Fact or Inference?

Fact or Inference? 📰

Welcome to **Paper 2**. Instead of one story, you get **two non-fiction texts** on the same theme — one from the **19th century**, one from **now** — and questions that test how well you handle **information**. First skills to nail: telling a **stated fact** from an **inference**, and **synthesising** both sources into one answer.

Text A — a traveller's journal, 1861 🎩

Read the first, older source (written for this module — your real exam sources will differ): *We arrived at the coast on the morning train, two hundred souls in our Sunday best. The promenade was a marvel of modern improvement, lined with bathing-machines drawn by patient horses. Ladies bathed apart from gentlemen, as decency demands, and a brass band played upon the pier. The sea air did wonders for my constitution, though a single ice cost a shilling — daylight robbery, in my view.*

Text B — a travel blog, 2019 📱

Now the modern source on the same subject: *Forget the brochures — the British seaside is gloriously, defiantly the same as ever. We piled off the train, phones out, and hit the front: arcades screaming, chips vinegar-sharp in the salt air, a single deckchair costing more than the train ticket. Nobody swims much now; it's too cold, and frankly we'd rather queue for doughnuts. But something in that grey horizon still pulls you back, year after year.*

Fact vs inference 🔍

**Q1 (4 marks, AO1)** rewards **explicit** information — what the text actually **states**. It does NOT want **inferences** — things you cleverly work out. "A brass band played upon the pier" is a **fact** (stated). "The Victorians valued entertainment" is an **inference** (you deduced it). Q1 marks come from facts; save inference for later questions.

Stated, or worked out?

Which of these is a fact explicitly STATED in Text A, rather than something you have to infer?

• Ladies bathed apart from gentlemen
• The writer valued proper, modest behaviour
• Victorian society was strict about the sexes mixing
• The writer disapproved of people swimming together

Find the fact

An interactive activity.

True of the texts?

Pick the TWO statements that are TRUE according to the texts.

• In Text A, ladies and gentlemen bathed separately
• In Text B, few people swim at the seaside now
• In Text A, the visitors arrived by car
• In Text B, the writer finds the seaside completely changed from the past

Q2: bringing the texts together 🔗

**Q2 (8 marks, AO1)** asks you to **summarise and synthesise** both texts on a given focus. **Synthesise** is the key word: you must **combine and compare** the two sources, not describe them one after the other. A strong Q2 uses evidence from **both** texts in the same point, drawing out what is **similar** or **different**.

What "synthesise" means

For Q2, what does it mean to synthesise the two texts?

• Combine and compare information from BOTH texts on the focus
• Write about only the more interesting of the two texts
• Analyse the language techniques in one text
• Copy out quotations from each text without comment

A good synthesis point

Which sentence is a strong Q2 SYNTHESIS point, drawing on BOTH texts?

• Both writers grumble about the cost — a shilling for an ice in Text A, and an overpriced deckchair in Text B.
• Text A uses the word "promenade".
• The seaside is next to the sea.
• Text B mentions doughnuts.

In the exam 🎓

Paper 2 opened. Grade-9 habits for Q1 and Q2: • **Q1**: give only what is **explicitly stated** — short, direct facts, never inferences. • **Q2**: **synthesise** — combine and **compare BOTH** texts on the focus in the same point, drawing out similarities and differences. • Keep fact and inference clear in your head: Q1 wants the stated fact; the cleverer inference belongs in later questions.