3 GCSE English Language Paper 1 Question 4 Scaffolded Exercises (with 2026 versions included)

GCSE English P1Q4 is challenging. It’s the only time that AO4 is taught explicitly (Evaluate texts critically and support this with appropriate textual references). Then, there is the (sometimes bewildering) amount of instructions in the question, the quote giving the opinion of a “student”, not to mention its positioning in the exam.

I put a lot of thought into how to engage the students with this question and how to create a scaffold for the responses. Ideal for lower sets but working for any level, they are a great starting point for this question. In fact, when I first developed this resource, I pressed the “reset” button and started again from scratch. The results have been very encouraging; there has been an improvement in the marks my students are getting for this question in the exams.

I have created an additional “answer” document that goes through what the students should have chosen for the multiple choice questions with example responses for all the scaffolds included in this set.

IMPORTANT – The files which start “2026” are all in the new format for this question which will be examined from May 2026. All the other files are presented in the original format for this question. So this resource will last you until the current specification expires.

The scaffold enables:

• The students to express an opinion on the statement (keeping an eye on it throughout) and quickly segue into their response.
• The students to build up five paragraphs of text which expresses their opinion, use quotes – explaining the method used by the writer – and to evaluate the impact on the reader.

Altogether, the students should be able to produce a robust response to this exam question. I found that once my students had done two of these scaffolded exercises they found the “real thing” much more accessible.

These sets of scaffolded exercises are designed to be done in the classroom. They serve as an introduction to how to approach the question sensibly and in a way that will hopefully maximise the marks awarded. It is not intended as a straightjacket approach and the Word documents can easily be tweaked if you want to change them a little.

I have used older texts deliberately. First and foremost I wished to ensure that there were no possibly copyright restrictions to using these resources. They all start on Line 20, so that students can imagine that there is a previous section of the text. However, the first paragraph or so is not included in the question, to give them a “run in” to the text. There has been some light editing to ensure they are all accessible (but nothing like the hatchet job AQA often do!).

Three texts:

• Dracula – Jonathan Harker encounters three beautiful but dangerous women.
• Three Men in a Boat – the three men attempt to open a tin of pineapple chunks for lunch.
• Jane Eyre – the night is interrupted by screams from the floor above.