IB Chinese A: Language and Literature Past Papers & Drilling (Paper 2): Comparative Essay

Question 1

25-mark frame: (1) Introduction (criterion A): one arguable comparative line – both works treat naming as an act of power, but one lets the character take the naming back while the other leaves it with others for good. (2) Paragraph 1 (B1): how the first work shifts forms of address to register a change in the relationship, with a concrete scene and linguistic detail (not merely “it uses the first person”). (3) Paragraph 2 (B2): how the second work handles the same concern differently in form – silence or loss of speech instead of protest – using “whereas” or “by contrast” explicitly. (4) Paragraph 3 (B1 and B2): compare how the two endings settle or leave open the question of identity. (5) Conclusion (criterion C): return to the quotation in the question, show where it holds only partly for each work, and say how the comparison changed your reading of naming as power. (6) Language (D): academic register and precise analytical vocabulary. All four questions are marked on the same criteria: A 5, B1 5, B2 5, C 5, D 5. The content must come from the two works you studied.

Question 2

25-mark frame: (1) Introduction (A): define power here as who has the right to narrate, and state the comparative line. (2) Paragraph 1 (B1): how the first work’s perspective limits what the reader can see (unreliable narration, time jumps, omission), with one structural arrangement examined. (3) Paragraph 2 (B2): the second work’s formal difference – multiple narrators or alternating chapters – with an explicit contrast: in one, pressure comes from a single perspective; in the other, from the clash between perspectives. (4) Paragraph 3 (B1 and B2): compare the authority being confronted (patriarchy, an institution, colonialism, class), always with textual detail. (5) Conclusion (C): the analysis has to say where the reader is placed. (6) (D): precise formal terms – perspective, free indirect discourse, analepsis, juxtaposition.

Question 3

25-mark frame: (1) Introduction (A): define what is left unresolved – a character unchanged, a narration that will not close, a language that refuses judgement – then state the comparative line. (2) Paragraph 1 (B1): how the first work closes on one action or image (never retell the plot) and how that position holds the tension on the last page. (3) Paragraph 2 (B2): the contrast with the second ending – if one closes in silence, does the other return to its opening scene? How do the two divide responsibility between text and reader? (4) Paragraph 3 (B1 and B2): what the unfinished ending does to the work’s central concern – hope, accusation, or a refusal to console. (5) Conclusion (C): test the quotation, including the point at which it fails. (6) (D): steady register, no empty “very moving”.

Question 4

25-mark frame: (1) Introduction (A): define the reader’s position as what the text asks the reader to fill in, doubt and side with. (2) Paragraph 1 (B1): how the first work’s gaps or unreliable narration actually work, with one place where the reader is forced to judge. (3) Paragraph 2 (B2): how the second work’s layered or framed time changes the order of reading, explicitly contrasted with the first. (4) Paragraph 3 (B1 and B2): evaluation – where the design works (it makes the reader carry the judgement) and where it fails (too little information turns reading into arbitrary invention); the two works fail differently, so keep the failures apart. (5) Conclusion (C): say when participatory reading becomes a burden. (6) (D): evaluation needs criteria, not preference.

Question 5

Demonstration introduction: both works make wakefulness the beginning of disaster: one protagonist is convinced he alone is clear-eyed, the other is seen clearly by his family only after he becomes an insect. This essay compares how the two use the trustworthiness of their narrators to make being out of step with the world equally painful, while reaching opposite conclusions – one treats madness as accusation, the other treats oddity as routine.
Demonstration body paragraph (with comparative language): both works use a first-person narrator to limit what the reader knows, but they limit it in opposite ways. By contrast with Kafka’s, the diary form of the Chinese text lets an extremely confident narrator set the tone, so the reader must decide between “he is mad” and “he has seen through it”; whereas in “The Metamorphosis” the voice turns cool and domestic after the change, fixing on furniture and the gap in the door, so judgement shifts towards the family. The same restricted knowledge pulls the reader into one protagonist and pushes the reader out to watch the other, and each design buys its depth with the reader’s allegiance. Every answer uses the same skeleton – comparative line, three paragraphs, evaluation, conclusion – and every paragraph must carry comparative language or criterion B2 stays in the middle bands.