IB Diploma Programme Language A: Literature – Paper 1: Guided Literary Analysis Revision Notes

For full explanations and two worked examples, use the Paper 1 study guide. These notes condense Paper 1: guided literary analysis for IB Diploma Programme Language A: Literature, at SL and HL, for the final weeks before the exam. They follow the current IB subject brief (first assessments for SL and HL 2021) and map to two areas of exploration, Readers, writers and texts and Time and space.

Then test yourself with the Paper 1 practice questions. Course links: Literature hub · printable checklist · assessment revision notes · Readers, writers and texts revision notes.

Paper 1 at a glance

Fact from the subject brief	SL	HL
Task	Guided analysis of unseen literary passage/passages from different text types	Same
Time	1.25 hours (75 min)	2.25 hours (135 min)
Weighting	35%	35%
Type	External	External

The number of passages you write about, the layout and the assessment criteria are not in the brief. Your teacher will confirm them with specimen material.

Method in steps

1  Read the guiding question. Underline the aspect and the verb.
2  Reading 1 (literal): who, where, when, what happens.
3  Reading 2 (form and style): mark features that answer the
   question; write the effect in the margin, not just the label.
4  Reading 3 (argument): one-sentence thesis that answers the
   question and suggests an order.
5  Plan 3 body paragraphs by idea, 2-3 quotations each.
6  Write: short introduction -> body -> short conclusion.
7  Check: every paragraph links back to the guiding question.

Paragraph pattern: claim → evidence (short, embedded quotation) → effect → link to the question.

Thesis pattern: “The writer presents [aspect in the question] as [your judgement], through [feature group 1], [feature group 2] and [feature group 3].”

Introduction (3–4 sentences): the form and situation in one sentence, the voice, then the thesis. No biography, no dictionary definitions, no “since the dawn of time”.

Conclusion (2–3 sentences): how the features work together to answer the question. No new quotations and no paragraph-by-paragraph repeat.

SL timing (one analysis, 75 min): 15 reading · 10 planning · 5 introduction · 35 body · 5 conclusion · 5 checking.

Terms by form

Poetry

Term	What it is	Ask yourself
Speaker	The voice of the poem, not the poet	Who speaks, to whom, in what situation?
Stanza	A group of lines	Does a new stanza bring a shift in time, place or tone?
Enjambment	A sentence runs over the line break	What word is delayed, and what does the pause add?
End-stopped line	The line ends with punctuation	Does it make the idea feel settled or final?
Caesura	A pause inside a line	What is interrupted or isolated?
Rhyme scheme	Pattern of end rhymes (ABAB, AABB)	Does rhyme bind ideas or create closure?
Iambic pentameter	Ten syllables, five unstressed-stressed pairs	Where does the rhythm break, and why there?
Free verse	No regular rhyme or metre	How are line breaks used instead?
Volta	A turn in thought, often late in the poem	What changes after it?

Prose

Term	What it is	Ask yourself
First-person narrator	“I” tells the story	Can we trust them? Are they looking back?
Third-person limited	“She/he”, close to one character	Whose view is the reader held inside?
Omniscient narrator	Knows every character’s thoughts	What does the narrator reveal that characters don’t know?
Free indirect style	Third-person narration takes on the character’s own voice	Whose words are these, really?
Pace	Speed of the telling	Where does the writer slow down or skip ahead?
Foreshadowing	A hint of what will happen	What does the reader expect that the character doesn’t?

Drama

Term	What it is	Ask yourself
Stage directions	Set, props, movement, pauses	What do they show that no one says?
Subtext	Meaning under the spoken words	What are the characters avoiding?
Dramatic irony	The audience knows more than a character	How does the gap change our response?
Soliloquy / aside	Speech to the audience, unheard by others	What private truth is revealed?

Time and space on an unseen passage

• Use what the text shows: period details (a telegram, a gas lamp, a mobile phone), place, social roles and the way people speak.
• Say how the setting shapes the meaning: a missed bus at night means more in a world without easy help.
• Keep claims about context modest. “The detail suggests a small town” is safe; a date for the passage is a guess unless the paper gives one.

Must-know distinctions

Don’t confuse	With
The speaker of a poem	The poet who wrote it
The narrator	The author
Tone: the attitude of the voice (bitter, tender, ironic)	Mood: the atmosphere the reader feels (tense, calm)
Subject: what the passage is about (a missed bus)	Theme: the idea it explores (pride, dependence)
Simile/metaphor: a comparison	Symbol: an object that stands for a wider idea through the whole text
Analysis: why a feature matters	Description: what happens, or what a feature is called
Answering the guiding question	General commentary on everything you noticed

Worked reminder: from label to analysis

Original text written for Marlbridge – prose fiction extract

I was nine when the river froze. Everyone says that winter was the coldest, but everyone says that about the winter they were nine. What I remember is my brother’s boots on the ice, the sound under them like a door closing somewhere far off, and my own voice, calling him back, much smaller than I meant it to be.

Guiding question: How does the writer present the power of memory?

Level	Example sentence
Label only	The writer uses a simile.
Label + quotation	The writer uses a simile, “like a door closing somewhere far off”.
Analysis	The sound of the ice is “like a door closing somewhere far off”, so a child’s memory of a noise already carries an adult’s sense of loss, as if something in the family was shutting.

The third sentence names no device at all and still earns more, because it explains the effect and links it to memory.

Two more points worth making: the adult narrator admits that everyone exaggerates “the winter they were nine”, which makes memory seem unreliable just before the vivid details prove how strongly it holds; and “much smaller than I meant it to be” shows the child’s helplessness through the adult’s hindsight.

Quick self-test

Questions 6–8 and 11 use this short poem.

Original text written for Marlbridge – poem

Harbour, March

The boats lie tilted on the mud, each one leaning on its shadow. The gulls complain. The tide is out the way a debt is out: it will be back.

1. What is the difference between a speaker and a poet?
2. In the river extract above, what kind of narrator is used, and from what point in time?
3. Quote the sentence from the river extract that makes the reader question memory.
4. Define free indirect style in one sentence.
5. What is the difference between tone and mood?
6. Give one example of personification in Harbour, March.
7. Which line of Harbour, March is enjambed, and what does the run-on do?
8. Name the technique in “the way a debt is out” and explain its effect.
9. A student writes “The poet uses personification.” Name two things the sentence still needs.
10. Why should a body paragraph be planned by idea rather than by device?
11. Where is the caesura in line 3 of Harbour, March, and what does it do?
12. What two things should a Paper 1 conclusion avoid?

Answers

1. The speaker is the voice inside the poem; the poet is the real person who wrote it. They may differ, so write “the speaker”.
2. A first-person narrator looking back as an adult on being nine: retrospective narration.
3. “Everyone says that winter was the coldest, but everyone says that about the winter they were nine.”
4. Third-person narration that takes on the character’s own thoughts and way of speaking, without quotation marks.
5. Tone is the attitude of the voice; mood is the atmosphere the reader experiences.
6. “The gulls complain” (or the boats “leaning on its shadow”).
7. Line 3 (“The tide is out”). It pushes the reader over the line break before the comparison arrives, so “out” seems simple until the last line changes its meaning.
8. A simile. Comparing the tide to a debt makes the calm, empty harbour feel temporary and threatening: what has gone must return, and it is owed.
9. A quotation as evidence, and the effect of the feature linked to the guiding question.
10. Planning by idea keeps each paragraph answering the guiding question; planning by device produces a list of techniques with no argument.
11. In line 3, after “The gulls complain.” The full stop isolates the gulls’ noise as a short sentence and splits the line, so the second half turns to the tide and the real subject.
12. New evidence, and a repeat of each paragraph in turn.

Where marks are usually lost

• Summary instead of analysis. Retelling the passage in order, with a device named now and then.
• Drifting from the guiding question. Strong observations that answer a different question.
• No thesis. An introduction that only says what the passage is about.
• Labels with no effect. “Enjambment is used in line 3” and nothing more.
• Speaker and poet confused. Treating the “I” of a poem as the poet’s own life.
• Invented context. Guessing at the writer’s biography instead of working from the text.
• Form ignored. Discussing only word choice in a poem, never line breaks or stanzas; or ignoring stage directions in drama.
• Quotations dropped in. A long quotation on its own line, then a separate sentence about it.
• Unfinished answer. No conclusion because planning or timing slipped.

Official syllabus

International Baccalaureate Organization, Diploma Programme Subject Brief, Language A: literature, first assessments for SL and HL 2021 (2019). The passages on this page are original texts written for Marlbridge.