Written response to a literary text (Paper 2 Section B)

You have a choice of two questions on your literary text. Question A: 主人公の変化について論じなさい。Question B: この作品において、場所の描写はどのような役割を果たしているか。You have about sixty-five minutes. How do you choose, and in what order do you do things?

1. 01Minute 0 to 2: read both questions and identify what each demands

   Question A asks about change in the protagonist: it needs at least two points in the work where the protagonist is describably different, and an account of what produced the difference. Question B asks about the function of place description: it needs at least two passages of description and an argument about what they do for the work. Both are 45-mark questions and neither is easier in principle; what differs is which one YOUR prepared evidence can support.

2. 02Minute 2 to 4: test each question against your evidence, not against your interest

   This is the decision rule, and it is counter-intuitive. Do not choose the question you find more interesting; choose the one for which you can name, right now, without notes, three specific episodes you could describe accurately. The AO4 grid's top band requires interpretations consistently justified with appropriately selected evidence, and evidence you cannot recall in the hall is not evidence. If you can name three for A and one for B, choose A even if B is the better question.

3. 03Minute 4 to 12: plan in Japanese, not in English

   Write your plan in the language you will write the essay in: 導入・主張, then one line per body paragraph naming the episode and the claim it supports, then 反論, then 結論. Planning in English means translating your own plan as you write, which is where register drift and grammatical errors enter. A plan of six short Japanese lines is enough, and the eight minutes it costs are repaid because you will not stop mid-essay to decide what comes next.

4. 04Decide the position before writing, and make it arguable

   For question A, 主人公は変わった is not a position, because nobody would dispute it. 主人公の変化は、出来事によるものというより、周囲の人との関係の変化によるものである is a position: it makes a claim about the CAUSE of the change that somebody could disagree with, and it gives every body paragraph a job. The single commonest reason a well-written essay lands mid-band is that its thesis was not arguable, so the body could only illustrate rather than argue.

5. 05Minute 12 to 60: write, checking the clock at each paragraph

   Five paragraphs at about 130 characters each lands inside the 600 to 700 guide. Write them in order and do not go back: revision in a foreign language under time pressure usually introduces more errors than it removes, and the accuracy grid is out of 10 while the analytical grid is out of 20. If you fall behind, shorten the counter-argument paragraph rather than the evidence paragraphs, because 反論 is the cheapest of the five to compress without losing an AO4 band descriptor.

6. 06Minute 60 to 65: the three checks, in this order

   One, register: read only your sentence endings and confirm they are all plain or all polite. Two, question relevance: read the question again and confirm every paragraph is about IT — the top AO4 band says relevant response to the question throughout, and drift is the commonest way to lose that. Three, evidence: confirm that each body paragraph actually names a specific place in the work rather than gesturing at the whole. Five minutes, three checks, and they protect marks across all three grids.

Result: The routine: two minutes to read both questions and identify what each demands; two more to choose by which one your recallable evidence supports, not by which interests you; eight to plan in Japanese with an arguable thesis; forty-eight to write five paragraphs of about 130 characters without going back; five to check register, question relevance and evidence specificity in that order.

You have chosen one of the prescribed texts and have read it once. Build the preparation you will carry into an examination where no notes and no dictionary are permitted.

1. 01First pass: read for the shape, and record only the shape

   On the second reading, produce one page: for a novel or a part of one, the sequence of major movements and roughly where each sits; for a collection, one line per story naming its situation; for an autobiography, the phases of the account. Do not annotate at this stage. What you are building is a map you can hold in your head, and a map with a hundred features is not a map. Six to ten entries is right.

2. 02Second pass: select eight episodes and describe each in three lines

   An episode is a specific, locatable moment you could describe accurately: where in the work it sits, what happens, and what it shows. Three lines each, in Japanese. Eight is enough to answer any question the paper can set, because good episodes are re-usable across questions — an episode that shows a relationship changing will serve a question about character, a question about theme and a question about structure. Fewer than six leaves you exposed; more than ten will not be remembered.

3. 03Third pass: attach each episode to two or three possible claims

   For each episode write two or three one-line claims it could support. This is the step candidates skip and it is the one that makes an episode usable: evidence is only evidence for something. If an episode supports no claim you can state, it is a memory rather than a piece of evidence, and it should be replaced. By the end you should have a small grid — eight episodes down the side, two or three claims each across — and that grid is your entire examination resource.

4. 04Build the critical vocabulary alongside, in Japanese

   Twenty terms will cover almost any question: 主人公, 語り手, 視点, 場面, 描写, 対比, 象徴, 構成, 主題, 転機, 心情, 背景, 印象的, 暗示する, 描く, 示す, 表す, 際立たせる, 位置づける, 読み取れる. Learn them as production items, with the particles they take, because they are what the AO3 range grid will see. A candidate with eight good episodes and no critical vocabulary writes accurate summary; a candidate with both writes analysis.

5. 05Rehearse under the real conditions, not comfortable ones

   Write at least three full essays at 600 to 700 characters in sixty-five minutes with nothing on the desk. The first will be too short or too long and will run out of evidence; the second will be better; the third will show you which of your eight episodes you actually reach for under pressure. Those are the ones to strengthen. Practising with notes available trains a skill the examination does not permit.

6. 06And keep the honesty rule that the whole subject runs on

   Everything in your grid must come from the work itself. Do not import a summary you read somewhere and cannot verify against the text; do not attribute a view to the author that the work does not support; and above all do not fabricate a quotation. The next section explains the alternative, which is stronger anyway: evidence handled as a described episode is more defensible than a half-remembered quotation and is what the mark scheme's phrase evidence from the work actually means.

Result: The preparation: one page of shape from a second reading; eight episodes described in three lines each; two or three claims attached to every episode; twenty items of Japanese critical vocabulary learned as production items; and three full timed essays with nothing on the desk. That grid, and nothing else, is what you carry into the hall — because nothing else is permitted.

You are answering a question about how a relationship changes in your work. You have an episode in mind. Build the paragraph, using only the frame — the content is yours to supply from your own reading.

1. 01Move one, LOCATION: say where, precisely enough to be checkable

   物語の中盤、二人が初めて同じ場所で長い時間を過ごす場面である. Two things are doing work. 中盤 places the episode in the arc rather than in the page numbers, which is what a reader can verify. And the relative clause 二人が初めて同じ場所で長い時間を過ごす identifies the episode by its distinguishing feature rather than by a label — a reader who knows the work now knows exactly which moment you mean. Vagueness here is what makes an examiner suspect you have not read it.

2. 02Move two, CONTENT: state what happens, plainly and without adjectives

   ここでは、二人はほとんど言葉を交わさず、それぞれ別のことをしている様子が描かれる. Notice: no evaluation, no adverbs of feeling, no interpretation. Just what is on the page. 描かれる, is depicted, is the right verb because it keeps the description at the level of the text rather than of the world — it is the author who depicts, not the characters who exist. Getting this move flat and accurate is what licenses the third move; an interpretive content sentence pre-empts the claim and leaves nothing to argue.

3. 03Move three, CLAIM: say what it shows about the question

   この場面は、二人の関係が会話ではなく、同じ時間を共有することによって成り立っていることを示している. この場面は…を示している is the fixed frame. The claim is specific, it is about the question set, and — crucially — it is arguable: somebody could hold that the silence shows distance rather than intimacy. An arguable claim invites the counter-argument paragraph, which is where the AO4 grid's detailed, logical arguments live.

4. 04Add the sentence that links this episode to the next

   同じ関係が、後半では別の形で描かれることになる. ことになる projects forward and tells the reader that another episode is coming and how it will bear on this one. The top AO4 band asks for arguments and conclusions that CONSISTENTLY LINK TOGETHER, and links are made by sentences like this one — a single clause at the end of a paragraph that says what the next paragraph will do. Two such sentences convert five separate paragraphs into one argument.

5. 05Show the alternative you must not write

   The version to avoid: 「もういいよ」と彼は言った。この言葉が二人の関係を表している。 If you are not certain of those words, you have asserted something false about the text. And even if you are certain, the quotation does less work than the described episode, because a quotation needs its context explained before it means anything — so you spend characters on setup and then have to make the claim anyway. The described episode does both jobs in the same three sentences.

6. 06Count the cost and check the fit

   The paragraph as built runs to about 130 characters, which is exactly one fifth of a 650-character essay. That is the budget: five paragraphs, one episode each in three body paragraphs, an introduction and a conclusion. Before you commit an episode, check it against the three selection tests — specific, relevant to the question set, attached to a stated claim — because at 130 characters apiece, one misfitting episode is twenty per cent of your essay spent on the wrong thing.

Result: The frame, with the content supplied from your own reading: 物語の中盤、二人が初めて同じ場所で長い時間を過ごす場面である。ここでは、二人はほとんど言葉を交わさず、それぞれ別のことをしている様子が描かれる。この場面は、二人の関係が会話ではなく、同じ時間を共有することによって成り立っていることを示している。同じ関係が、後半では別の形で描かれることになる。 Location, content, claim, link — four sentences, about 130 characters, no quotation marks anywhere.

You want to say something about a passage of description. Five verbs are available and they make five different claims. Write the same observation five ways and say which is defensible when.

1. 01描かれている: the text depicts it — the safest and weakest claim

   この場面では、静かな町の様子が描かれている. This says only that the text presents this. It asserts nothing about meaning and therefore cannot be wrong, which makes it the right verb for the CONTENT move of an episode. It is also the verb to use when you are describing before you interpret. Its weakness is its virtue: an essay made entirely of 描かれている sentences is a summary, which is why it must always be followed by one of the stronger verbs.

2. 02示している: the text shows something — a claim about meaning, evidenced

   この描写は、主人公が周囲から離れていることを示している. 示す asserts that the passage establishes something, and it commits you to an inference a reader could check against the text. This is the workhorse of the CLAIM move and the verb you will use most. Use it when the connection between the description and the claim is close enough that a reader would see it once you pointed at it.

3. 03暗示している: the text hints — a claim about what is not stated

   この描写は、後の別れを暗示している. 暗示する says that the text suggests something without stating it, which is a weaker claim about the text and often a stronger piece of criticism, because it credits the author with design. It is the right verb when you are reading forward — when a passage prepares something that has not yet happened — and it pairs naturally with 伏線. Do not use it as a hedge for a claim you cannot support; use it when suggestion, rather than statement, is what the text does.

4. 04際立たせている: the passage makes something stand out — a claim about contrast

   町の静けさが、主人公の不安を際立たせている. 際立たせる is transitive and takes を on the thing made prominent; it names a relationship between two elements rather than a property of one. This is the verb for 対比 claims and it is under-used by candidates, which makes it noticeable. Note that it commits you to naming both elements, which is a discipline rather than a cost: a contrast claim with only one element named is not a claim.

5. 05読み取れる: it can be read from the text — an inference attributed to the text

   この場面からは、二人の距離が縮まりつつあることが読み取れる. 読み取れる is the potential of 読み取る and is intransitive in effect, so the thing read takes が and there is no reader named. That is its value: it lets you advance an interpretation as something the text supports rather than as something you personally think, which is exactly the register of critical writing and which the AO4 grid rewards over 私は～と思う. It is also a range signal, because it is a potential form used precisely.

6. 06The rule for choosing, and the paragraph shape it produces

   Describe with 描かれている, claim with 示している, read design with 暗示している, name contrast with 際立たせている, and attribute an inference with 読み取れる. A five-paragraph essay that uses each once has demonstrated consistent variation in vocabulary — the top range band's own phrase — while making five genuinely different kinds of claim. That is the point worth taking away: the vocabulary is not a synonym list, it is a set of distinct analytical moves, and using all five makes the essay better as well as better-marked.

Result: この場面では、静かな町の様子が描かれている。／この描写は、主人公が周囲から離れていることを示している。／この描写は、後の別れを暗示している。／町の静けさが、主人公の不安を際立たせている。／この場面からは、二人の距離が縮まりつつあることが読み取れる。 Five verbs, five different claims: presentation, demonstration, suggestion, contrast and attributed inference — and using each once across five paragraphs satisfies the range grid's phrase about consistent variation while genuinely improving the argument.

The question is: 主人公の変化について論じなさい。Write the introduction and the conclusion in full, and the skeleton of what goes between, at essay register.

1. 01Introduction, sentence one: turn the question into a proposition

   この作品の主人公は、作品を通して確かに変わる. Note that this is deliberately the obvious half — nobody disputes it — and stating it first costs one short sentence and buys you the right to say something contestable next. It also demonstrates immediately that you have understood the question, which the AO4 band descriptor calls relevant response to the question throughout, and throughout begins at sentence one.

2. 02Introduction, sentence two: state the arguable position

   しかし、その変化は出来事そのものによるというより、周囲の人との関係が変わったことによるものだと考えられる. というより rejects one explanation in favour of another; によるもの attributes causation; と考えられる attributes the whole reading to the argument rather than to your preference. Somebody could disagree with this, which is what makes it a thesis. And it tells every subsequent paragraph what it has to do.

3. 03Introduction, sentence three: signpost, briefly

   以下、三つの場面からこの点を論じる. Twelve characters, and it tells the examiner the essay has a structure. Do not elaborate: naming the three scenes here wastes characters you will need to describe them, and promising more than you deliver is worse than not promising. The introduction is now about 90 characters, well inside the 130 budget, which leaves room to spend elsewhere.

4. 04The three body paragraphs, in skeleton

   Paragraph two: the earliest episode, located and described, with the claim that the protagonist's position is defined by a relationship rather than by circumstance, and a link forward. Paragraph three: a middle episode, with the claim that the relationship shifts and the protagonist shifts with it. Paragraph four: a late episode, with the claim that the change is now visible in behaviour rather than only in feeling. Each is location, content, claim, link — about 130 characters each.

5. 05The counter-argument, inside the last body paragraph or as its own

   一方で、これらの変化は主人公自身の経験によるものであり、人との関係は結果にすぎないという読み方もありうる。ただし、その読み方では、関係が変わらなかった場面で主人公も変わらないことを説明しにくい. ～にすぎない is is no more than; ～ありうる is is possible; ～しにくい is is hard to. The answer to the objection is evidential rather than assertive, which is what distinguishes an argument from a preference.

6. 06Conclusion, three sentences, calibrated

   以上のことから、主人公の変化を出来事だけで説明することは難しいと考えられる。むしろ、この作品は、人が周囲との関係のなかで変わっていく過程を描いていると読み取れる。だからこそ、関係が動かない場面での主人公の静けさが、際立って見えるのであろう。 Three sentences: the negative conclusion, the positive reading, and one sentence that returns to a detail from the body — which is what makes a conclusion feel earned rather than appended. And 読み取れる, 際立って and であろう all feed the range grid on the way out.

Result: Introduction: この作品の主人公は、作品を通して確かに変わる。しかし、その変化は出来事そのものによるというより、周囲の人との関係が変わったことによるものだと考えられる。以下、三つの場面からこの点を論じる。 Conclusion: 以上のことから、主人公の変化を出来事だけで説明することは難しいと考えられる。むしろ、この作品は、人が周囲との関係のなかで変わっていく過程を描いていると読み取れる。だからこそ、関係が動かない場面での主人公の静けさが、際立って見えるのであろう。 Between them, three paragraphs of location, content, claim and link, plus one honest counter-argument answered evidentially.