The comparison question
What Question Three asks
- Question Three compares the two supplied texts, and it is a third of the paper. The verb is Compare, and the question names the shared territory for you — how the writers reflect on change, on relationships, on belonging.
- It requires at least ONE specific aspect used in EACH text — the count is one and one, not two from wherever is easiest. An answer with two aspects both drawn from Text A has failed the instruction while appearing to exceed it.
- Comparison is a separate skill. Being twice as good at single-text reading makes nobody good at it, because what is assessed is the relation between two readings, and relations are not produced by having two of something.
Two analyses is not a comparison
- The commonest weak answer: one paragraph on Text A, one on Text B, and a closing sentence saying both are about loss. It is weak because nothing in it required both texts to be present.
- The test: could either half stand alone as an answer to Question One or Two? If yes, you have written two analyses. The symptom shows in the plan: a heading for Text A and a heading for Text B is already the wrong shape.
- The failure is invisible from the inside: two competent analyses joined by a linking sentence look like an answer.
Take the common ground, then find the difference
- The question names the shared subject. Take it. Then ask the real question: the writers agree about the subject and disagree about something. What? That disagreement is the answer.
- Similarity alone is the weakest comparison available, because the value of a comparison is exactly what it produces that neither text produces alone. Give the similarity one sentence and the divergence the paragraph.
Three comparison shapes, in ascending order of what they earn
- Same effect, different means. Both texts unsettle the reader; one by withholding information, the other by sentence rhythm. The judgement is which suits its material better, and why.
- Same means, different effect. Both use a first-person narrator; in one it produces intimacy, in the other claustrophobia. This is the strongest of the three at Level 3, because if the same device produces different effects the device cannot be the cause — so you must identify what else differs, which forces you into the texts' differences of purpose, and purpose is where evaluation lives.
- Genuine disagreement. The two texts take incompatible positions. Say so, and say which is more persuasive on the evidence of the writing.
- To find one under time: list the governing aspects from each text and look for one on both lists, then write the two effects side by side. If no aspect is shared, find a shared effect and name the different means.
Structure it by point, and plan it in two minutes
- Wrong shape: everything about Text A, then everything about Text B. Right shape: each paragraph makes one comparative point and moves between both texts inside it — point of comparison, evidence from Text A, evidence from Text B, what the difference means, judgement.
- Quote from both texts in the same paragraph, and use comparative connectives: whereas; by contrast.
- Plan in two columns: the shared subject at the top, what each text does about it underneath. Then look across the rows, not down the columns. Each row showing a difference is a paragraph; each row showing only agreement is a sentence at most.
- Do not force a balance. An asymmetric comparison, declared and argued, is a judgement.
Worked Example
Worked Example
Text A is The Visit, on the previous page. Text B was written for this topic.
The question asks: Compare how the writers convey what is not being said, referring to at least ONE specific aspect of written texts used in EACH text.
The two-minute plan. Shared subject: feeling kept out of the dialogue. Text A's aspect: syntax, so the pressure shows continuously. Text B's aspect: structure, so it shows only in the final clause. Shape: same effect, different means.
Answer (Merit level):
Both writers convey unspoken feeling by keeping it out of the dialogue, but they do it by opposite means, and the difference tells you what each situation costs.
In "The Visit" the governing aspect is syntax — the collapse of the narrator's flat declarative rhythm at the one moment they are managing something. Everywhere else the sentences are short: "I said the drive was fine." Then one long, subordinated sentence arrives, beginning "because the second time she asked it was a new question". The strain is audible in sentence length before it is stated anywhere.
In "The Handover" the governing aspect is structure — a single withheld piece of information placed at the very end. Where the first writer lets the pressure show in the rhythm, the second keeps the rhythm level and puts everything in the final clause. The father's talk is filler, and the narrator says so drily: "I have never known him to have an opinion about a boat." Then the last sentence introduces "something else entirely" and does not explain it. The reader is handed a history at the point where the text stops.
The comparison sharpens on what each choice costs. The Visit earns its effect continuously; The Handover spends nothing until the last line and then spends everything. I would judge the first the more sustained piece of writing and the second the more efficient.
Compare by point. If either half could stand alone, it is not a comparison.