AQA ENGLISH LANGUAGE PAPER 1: FICTION

How to answer Q3 – analysing structure (2026 version)

This is the structure question. You have to analyse how the whole extract has been structured for effect. In other words, why has the writer structured the extract the way they have? The question will give you an effect to look for.

NOTE FOR YEAR 11: In light of the changes AQA announced in January 2025, this guide has been completely rewritten.

This guide is part of the English Language Paper 1 series:

Paper 1 Question 2 - analysing language
Paper 1 Questions 3 - analysing structure
Paper 1 Question 4 - evaluating the statement
Paper 1 Question 5 - writing to describe/narrate

Contents of this guide

Example of the new question wording for 2026
How does the new question wording work?
Overall structure and example for this question
Steps for tackling this question
1. Figure out the structure of the text - look for shifts in focus that are relevant to the question – planning step
2. Identify the effect of some of these shifts in focus – planning step
3. Describe the focus shift and explain how it creates the effect in the question – writing step
4. Repeat step 3 for other focus shifts in the extract until you get to the end — writing step
Example response

Example of the new question wording for 2026

You now need to think about the structure of the source as a whole.

This text is from the beginning of a novel.

How has the writer structured the text to create a sense of mystery?

You could write about:

• how mystery is developed throughout the source

• how the writer uses structure to create an effect

• the writer’s use of any other structural features, such as changes in mood, tone or perspective.

How does the new question wording work?

Previously, this question said, How has the writer structured the text to interest the reader? Now, instead of this general effect (to interest the reader), the question will provide some kind of specific effect (e.g. to create a sense of mystery) that you will need to write about in the answer. This will make it easier for you to get started, though it does somewhat limit what you can write about since you can’t really write about other reasons that the writer has structured the text in the way they have.

At the time of writing, AQA have released three example questions with this new wording to give students and teachers a sense of what the question in 2026 (and beyond) will be.

The three example questions released so far are:

How has the writer structured the text to create tension?
How has the writer structured the text to create a sense of mystery?
How has the writer structured the text to create suspense about Ugwu meeting Master?

One thing to note here is that 1 and 2 are both still quite general, but 3 provides an even more specific reference to the content of the text (to create suspense about Ugwu meeting Master).

Still, they’re all fairly similar and focus on common effects like suspense, tension and mystery. The rest of this guide has been written with these example questions in mind.

Overall structure and example for this question

There are several different ways you could structure your response to this question, but this guide will focus on what we think is the simplest way to produce a clear and relevant answer.

[A] (Optional) Provide an overall summary sentence describing the structure of the text as a whole.

[B] Briefly describe how the writer starts the text; then explain how this opening contributes to the effect in the question.

[C]Briefly describe how the writer shifts the focus; then explain how this focus shift contributes to the effect in the question.

Repeat part C as many times as necessary until you get to the end of the extract, then…

[D] Briefly describe how the writer ends the extract and explain how that contributes to the effect in the question.

Each step here is quite simple and short (1-2 sentences long), and you will generally do this in one big paragraph.

We’ll explain it all in detail over the course of this guide, but here’s a full response to give you a flavour of it. We’ll break this down in the rest of the guide.

Full example answer (the writer of this text is Judith Allnatt)

[A] Judith Allnatt creates mystery in this extract by introducing “the stranger child” early on and then making the reader wait to find out who they might be, only ever drip-feeding small bits of extra information as the extract progresses and never really making anything clear. [B] This process begins in the opening sentence when Allnatt mentions Rosie seeing “the stranger child” in their “first day at the house”, introducing a sense of mystery through concealed information and vagueness: strange how? what child? [C] Allnatt then shifts the focus to the washing up and Rosie’s feelings about her recent move, which makes the reader wait for more information about the stranger child, increasing the mystery. [C] After that, Allnatt shifts the focus again to a description of Sam and Cara playing in the garden, making the reader wait longer and making the stranger child seem more mysterious and out of place, before she suddenly appears at the end of the paragraph. [C] Next, there is a timeshift, as Allnatt describes Rosie’s first impression of the garden. This setting description adds to the mystery by presenting the setting as ancient and ominous, perhaps foreshadowing that the child could be threatening as well as mysterious. [C] Then Allnatt describes the child’s appearance and behaviour in the garden, explaining how unusual her clothes are (like “dressing-up clothes”) and mentioning that Cara seems “unfazed by [her] presence”. This only adds to the sense of mystery: why doesn’t Cara notice her? can she even see her? and why is she dressed like someone from the past? [C] To further emphasise this, Allnatt shifts the focus to Rosie’s thoughts: “Where on earth had she come from? …how had she got in?” These rhetorical questions cement how mysterious the child is, since Rosie can’t figure out what’s going on either, and we share her narrative perspective. [D] Finally, after describing the “furtive” and fearful behaviour of the stranger child, further adding to the mystery, Allnatt creates a climax at the end of the extract when Rosie goes out to speak to her and the child suddenly disappears, leaving the reader in suspense and confusion about exactly what is going on.

Steps for tackling this question

PLANNING YOUR RESPONSE

1. Figure out the structure of the text — look for focus shifts that are relevant to the question — planning step

This is undoubtedly the most difficult step. It is the part that students always find most difficult, and it is the most important part of the whole process. As such, we’re going to spend a while looking at it in this guide.

Analysing focus shifts — the easy part

If this step is done for you (e.g. by your teacher, or by us in this guide), then you’ll probably be able to analyse the structure of a text relatively easily, but when you have to figure out the structure for yourself, it will probably seem difficult to do. Practise will definitely help here — you need to do this process lots of times with different extracts to help you get used to it — but it matters that you understand what it is that you’re trying to do, which is what we’re going to explain here.

Let’s look at a simple example to start with, using images rather than words — this generally makes it a bit easier to see how structure works in a text.

For the purposes of this made-up example, we will say the question is: How does the writer structure the text to create tension? This will become important later on.

NARRATIVE STRUCTURE 1

NARRATIVE STRUCTURE 2

Here we have two different narrative structures:

In both cases the writer starts by describing a beach, but then things diverge
In (1) the focus shifts to the baby and then the focus shifts to the shark
In (2) the focus shifts to the shark first and then the focus shifts to the baby.

These two structures make a difference to how the reader responds to the text:

In (1) we think, “Aw! A cute baby!” (because we don’t know about the shark yet) but then we think, “No! The shark’s going to eat the baby!” (because that’s how stories work)
In (2) we think, “Ooo! The shark’s going to eat something…” (because that’s how stories work) and then we think, “No! The shark’s going to eat the baby!” (otherwise, why mention it right after the shark?)

So, although the same thing is going to happen in both versions (the shark is going to eat the baby — sorry!) the way the reader responds to the text, and when they start to feel tense, depends on the structure of the narrative — on where the writer shifts the focus, and in what order. In Narrative Structure 2, the reader never thinks, “Aw! A cute baby!” because the tension has already started — we only get that response with Narrative Structure 1, because of how that text has been structured.

This is pretty straightforward. You should be able to understand this, and if you were asked to write about the difference between these two narrative structures (BEACH > BABY > SHARK vs BEACH > SHARK > BABY), you could probably do it.

Recognising focus shifts — the hard part

However, the difficulty comes in recognising that the writer has structured the text in this way — in recognising that the text has a BEACH > BABY > SHARK structure — in recognising that these are the focus shifts that you need to identify.

Why is this difficult?

First, you don’t get a nice series of images saying what the focus shifts are — you have to figure them out for yourself from a big block of words.
Second, you don’t get the alternative structure — you just get the one structure that the writer has actually used, with the focus shifts in the text (BEACH > BABY > SHARK), and you have to understand why they have used that structure.

Both of these difficulties matter for this question, but it’s the first one that is the most common problem for students — and it’s this problem that we want to overcome in this part of the guide. (You can always imagine a different structure to help you overcome the second difficulty.)

Let’s look at this first difficulty in practice, using the same shark-based example as above.

Read the paragraph below, which is a text-based version of the BEACH > BABY > SHARK structure (Narrative Structure 1), with our question: How does the writer structure the text to create tension?

Can you see where each focus shift happens in this text version?

The beach sprawled beneath the afternoon sun in a blur of colour and sound: striped deckchairs angled toward the water, the sharp scent of sunscreen hanging in the warm air, ice-cream wrappers fluttering in the sand, and the distant thud of a volleyball rising and falling with bursts of laughter. Waves rolled in lazily, their white edges dissolving at the feet of walkers, while radios hummed out competing melodies and gulls wheeled overhead, bold and impatient. In the shallows, families clustered together, splashing and calling out, and among them drifted a baby in a bright blue inflatable ring, round-cheeked and delighted, fingers trailing through the water as the gentle current nudged them back and forth. The ring bobbed softly, turning the child in a slow, playful circle — and then, just beyond that small island of plastic and giggles, the sea darkened as a single fin rose cleanly above the surface, slicing a quiet, unmistakable line through the blue.

Because we’ve prepped you for this task, you can probably see that there is a description of a beach here (it all sounds lovely at this point) and then the focus shifts to the baby, with its cute round cheeks, delighted in its blue inflatable ring (Aww!), and then, at the end, the focus shifts to the shark fin: “No! The shark’s going to eat the baby!”

The problem that students have with this question is that, when presented with a big paragraph of text like this, they can’t see that a paragraph like this has the structure of BEACH > BABY > SHARK.

They could easily analyse that structure — as we’ve discussed above — if they could recognise that that is the structure, but they can’t. They just see a big block of text with lots of words in it, and they can’t zoom out and recognise the individual parts of the structure.

Why is this so difficult to do?

Well, the first thing understand is this: why is the structure of the paragraph above BEACH > BABY > SHARK? Why is it not DECK CHAIRS >VOLLEYBALL > WAVES > RADIOS > FAMILIES > BABY > SHARK?

This isn’t obvious.

In fact, this is the structure of that paragraph — it’s the order of the information we receive when reading it — so why have we put the deck chairs, the volley ball, the waves, the music, and the families together as one thing, BEACH? And why is this separate to BABY? Why is the introduction of the baby a focus shift from the BEACH, when the introduction of the radios wasn’t a focus shift?

These are all good questions.

The answer is that, once we know about the shark, we should know, as readers, that the deck chairs and the volleyball and the radios are all part of the same thing — the setting. The shark isn’t going to eat that stuff; the shark is going to eat the baby.

Once we’ve read and understood the whole paragraph — and only then — can we see what matters. Only then can we understand the narrative structure. The first part was setting the scene — lots of people having a nice time on the beach — and the real focus is on the baby and the shark. Only when we’ve read and understood the whole paragraph can we understand how the text has been structured. It is really about a shark (maybe) eating a baby.

This is what you need to be able to do to answer this question well. You need to be able to see all the words and sentences in the extract you’re given in the exam, and then separate them into chunks that are relevant to what the writer is trying to convey in the story (e.g. a shark eating a baby), and what you have been asked to write about in the question (e.g. tension). This is why this question is a test of how good a reader you are. That’s what all these English Language reading questions are about.

So, how can this process be made easier for you? Let’s see.

How to spot focus shifts 1 — look for paragraphs

One thing that can help is paragraphing. It might be that the writer of the text you are looking at has used paragraphs to separate out the focus shifts, at least to some extent.

So the BEACH > BABY > SHARK text might look like this:

In the shallows, families clustered together, splashing and calling out, and among them drifted a baby in a bright blue inflatable ring, round-cheeked and delighted, fingers trailing through the water as the gentle current nudged them back and forth. The ring bobbed softly, turning the child in a slow, playful circle.

Then, just beyond that small island of plastic and giggles, the sea darkened as a single fin rose cleanly above the surface, slicing a quiet, unmistakable line through the blue.

This version is much easier to break down: there is a BEACH paragraph, followed by a BABY paragraph, followed by a SHARK paragraph. If you’re lucky, you’ll get something more like this than the previous example, but it’s far from guaranteed based on the extracts that the exam board have used in the past, so you can’t assume that each paragraph is a different chunk of the structure.

This is especially true when you consider passages of direct speech. There will be lots of paragraphs here, but you’re not going to separate each bit of speech into a different chunk of the structure. You’re more likely to group it all together into one chunk, or maybe two chunks if there is a change in the focus of what the characters are talking about or how their relationship is.

This would apply any time a writer uses several short paragraphs in succession.

Nevertheless, it may help to look for the way the extract is paragraphed. That is the easiest sign of focus shifts you’ll be able to find.

How to spot focus shifts 2 — look at the question

What else can you do to help you look for focus shifts? The question wording can help with this too. It will give you an idea what sort of things you’re looking for.

Let’s consider the shark example first. The question we had was: How has the writer structured the text to create tension?

This question primes us to look for parts of the text that are related to tension. Where does the text become tense? And in the shark example, the tension comes with the introduction of the shark, and the tension is directly related to the baby, since it’s in the water where the shark is. Recognising this helps us to see that BABY and SHARK are two relevant parts of the text, and also that DECK CHAIRS, VOLLEY BALL, etc are not relevant because they don’t contribute to the tension in the text. This means they can be grouped together as BEACH.

This would still be true even if we weren’t answering this question, but bearing the question in mind will help to sharpen this up. It will make the structure easier to spot.

Let’s look at a different example, this time from a real exam text. This is the text that we are using for our main example, which has the following question: How has the writer structured the text to create a sense of mystery?

This is question is telling us to look for parts of the text that are mysterious. Let’s consider this in relation to the first paragraph of the extract. Is there any mystery here? Could we break this paragraph up into parts like BEACH > BABY > SHARK?

The simplest way to break up this paragraph would be to include every single bit of information in the paragraph, which would give us something like this:

STRANGER CHILD > WASHING UP > OVERWHELMED BY TASKS > LONDON DRIVE > OVERGROWN GARDEN > SAM AND CARA PLAYING

This isn’t wrong — this is the basic structure of the paragraph — but given the question is about creating a sense of mystery, most of this isn’t relevant. Does Rosie’s tiredness from her drive from London add to the sense of mystery? No. Does the fact the garden is overgrown add to the sense of mystery? Not really.

What does create a sense of mystery? The stranger child does (e.g. the first sentence). What child? Stranger how? It’s deliberately mysterious, and we’re made to wait to find out more by all that other information (e.g. the washing up, the tiredness, the drive from London, etc).

Given the question, then, we should break this paragraph up into the following chunks:

STRANGER CHILD > WASHING UP

We are told about the stranger child (What child?) and then the focus shifts to the washing up and we are made to wait for more information about this child by everything else in the paragraph. That is the relevant structure here. That is the thing that creates mystery (what the question is telling us to look for), so that is the structure that we need identify when we’re breaking up the extract into focus shifts.

The rest of the paragraph about London and Rosie feeling overwhelmed, etc, doesn’t matter in and of itself, in the same way that the deck chairs and the volleyball and the waves didn’t matter with the shark story.

When we zoom out (in our minds) and think about the story as a whole we should be able to see which parts of the narrative structure can be discussed as a group, like the beach or the washing up, and which parts need to be singled out, like the stranger child or the baby or the shark.

Being able to make this distinction between relevant focus shifts and other focus shifts is the key to answering this question well. As we’ve said, this isn’t easy, and every extract will be different, but understanding this core concept is essential.

How to spot focus shifts 3 — look at the other questions in the paper

Another way to identify some parts of the structure of the extract is to look at the other 3 questions in the Reading section of the paper.

Q1 is always about the start of the extract and will give you a rough idea of how the text begins
Q2 is then about a bit later in the extract and will give you a rough idea of at least one focus shift
Q4 is always about the second half of the extract, right up to the end. This will give you a rough idea of how the extract ends.

If you’re struggling to recognise focus shifts in the extract, use the questions to help you find some.

What common focus shifts might there be?

Having established all that, there are some generalisations which can be applied. As with the paragraphing discussion earlier, these are not a guarantee: you can’t just look for these in an extract and analyse the structure well. However, they are some things that you might be able to look out for in an extract, if they are relevant to the question you’ve been asked.

It was on their first day at the house that Rosie saw the stranger child. Standing at the sink, her hands deep in suds, Rosie was overwhelmed by the tasks that lay ahead of her. Tired after the long drive from London the evening before, she gazed vaguely at the sunlit, overgrown garden where Sam and Cara were playing.

Examples of some common focus shifts (not necessarily relevant to every question)

From description to direct speech
From direct speech to thought
From setting description to action
From action to thought
From action to a timeshift back
From direct speech to a timeshift forward (e.g. to later that day)

Obviously, you could jumble up the components here (e.g. ‘from thought to direct speech’ instead of ‘from direct speech to thought’), but you get the idea. You are looking for changes in what the writer is focussing on in different bits of the extract — and you need to group them based on their relevance to the question.

Summing up step 1

This section has been very long, we realise, so we’ll finish by summing up:

No matter what, you should begin with the start of the extract; you’re always going to write about that. How does the writer set up whatever you’re looking for (e.g. the mystery of the stranger child)?
Then you will work chronologically and look for shifts in the focus that are relevant to the question, grouping other parts of the text into irrelevant chunks (e.g. deck chairs + volley ball + waves + radio = BEACH).
Looking for paragraphs, looking at the question focus and considering the other questions in the paper will help you to do this.

If you can chunk the extract in this way, then you will have done the hardest part of answering this question: writing the actual analysis of each focus shift is relatively straightforward in comparison.

2. Identify the effect of some of these focus shifts — planning step

Having identified relevant focus shifts, you have to decide why the writer has structured the text in this way. There are no hard and fast rules for this kind of analysis — it’s very much dependent on the particular text, but the question wording will help you with this.

How does each focus shift you have identified contribute to the effect that the question has specified (e.g. tension, suspense, mystery, etc)?

You don’t have to write about every focus shift in the text — just write about the ones that you have something to say about. We’ll talk about how you can skip over focus shifts later in the guide.

Below are some things you might want to think about in terms of the effect that a focus shift might have. Generally, though, you will be able to figure out the effect here providing you are able to see the relevant focus shifts in the text.

Possible effects of focus shifts in the structure of a text

Is something being established which is important for later in the text? Consider character, setting or mood/atmosphere.
Is there some kind of conflict or threat established in the text? Or is something like this foreshadowed, though not properly established?
Is something deliberately concealed from the reader, creating suspense or mystery?
Is there a juxtaposition which helps to emphasise something?
Does the shift in focus increase or decrease the tension, suspense or mystery?
Does the shift in focus surprise or shock the reader?
Is there some kind of digression from the main story (e.g. a timeshift) and, if so, why does the writer want us to know that information? Does it delay the reveal of the mystery? Does it add more tension or suspense?

WRITING YOUR RESPONSE

3. (Optional) Provide an overall summary sentence — writing step

This step is not essential, but in the example top-level responses that the exam board have provided for this question in the past, they have done this from time to time, and it’s a good way to start your response, if you can do it for the question and extract you are asked to write about.

You need to make sure you lead with the writer here (as you do throughout your response) so you are definitely writing about how they have structured the text, and NOT just summarising what happens in the text. This is an easy mistake to make, but an easy one to avoid too. Just make sure you use the writer’s name (full name or surname) as the subject of the sentence when you are describing the structure. There are lots of examples of this in the rest of this guide, so it should be clear to you by the time you finish reading it.

As far as what you should summarise, this is pretty straightforward based on the example questions the exam board have provided so far (tension, suspense and mystery). In all three cases you just need to:

Summarise what the cause of the tension/suspense/mystery is in the extract,
Then summarise how it is generally increased or decreased/ended over the rest of the extract.

You should keep this summary to one sentence, for time reasons, though it may be quite a long sentence. You can see a full example for our mystery-focussed question below.

Example opening summary sentence

4. Briefly describe how the text begins and explain how it contributes to the effect in the question – writing step

Now you need to start your chronological overview of the structure of the text, beginning at the beginning. How does the extract start? How does this relate to the effect in the question (tension, mystery, suspense, etc)?

Remember to lead with the writer — say how they have structured the text; don’t just say what happens in the text, or you’ll end up writing a summary by mistake.

You only need to write 1-2 sentences, though the sentences might be quite long. Use them to state what happens at the start (e.g. what the writer decides to include at this point), including short, embedded quotations, if possible, and some relevant terminology. (We’ll discuss terminology in a lot more detail in the next step of the process.)

Then, having described how the text starts, say how the start helps to create the effect in the question (tension, mystery, suspense, etc). If it doesn’t create this effect, then explain how it lays the groundwork for the effect to be created later in the extract.

There will always be something to say about the start of the extract — the exam board will choose to start the extract in a particular place for this reason. You can see our example below. notice the use of terminology (always underlined) and the use of short, embedded quotations in the first part of the analysis.

You can see the first use of terminology in the example below, with the word ‘sentence’. Notice, we don’t analyse the use of a sentence — we just use that terminology to describe the structure of the text. This is how you’ll generally use terminology in this question. You will identify it more than you will analyse it.

Example analysis of the opening of an extract

This process begins in the opening sentence when Allnatt mentions Rosie seeing “the stranger child” in their “first day at the house”, introducing a sense of mystery through concealed information and vagueness: strange how? what child?

5. Describe a focus shift and explain how it contributes to the effect in the question – writing step

The next part of your response has the same basic structure as the first part, only this will focus on the first time the writer shifts the focus (you will have identified this in your planning earlier). You’ll repeat this basic process several times over the rest of your response, but you’ll do it for the first time here. The structure of the analysis is very simple:

Say how the writer shifts the focus in the extract
Then say how this focus shift contributes to the effect in the question

Whenever you do this, you need to remember to do these things:

Lead with the writer — say how they have structured the text, not just what happens in the text
Write 1-2 sentences, though the sentences might be quite long
Include short, embedded quotations from the text in this part of your answer
Include terminology, especially structure-specific terminology (see box below for examples), if appropriate
Explain how the focus shift adds to the effect described in the question

Potential terminology to use in this question

Narrative structure terminology:

exposition
inciting incident
rising action
climax
falling action
resolution
denouement

Be slightly careful with this terminology, though. Mostly you’ll be getting the exposition of a story as it’s just an extract: don’t try to turn every extract into the full story structure. But you can use some of this terminology if it’s appropriate.

Other structure-specific techniques, particularly these ones:

foreshadowing
juxtaposition
in medias res
timeshift

General features of the text which can be used to describe what the writer is doing in that point. These include things like:

direct speech
description
characterisation
paragraph
sentence

Look at the rest of the examples in this guide to see how this kind of terminology can be used.

You can see our next example of this 2-part analysis structure (below), which describes the first focus shift in the extract for our question, as well as the effect it has in relation to our question.

Not every example of structure analysis will include terminology (this one doesn’t). However, you will use it several times across your response as a whole.

Initial focus shift analysis example

Allnatt then shifts the focus to the washing up and Rosie’s feelings about her recent move, which makes the reader wait for more information about the stranger child, increasing the mystery.

8. Repeat step 5 for other focus shifts in the extract, including how the text ends — writing step

As you can see, you don’t need to write much for each part of this structure: 1-2 sentences is usually enough. However, you do need to repeat this several times over the course of the extract, from the start to the end, if you want to get to Level 3 or 4 in the mark scheme.

The process is always the same as we outlined above:

Lead with the writer — say how they have structured the text, not just what happens in the text (you can see lots of examples of this below)

Write 1-2 sentences, though the sentences might be quite long
Include short, embedded quotations from the text in this part of your answer
Include terminology, especially structure-specific terminology (see box below for examples), if appropriate
Explain how the focus shift adds to the effect described in the question

Once you’ve done this for one focus shift, you’ll quickly get the hang of it. You’re essentially doing the same thing over and over again.

One thing you must remember to do, though, as you write the rest of your response is to vary the way you write about each focus shift — try to avoid your answer becoming incredibly repetitive (e.g. the writer then shifts the focus to … the writer then shifts the focus to … the writer then shifts the focus to … etc). This would become very hard to read for your marker. There are lots of ways you can introduce each focus shift, and we provide several examples in the boxes at the end of this section of the guide. There are also some useful phrases at the end of this part of guide.

How to skip a focus shift (or even several focus shifts)

You don’t have to write about every focus shift in the extract — we explained this earlier on in the planning steps. However, you should try to cover the whole text. This may mean skipping over some parts of the text. This is relatively easy to do:

You can just skip ahead in the extract by using a phrase like “Later in the text…” or “After X the writer…”. This will allow you to ignore a paragraph or two that you are uncomfortable explaining in your response. Doing this is perfectly fine and probably won’t affect your overall mark. It’s better to do this than say something wrong, or waste loads of time trying to figure out a part of the structure that you don’t understand, or that doesn’t seem relevant to the question.
You can also combine several focus shifts into one bit of analysis to speed things up. We do this at the end of our example response, which we explain at the very end of this section of the guide. This is also something you may well want to do, and it’s also perfectly fine. It made sense when we were writing our example answer, and it may well make sense when you are writing your analysis for this question.

Make sure you write about the end

To complete your response you should say something about how the text ends. Perhaps the mystery is maintained at the end (as in our example). The same could be true of the tension or suspense. Or perhaps it is relieved by something that happens at the end of the extract. Either way, you should say something about how the extract ends because the exam board will have chosen to end the extract there for a reason.

Some useful words and phrases for introducing focus shifts in different ways:

the writer then shifts to
next, the writer
after this, the writer
later in the text
to finish the extract, the writer

To show you how to vary this more specifically, we have included 4 focus shift analysis examples, each in a separate box below: you should be able to see that they have each been written in a slightly different way to avoid repetition, while maintaining the same basic approach that we outlined earlier:

Describe the focus shift (with embedded quotations and terminology where appropriate)
Then analyse its effect

Example focus shift analysis 1

After that, Allnatt shifts the focus again to a description of Sam and Cara playing in the garden, making the reader wait longer and making the stranger child seem more mysterious and out of place, before she suddenly appears at the end of the paragraph.

Example focus shift analysis 2

Next, there is a timeshift, as Allnatt describes Rosie’s first impression of the garden. This setting description adds to the mystery by presenting the setting as ancient and ominous, perhaps foreshadowing that the child could be threatening as well as mysterious.

Example focus shift analysis 3

Then Allnatt describes the child’s appearance and behaviour in the garden, explaining how unusual her clothes are (like “dressing-up clothes”) and mentioning that Cara seems “unfazed by [her] presence”. This only adds to the sense of mystery: why doesn’t Cara notice her? can she even see her? and why is she dressed like someone from the past?

Example focus shift analysis 4

To further emphasise this, Allnatt shifts the focus to Rosie’s thoughts: “Where on earth had she come from? …how had she got in?” These rhetorical questions cement how mysterious the child is, since Rosie can’t figure out what’s going on either, and we share her narrative perspective.

The final example in this part of the guide is the last bit of structure analysis in our example. In this example we use one of the approaches for skipping a focus shift that we described earlier in this part of the guide. In this case, we wanted to keep the example to a manageable length for a 10 minute question, and so it made sense to bring the last few parts of the extract together into one bit of analysis, rather than separating it all out. You can do this at any point in your own answer, whether it be the start, middle or end.

You do not have to to write about every single thing that happens in the extract. You just have to analyse the overall structure. Combining several bits together is a good way to achieve this in the limited time you have available for this question. You can see this in the example below.

Example focus shift analysis 5 — with some focus shift skipping

Finally, after describing the “furtive” and fearful behaviour of the stranger child, further adding to the mystery, Allnatt creates a climax at the end of the extract when Rosie goes out to speak to her and the child suddenly disappears, leaving the reader in suspense and confusion about exactly what is going on.

This creates the following full response, which we saw at the start of this guide

Judith Allnatt creates mystery in this extract by introducing “the stranger child” early on and then making the reader wait to find out who they might be, only ever drip-feeding small bits of extra information as the extract progresses and never really making anything clear. This process begins in the opening sentence when Allnatt mentions Rosie seeing “the stranger child” in their “first day at the house”, introducing a sense of mystery through concealed information and vagueness: strange how? what child? Allnatt then shifts the focus to the washing up and Rosie’s feelings about her recent move, which makes the reader wait for more information about the stranger child, increasing the mystery. After that, Allnatt shifts the focus again to a description of Sam and Cara playing in the garden, making the reader wait longer and making the stranger child seem more mysterious and out of place, before she suddenly appears at the end of the paragraph. Next, there is a timeshift, as Allnatt describes Rosie’s first impression of the garden. This setting description adds to the mystery by presenting the setting as ancient and ominous, perhaps foreshadowing that the child could be threatening as well as mysterious. Then Allnatt describes the child’s appearance and behaviour in the garden, explaining how unusual her clothes are (like “dressing-up clothes”) and mentioning that Cara seems “unfazed by [her] presence”. This only adds to the sense of mystery: why doesn’t Cara notice her? can she even see her? and why is she dressed like someone from the past? To further emphasise this, Allnatt shifts the focus to Rosie’s thoughts: “Where on earth had she come from? …how had she got in?” These rhetorical questions cement how mysterious the child is, since Rosie can’t figure out what’s going on either, and we share her narrative perspective. Finally, after describing the “furtive” and fearful behaviour of the stranger child, further adding to the mystery, Allnatt creates a climax at the end of the extract when Rosie goes out to speak to her and the child suddenly disappears, leaving the reader in suspense and confusion about exactly what is going on.