the other in separate halves, rather than comparing point by point with connectives such as “whereas” and “similarly” [1] — an examiner cannot award comparison marks if no comparison is made.

5. (a) Audience — fellow students, roughly your own age [1]. Purpose — to advise [1]. Tone — friendly, reassuring and practical, not lecturing [1]. (b) Any three, 2 marks each: an engaging headline and standfirst that make a student want to read on rather than turn the page [1] [1]; subheadings breaking the advice into manageable sections, since a stressed reader is scanning rather than reading closely [1] [1]; direct address and rhetorical questions to create a conversational relationship [1] [1]; a memorable closing line or single practical takeaway [1] [1]. (c) Include yourself in the problem — using “we” and admitting your own experience of stress, so the reader does not feel judged [1] [1]; give specific, achievable suggestions rather than commands — “try twenty minutes then a break” rather than “you must revise properly” — because concrete small steps feel possible and imperatives feel like nagging [1] [1].

6. Summarising states what information the text contains [1]. Analysing viewpoint identifies what the writer thinks and feels about the subject, and shows how their language, structure and selection of detail reveal it [1] — for example noting that the writer’s choice to describe only the queues and not the exhibits reveals an underlying impatience [1].

7. An inference question asks the candidate to work out implied meaning — what the text suggests without stating directly [1]. A language analysis question asks the candidate to explain the effect of specific word or structural choices [1]. These are genuinely different skills from literal comprehension (identifying explicit information) [1], so a candidate who can accurately locate facts in a text may still fail to shift approach when a question instead requires inference or analysis, losing marks despite reading the passage correctly [1].

8. The statistic lends authority and objectivity, establishing the scale of an issue with evidence the reader cannot easily dismiss [1] [1]. The anecdote about one individual makes the abstract issue personal, giving the reader someone to picture and care about, which a statistic alone cannot do [1] [1].

9. “The report was late; its conclusions were unclear and every reader’s opinion was ignored.” Corrections: the comma splice between “late” and “it’s” is fixed with a semicolon [1]; it’s → its (possessive, not “it is”) [1]; every readers → every reader’s (singular possessive apostrophe, not a plural) [1].

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Where marks are usually lost

• Describing tone as “negative” without saying what kind.
• Comparing texts sequentially rather than point by point.
• Writing an article with no headline or subheadings.
• Retelling the content instead of analysing the writer’s attitude.