The range of possible text types available in the Language and Literature exam is wide, as illustrated by the examples given in the IB syllabus guide. It will be impossible to predict the topics and exact texts that may appear in this exam paper. It represents 35% of your grade at SL and 25% at HL. Whichever course you are on, there’s no doubt that paper 1 is a challenging exam. All other requirements of this paper, such as time and number of marks, are the same as those on the Language and Literature course. If you are an HL student you will have to write about both SL students can choose which literary genre they prefer to tackle from the two given.

You will be asked to respond to unseen passages from any two of these genres. These genres are: prose fiction, poetry, drama, and prose non-fiction. If you are on the Literature-only course, you will have to read three literary genres (at standard level) and four at higher level. There are 20 marks available in this exam and this page will help you get as many of them as you can. All students will be given an optional guiding question that will focus your attention on important elements of the text, providing you with a ‘way in’ and helping you structure a worthwhile analysis. HL students will be given more time: 2 hours and 15 minutes compared to 1 hour and 15 minutes at standard level. This is to reflect the greater number of lessons you will have had to explore a wider range of texts types, and the greater ability you should have when approaching texts by yourself. You will essentially complete the same exercise twice. The texts will be unconnected – the topics and text types will be different – and you are not required to compare or contrast at all. If you are a higher level student you will be given the same two texts but you will have no choice: you must write an analysis of both texts. If you are a standard level student, you will have to analyse one text out of a choice of two. Whether you are a standard or higher level Language and Literature student, or a Literature-only student, Paper 1 tests your ability to analyse unseen texts. 20/20 How to improve your score in IBDP Language A: Paper 1

Calvin doing hobbes