How to Ace AQA English Language Paper 2 Question 5
The 40-mark viewpoint writing task asks you to argue, persuade, or inform in a specific form for a specific audience. This guide explains the AQA mark scheme, how rhetorical techniques earn marks, and the structure that top-grade responses share.
What This Question Asks
Question 5 on AQA GCSE English Language Paper 2 is the transactional writing task. It carries 40 marks — 50% of the entire Paper 2 mark. Students are given a specific writing task with a clearly defined form (letter, newspaper article, speech, formal essay, or magazine piece), a defined audience, and a purpose (usually to argue, persuade, or present a viewpoint). You have approximately 45 minutes to plan and write your response. Unlike Paper 1 Question 5, this is non-fiction writing: examiners expect rhetorical devices, a clear and consistent viewpoint, and an awareness of the conventions of the form. The same two Assessment Objectives apply: AO5 (Content and Organisation, 24 marks) assesses how effectively you communicate, structure, and adapt your writing; AO6 (Technical Accuracy, 16 marks) assesses the precision and range of your vocabulary, sentence structures, spelling, and punctuation. A focused, rhetorically controlled response consistently outscores a longer but rambling one.
Mark Scheme Breakdown
- Communication is compelling and convincing throughout
- Tone, style, and register are matched with sophisticated control to purpose, form, and audience
- Structural and grammatical features are used inventively — the writing has deliberate shape
- A distinctive, assured voice is sustained across the whole response
- Ideas are developed in detail and connected with sophisticated cohesion
- Communication is clear and consistent
- Tone, style, and register are matched to purpose, form, and audience with increasing control
- Structural and grammatical features are used effectively to organise ideas
- Writing sustains the reader's interest throughout
- Ideas are developed with some detail and logical progression
- Some successful communication of ideas and viewpoint
- Some attempt to match tone, style, and register to purpose, form, and audience
- Some use of structural and grammatical features to organise writing
- Writing engages the reader at times
- Ideas are included but may be underdeveloped or loosely connected
- Simple, limited communication of ideas
- Simple awareness of purpose, form, or audience
- Structural features are formulaic or absent
- Limited engagement of the reader
- Ideas are listed rather than developed
- Extensive and ambitious vocabulary used with precision and effect
- Varied and inventive sentence structures deployed throughout
- High level of accuracy in spelling — complex and ambitious words are spelled correctly
- Punctuation is used accurately and for deliberate effect across a wide range
- Vocabulary is increasingly sophisticated and chosen for effect
- Sentence structures are varied and used effectively
- Generally accurate spelling including some complex vocabulary
- Punctuation is mostly accurate and sometimes used for deliberate effect
- Vocabulary is varied with some choices made for effect
- Some variation in sentence structure
- Some accuracy in spelling — straightforward vocabulary mostly correct
- Punctuation is sometimes accurate
- Simple vocabulary, largely monosyllabic
- Simple or repetitive sentence structures
- Inconsistent accuracy in spelling
- Limited punctuation — largely full stops and capital letters
How to Structure Your Answer
1. Identify your form, audience, and purpose before you plan
Read the task carefully and identify three things before writing a single word: the form (letter? article? speech?), the audience (students? parents? a council?), and the purpose (argue? persuade? advise?). These three variables control every choice you make — your opening, your register, your rhetorical devices, and your sign-off. A letter to a headteacher requires a formal register and a sign-off ("Yours sincerely"). An article for a teenage magazine requires a different tone entirely. Misreading the form is one of the most costly errors on this question.
Task: "Write an article for a broadsheet newspaper arguing that social media does more harm than good to young people." Form = broadsheet article; Audience = educated adult readers; Purpose = to argue. Register should be formal but accessible, with a clear declared viewpoint from the opening.
2. Open with a hook that declares your viewpoint
Unlike creative writing, viewpoint writing should establish your position early. Open with a striking hook — a statistic, a bold claim, a rhetorical question, or an anecdote — then state your thesis clearly within the first paragraph. Examiners should know your viewpoint within the first 100 words. Do not "sit on the fence" — a clear, committed argument scores far higher than a balanced, hedged one.
"In the time it takes to read this sentence, 6,000 new photographs will have been posted to Instagram. Most of them will be forgotten. But the anxiety they generate will not. Social media is not simply a distraction from childhood — it is corroding it." Hook (statistic), then declared thesis.
3. Develop three arguments with evidence and rhetorical technique
The body of your response should contain three to four developed arguments, each supported by evidence (statistics, examples, expert opinion, anecdote) and enhanced with rhetorical devices. Develop each argument across a full paragraph — do not simply list points. Use discourse markers ("Furthermore", "However", "Crucially") to signal progression between paragraphs. Each paragraph should feel logically connected to the next.
Argument paragraph using tricolon and direct address: "Consider the evidence. Consider the research. Consider your own child's screen time this week. Study after study has linked excessive social media use to increased rates of anxiety, disrupted sleep, and declining academic performance in adolescents aged 11 to 17 (Royal Society for Public Health, 2023)."
4. Address the counter-argument and rebut it
High-scoring responses acknowledge the opposing view and then dismiss it. This signals intellectual sophistication to the examiner and strengthens your own argument by showing you have considered it fully. The counter-argument should occupy one paragraph, then be rebutted firmly in the next sentence or at the start of the following paragraph. Do not give equal space to the counter-argument — your viewpoint must remain dominant.
"Proponents of social media argue that platforms provide community for isolated young people. And they are right — for a minority, they do. But we do not design national policy around the exception. For the majority, the evidence points clearly in the other direction."
5. Close with a call to action or resonant final appeal
Your conclusion should not simply repeat your introduction. Return to your thesis, but with the weight of your argument behind it. A call to action (telling the reader what to do or think) is particularly effective in persuasive writing. You might also end with a rhetorical question that leaves the reader with something to consider, or a short, punchy final sentence that makes your position unmistakably clear.
"We cannot return smartphones to the factory. But we can, and must, decide how much of our children's minds we are willing to hand over to an algorithm. The question is not whether we act. The question is how much longer we wait."
Common Mistakes to Avoid
Top Tips
Practise This Question Type
"A national newspaper is running a series of articles about education. Write an article for the newspaper in which you argue your point of view on the following statement: 'Homework does more harm than good to students.'" (40 marks)
Frequently Asked Questions
Related Resources
Subject Pages
Exam Technique Guides
Articles & Guides
Ready to Practise?
Write your answer and get instant, AQA-aligned feedback.