IB DP Language A: Language and Literature -- Readers, Writers and Texts: 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 – the IB holds copyright in its own papers. Use these alongside the official past papers available through your school or the IB store.

Related: Readers, Writers and Texts study guide and revision notes.

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Section A

1. State the two-part question that a specific textual choice should always be analysed through. [2]

2. Give one literary and one non-literary example of a “narrative or structural choice.” [2]

3. Name this subject’s other two syllabus components. [2]

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Section B

4. A student’s analysis reads: “The advert uses bright colours and a smiling family.” Explain why this sentence, on its own, does not yet demonstrate the analytical skill this component rewards, and rewrite it to demonstrate that skill. [4]

5. A news article places a company’s job-loss announcement in the fourth paragraph, after three paragraphs describing the company’s new environmental initiative.

(a) Identify the structural choice being made here. [1] (b) Explain the likely effect of this choice on how a reader interprets the article’s main story. [3]

6. A poem’s final stanza breaks from the regular rhyme scheme used throughout the rest of the poem.

(a) Identify what kind of textual choice this is. [1] (b) Suggest a possible effect this choice creates for a reader, and explain your reasoning. [3]

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Section C

7. “Non-literary texts reward the same close analytical attention as literary ones.” Using the ideas from this component, explain why treating non-literary texts as “easier” or less worthy of close reading is a significant risk specifically for students of this subject. [8]

8. Explain how visual and spatial elements can carry meaning in a text, using one literary and one non-literary example. [6]

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Worked answers

1. First, identify a specific choice the writer or producer of a text has made (word choice, sentence structure, structure of the whole piece, visual layout); second, explain the effect that choice creates and why a reader responds to it in a particular way. [2]

2. Literary: choosing flashback over chronological order to control when a reader learns key information. Non-literary: a news report placing a key fact in the headline versus burying it in a later paragraph. (Any equally valid pair accepted.) [2]

3. Time and Space, and Intertextuality: connecting texts across cultures and periods. [2]

4. The sentence only names techniques (bright colours, a smiling family) without explaining what effect they create on a reader or how they connect to the advert’s purpose – this is technique-spotting, not analysis. A stronger version connects the specific choice to an effect: “The advert’s bright colour palette and image of a smiling family work together to associate the product with warmth and domestic happiness, encouraging a viewer to link purchasing the product with achieving a similar sense of family contentment.” [4]

5. (a) Placing less favourable news later in the piece, after more favourable content, is a structural/ordering choice. [1] (b) A reader who reads only the opening paragraphs, or skims the article, is more likely to come away with an impression shaped by the environmental initiative than by the job losses; even a reader who reads the whole piece may unconsciously weight the environmental initiative more heavily, since it is presented first and given more space. This ordering choice can shape a reader’s overall impression of the company’s actions without the article containing any factually false statement. [3]

6. (a) A structural/formal choice – a deliberate break from an established pattern. [1] (b) A reasonable answer: breaking the established rhyme scheme in the final stanza can create a jarring or unsettling effect, drawing the reader’s attention specifically to that stanza and suggesting a disruption in the poem’s content or mood (a shift in tone, an unresolved ending, a moment of crisis) that mirrors the formal disruption – reasoning that connects the specific formal choice to a plausible effect on meaning, rather than simply noting that the pattern “changes.” [3]

7. Because Paper 1’s guided textual analysis is set on unseen non-literary passages specifically, non-literary analysis is not a secondary or optional skill in this subject – it is directly, externally examined, in a format that gives no advance knowledge of which passage will appear. A student who has practised close reading mainly on literary texts, on the assumption that non-literary texts are more straightforwardly “read for content” than “read for craft,” arrives at Paper 1 under-prepared for exactly the paper most likely to test unfamiliar material under time pressure. Non-literary texts are, in fact, just as deliberately constructed as literary ones – an advertisement’s colour choices, a news article’s paragraph ordering, a website’s use of white space – and reward the same two-part analytical process (identify a specific choice, explain its effect) that literary analysis uses. Treating non-literary texts as “easier” therefore risks under-preparing for the paper that is, structurally, the clearest signal of how central non-literary analysis is to this specific subject, as distinct from Language A: Literature, which studies literary texts only. [8]

8. In a literary text, visual and spatial elements might include a graphic novel’s panel layout and sizing, where a full-page panel can slow a reader’s pace and emphasise a single dramatic moment, while a sequence of small, rapid panels can convey urgency or chaos. In a non-literary text, visual and spatial elements might include a website’s or advertisement’s use of image, white space and typography – for example, a large amount of white space around a small amount of text can direct a reader’s eye immediately to that text and imply exclusivity or calm, while a densely packed layout with bold typography can imply urgency or a sale. In both cases, analysis that discusses only the words and ignores these visual and spatial choices misses half of how such texts actually communicate meaning, since neither a graphic novel nor a modern advertisement is designed to be read as words alone. [6]

Official syllabus

International Baccalaureate Organization, Diploma Programme Subject Brief – Studies in Language and Literature: Language A: Language and Literature, first assessment 2021 – the same source cited by the study guide and revision notes. Verified 2026-09-06.