Edexcel IGCSE English Language: Non-fiction Texts and Transactional Writing — Revision Notes

Condensed for the final weeks. For the full explanation, use the Non-fiction Texts and Transactional Writing study guide.

Component 1 in numbers: 2 hours 15 minutes, 90 marks (45 per section), 60% of the qualification. Advised timing is around 1 hour 30 minutes for Section A and 45 minutes for Section B. Section B offers a choice of two writing prompts.

Reading non-fiction

Naming a technique earns nothing. The mark is for the effect — specific to this word, in this text, for this audience and purpose.

Compare:

• Weak: “The writer uses emotive language, which makes it more effective.”
• Strong: “‘Abandoned’ positions the reader to see the residents as victims of neglect rather than of misfortune, quietly assigning blame without naming anyone.”

The pattern that scores: quote → what it suggests → why the writer chose it.

Keep quotations short. A two-word quotation embedded in your own sentence shows more control than a copied line.

Reading questions progress in three stages: literal comprehension (identifying explicit information), inference (working out implied meaning), and language/structural analysis (explaining the effect of specific word choices or organisation). Treat these as genuinely different skills — a candidate confident at identifying facts can still lose marks on an inference or analysis question if they don’t shift approach accordingly.

One of the two Section A texts is not unseen. The section pairs one previously unseen extract with a non-fiction text from Part 1 of the Pearson Edexcel International GCSE English Anthology, supplied in the exam itself. The ten Part 1 texts are: The Danger of a Single Story, A Passage to Africa, The Explorer’s Daughter, Explorers, or boys messing about? Either way, taxpayer gets rescue bill, 127 Hours: Between a Rock and a Hard Place, Young and Dyslexic? You’ve got it going on, A Game of Polo with a Headless Goat, Beyond the Sky and Earth: A Journey into Bhutan, H is for Hawk, and Chinese Cinderella. Reading all ten in advance – not just practising with unseen material – is preparation this section specifically rewards.

Features worth commenting on

• Emotive and connotative word choice — what associations does it carry?
• Statistics and expert quotation — lend authority, but consider whose.
• Anecdote — makes an abstract issue personal and harder to dismiss.
• Rhetorical questions — presuppose agreement, making disagreement feel unreasonable.
• Direct address (you) — creates involvement and implied obligation.
• Rule of three, contrast, repetition — structural emphasis.
• Sentence variation — a short sentence after long ones lands hard.

Structure matters too: where does the writer place the strongest point? What does the opening do, and what does the ending leave the reader with?

Comparison questions

Compare how the writers achieve their effects, not just what they say.

Use a point-by-point structure rather than describing each text in turn — write about the same feature in both, then move on. That produces genuine comparison rather than two separate accounts.

Comparative connectives do real work: whereas, similarly, by contrast, in the same way. Every paragraph should refer to both texts.

Transactional writing

Fix three things before writing: form, audience, purpose.

The six specified transactional forms are: article (for a magazine or newspaper), speech, letter, guide, review, and the text of a leaflet. “Report” is not one of this specification’s named forms.

Form	Register	Features
Letter	As directed	Correct opening and sign-off
Speech	Persuasive, direct	Address the audience; rhetorical questions
Article	Engaging, semi-formal	Headline, hook, structured paragraphs
Guide	Clear, instructional	Headings, step-by-step structure, direct address
Review	Personal but informed	Judgement with justification
Leaflet	Engaging, persuasive or informative	Headings, bullet points, direct address

This section gives a prompt, not source material to work from — there is no given text to develop or copying to avoid. Marks are awarded against the two writing objectives only (communication/adaptation of form, tone and register, and technical accuracy); there are no reading marks in this section, so a response should be planned and drafted as an original piece of writing for the specified purpose, audience and form.

Deploy the same techniques you analyse in the reading section: rhetorical questions, direct address, the rule of three, contrast, a well-placed short sentence. Using them deliberately is what lifts the writing mark.

A transactional writing task specifies purpose, audience and form in the question itself, and strong answers reflect all three consistently throughout, not just in an opening line. A letter to a newspaper editor needs a different register and structure from a speech to a school assembly, even where both are persuasive in purpose — the audience and form change how that purpose should actually be expressed. Briefly noting the specified purpose, audience and form before writing, and checking the finished response against that note, catches the most common way marks are lost: drifting into a generic essay-like register regardless of what form was actually asked for.

Technical accuracy

Marks are available for accuracy, and the same errors recur:

• Comma splice — two complete sentences joined by a comma. Use a full stop, semicolon or conjunction.
• its / it’s, their / there / they’re, your / you’re.
• Apostrophes for plurals.
• Inconsistent tense.
• Paragraphs that do not change with time, place, topic or speaker.

Plan for five minutes and check for three. Both are worth more than the extra content those minutes would have bought.

Exam traps

• Naming techniques without effects.
• Long quotations used as padding.
• Comparing content rather than method.
• Writing about one text and then the other instead of point by point.
• Ignoring form, audience or purpose.
• Lifting from the source in transactional writing.

Self-test

1. What three-part pattern earns analysis marks?
2. Why should comparison be point-by-point?
3. What is the effect of a rhetorical question?
4. What three things must be fixed before transactional writing?
5. What is a comma splice, and how is it fixed?
6. Name the three stages that reading questions progress through.
7. What should you note before starting a transactional writing task, and why?

Answers: 1. Quote the language, explain what it suggests, then explain why the writer chose it for that audience and purpose. 2. Writing about each text in turn produces two separate accounts; addressing the same feature in both texts together produces genuine comparison. 3. It presupposes the reader’s agreement, making disagreement feel unreasonable rather than simply different. 4. Form, audience and purpose. 5. Two complete sentences joined only by a comma; fix it with a full stop, a semicolon, or a coordinating conjunction. 6. Literal comprehension, inference, and language/structural analysis. 7. The specified purpose, audience and form, then check the finished response against that note — this catches the most common way marks are lost: drifting into a generic essay-like register regardless of what form was asked for.