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IB Chinese A: Language and Literature Past Papers & Drilling (Paper 1): Two Unseen Texts
TUTORZONE ORIGINAL DRILLING MOCK · IB CHINESE A: LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE PAPER 1
Written to the IB Language A: language and literature (first assessment 2026) format: Paper 1 is a guided textual analysis of two unseen non-literary texts from different text types, each with a guiding question – SL writes one analysis (1 h 15 min, 20 marks) and HL writes one on each text (2 h 15 min, 40 marks), both 35% of the course. Two original non-literary texts (an opinion column and a public-information leaflet) with guiding questions and model answers are given here.
What is in IB Chinese A: Language and Literature Paper 1?
Direct answer: Paper 1 is a guided textual analysis of two unseen non-literary texts from different text types, each with a guiding question. SL writes one analysis (1 h 15 min, 20 marks) and HL writes one on each text (2 h 15 min, 40 marks); both are 35% of the course (first assessment 2026).
Assessment at a glance (2027)
| Component | Content | Weighting | Duration |
|---|---|---|---|
| Paper 1: guided textual analysis | Two unseen non-literary texts from different text types, each with a guiding question; SL writes one analysis, HL writes one on each text | SL 35% / HL 35% | SL 1 h 15 min; HL 2 h 15 min |
| Paper 2: comparative essay | One of four questions; compare and contrast two studied literary works in content and form (25 marks: criteria A, B1, B2, C, D at 5 each); closed book, no quotations expected | SL 35% / HL 25% | 1 h 45 min |
| Individual oral (internal) | 15 min, 40 marks: a literary work plus a body of non-literary texts read through a shared global issue; ten minutes presenting plus five minutes of questions | SL 30% / HL 20% | 15 min |
| HL essay (HL only) | A 1,200-1,500 word essay (1,440-1,800 characters in Chinese) exploring one line of inquiry into a single literary work or a group of non-literary texts | HL 20% | coursework |
SL: one analysis in 1 h 15 min (5 min unpacking, 60 writing, 10 checking), 20 marks. HL: two analyses in 2 h 15 min, about 60 minutes each – take the text you are surer of first.
How this paper was built
This is a TutorZone original drilling mock: both unseen texts, the guiding questions and the model answers were written by our team – not IB past papers, marking references, published articles or real campaign material. The leaflet’s figures and chart description exist to practise layout analysis and are not survey results.
The design follows IB Language A: language and literature (first assessment 2026) Paper 1: two unseen non-literary texts from different text types, each with a guiding question; SL answers one, HL answers both. Each analysis is worth 20 marks across four criteria at 5 marks each.
Pacing
| Section | Marks | Suggested time | What to do first |
|---|---|---|---|
| Paper 1: guided textual analysis | SL 35% / HL 35% | SL: 5 min choosing and unpacking the question, 60 writing, 10 checking; HL: about 60 min per analysis, take the surer text first | tie every claim to the conventions of the text type and to a specific authorial choice (layout, image-text relation, register, rhetoric) and its effect |
| Paper 2: comparative essay | SL 35% / HL 25% | 15 min planning the comparative line, 75 writing, 15 checking | the comparison must be explicit (criterion B2); two separate mini-essays score badly |
| Individual oral (internal) | SL 30% / HL 20% | work the literary work in detail first, then bridge to the non-literary body of work; prepare keywords, not a script | show how the global issue is presented through specific textual detail, not generalities |
| HL essay (HL only) | HL 20% | narrow the line of inquiry to one page first, then build three levels of analysis | keep the inquiry focused; an essay that introduces the text scores poorly |
What should be analysed in a non-literary text?
Direct answer: first identify the text type and its conventions (a column argues, a leaflet prompts action, an advertisement is remembered), then analyse how the writer uses layout, type size, image-text relations, register and rhetoric to reach that purpose – each claim tied to an effect.
Paper 1 mock: two unseen non-literary texts (opinion column + leaflet) with guiding questions
Each analysis is worth 20 marks (criteria A, B, C and D at 5 marks each); SL writes one, HL one on each text. Both texts were written for this paper – they are not published articles or IB material, and the leaflet’s figures exist only for practice.
Text A (opinion column) (20 marks)
Text A (written for this paper, not from any published article):
At one in the morning the delivery rider waited downstairs for eleven minutes. On my screen the order still said “arriving in forty minutes”, and his route looked like a line folded over on itself again and again. After handing over the bag he said quietly: “Could you give me five stars?”
Our city is being rewritten by ratings. The sticker on the restaurant door, the driver’s score, the doctor’s review, the teacher’s marking – every service is squeezed into one digit after the decimal point. One platform tells merchants that a shop rated below 4.6 will lose half its visibility. So some hand out free extras, some answer comments at midnight, and some write on the takeaway box: “Please give five stars, or the money is deducted from me.”
Ratings let us believe we hold the choice. But when the gap between 4.8 and 4.9 decides whether a small shop survives, whose hand is holding it? That sentence on the box may be less a request than a bill held open for us to read.
Guiding question: analyse how this column builds its case through the opening anecdote, figures and metaphor, and discuss how the writer’s attitude towards rating culture shifts as the piece moves on.
Text B (public-information leaflet) (20 marks)
Text B (written for this paper; the figures exist to make the layout work as practice, they are not real survey results):
Main headline (across the page, centred, heavy sans-serif): The price of one hour
Sub-headline (beneath it, light serif): How the night’s heat steals your sleep
Central photograph: a woman sitting on the edge of a bed looking at her phone, an orange-red city skyline beyond the window.
Left column (with an oversized figure “8.6”): the urban night is on average 8.6 degrees warmer than the countryside. Concrete and glass take in heat by day and release it after dark.
Middle column (with a rising line graph): between one and three in the morning in summer, city air still sits above twenty-nine degrees. A line of small print beside the graph: for every degree the room gains, falling asleep takes on average nine minutes longer.
Right column (with a black-and-white square code): want your own district’s night temperature? Scan the code for the night-temperature map of all eighteen districts.
Footer slogan (bold, centred): Draw the curtain, take your sleep back.
Guiding question: analyse how the leaflet uses layout, the relation between image and words, and register to move readers to act, and evaluate the strengths and limits of that persuasive strategy.
Training task (unpacking and planning) (15 minutes)
Training task: in no more than 15 minutes, (1) write the analytical direction the guiding question asks for in one sentence; (2) choose one detail from each text that looks decorative but carries meaning; (3) list three topic sentences. Only then start writing (60 minutes at SL, 60 minutes per analysis at HL).
Should I read the guiding question first or the text first?
Direct answer: read the guiding question first so it sets your angle, then read the text and mark three to five usable details. Each paragraph should contain one convention, one authorial choice and one effect.
Model answers and marking points (guided textual analysis)
Question 1
Model answer points (20 marks): (1) Criterion A (understanding and interpretation): the column opens on a single late-night scene, widens it into a citywide pattern, and closes on one judgement – the “bill”. Its stance is not a simple attack on ratings but a question about who holds the choice. (2) Criterion B (analysis and evaluation): the anecdote – “waited eleven minutes” and “could you give me five stars?” turn an abstract issue into a moment the reader can hear, earning sympathy before the argument; figures – “below 4.6 loses half its visibility” and the 4.8-to-4.9 gap use decimal precision to make the absurdity measurable; metaphor – the route “like a line folded over on itself” writes out the fatigue of the work, and the “bill” converts a request into a transaction that makes the reader a debtor. (3) The shift in register: sympathy in the opening, flat listing in the middle, stacked rhetorical questions at the end, with “may be” softening the last claim while widening its target. (4) Criteria C and D: the three-step movement and the rhythm of short sentences and dashes should be named and tied to effect. Criterion B wants a choice and its effect as a pair; naming a technique earns nothing on its own.
Question 2
Model answer points (20 marks): (1) Criterion A: the leaflet addresses urban office workers and aims to change one specific behaviour – drawing the curtain before bed – while the district map turns the leaflet into a tool readers can consult for their own case. (2) Criterion B (layout and image-text relations): visual hierarchy – the headline is largest, “8.6” oversized, the body copy small, so emotion (“one hour”, “8.6”) is received before explanation; image and words reinforcing each other – the woman with the phone frames late sleep as a habit rather than a weather event, while the rising graph makes warming visible as a direction; call to action – the square code offers individual checking and the footer slogan delivers one executable instruction. (3) Register and rhetoric: “take your sleep back” presupposes that sleep has already been taken, placing responsibility on the reader, while the measured, data-led tone avoids moral scolding and lowers resistance. (4) Evaluation and limits: the strategy personalises a structural problem – a curtain will not cool the city – and the figures here are illustrative, so an unnamed source would weaken credibility in a real leaflet. Do not just say a text has an image; say how the image and the words reinforce or contradict each other.
Question 3
Model: (1) Analytical direction: how the column turns one late-night scene, through decimal precision and metaphor, into a question about who holds the choice. (2) Details that carry meaning: “one digit after the decimal point” and “bill” in the column; the oversized “8.6” and the word “back” in the leaflet. (3) Three topic sentences: the anecdote earns sympathy first; the figures turn a decimal place into a moral scale; the rhetorical questions move the reader from bystander to party. Plan in the margin of the paper – a full draft cannot be copied up in time. The guiding question is an entry point: you may set your own focus instead, but you must have one clear focus (criterion C).
What are the two unseen texts in this mock?
Direct answer: an original opinion column (delivery ratings and who holds the choice) and an original public-information leaflet (night heat and sleep, with its layout described), each with a guiding question and model answer. Both were written by TutorZone and the leaflet’s figures exist only for practice.
Where these marks are usually lost
| Mistake | What it looks like | What it costs | Instead |
|---|---|---|---|
| Content without form | Most of the response summarises what the leaflet or column says, with one closing line about technique | Almost all of criterion B is lost and criterion A stays literal | Every paragraph carries text-type convention, authorial choice and effect |
| Missing the non-literary features | Analysing a leaflet or advertisement with the vocabulary of poetry (imagery, metaphor, rhythm) | Layout, type size and image-text relations – the marks this paper is built on – go untouched | Establish the text type and its conventions first, then show how the writer uses or breaks them |
| Quotation with no work done | A line is quoted without saying how it works or what it does | The quotation decorates rather than analyses | Follow every quotation with what the choice makes the reader do |
| Setting your own question | Ignoring the guiding question and writing a personal response to the issue | Criterion C (focus) falls away; good writing still scores low | Copy the key words of the guiding question and answer them paragraph by paragraph |
How to use this paper
First sit: read the guiding question before the text, mark three to five usable details (layout, type size, image-text relation, shifts in register) and finish one analysis in 60 minutes (SL).
Mark it: check that each paragraph links a convention and a choice to an effect, and cut sentences that only retell.
Second sit: three to seven days later do the other text; HL must write both, and compare how the time went.
What should I do after this paper?
Direct answer: log every paragraph that retold instead of analysing; three to seven days later do the other text (HL must do both); then repeat the unpacking-and-planning task until 15 minutes of planning is automatic, and move to the Paper 2 comparative essay (1 h 45 min, 25 marks).
FAQ
Is this an IB past paper?
No. Both texts, the guiding questions and the model answers were written by TutorZone; nothing comes from an IB past paper, a marking reference or a published work, and the leaflet’s figures exist only for practice.
How many analyses are written in Paper 1?
SL chooses one of the two unseen non-literary texts and writes one guided analysis (1 h 15 min, 20 marks); HL writes one analysis on each text (2 h 15 min, 40 marks). Both are 35% of the course.
How does this differ from the literature course’s Paper 1?
Both papers analyse two unseen texts, but language and literature draws its texts from non-literary types (columns, advertisements, leaflets, web pages, speeches) while literature uses prose, poetry and drama. Paper 2 is the same paper for both courses.
Official references
| Resource | What to check |
|---|---|
| IB Studies in Language and Literature course page | Confirm the Paper 1 / Paper 2 structure and weightings |
| IB Chinese A: Language and Literature Paper 2 mock | The other paper of the same course: four comparative questions with 25-mark frames |
| IB Chinese A: Literature Paper 1 mock | The literature course in the same subject group, for cross-course comparison |
| practice area | Original mock papers and drilling guides across subjects |
Related: IB Chinese A: Language and Literature Paper 2 mock · IB Chinese A: Literature Paper 1 mock · IB Chinese B Paper 1 and Paper 2 reading mock · practice area
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