Paper 2 Question 2: synthesis

What Question 2 rewards

Paper 2 Question 2 asks you to bring together information from both sources about a particular focus. It is worth 8 marks and assesses AO1: understanding directly stated and implied information, and selecting and combining evidence from different texts.

From June 2026, the wording explicitly asks what you can infer about the differences between the subjects in the two sources. Follow the particular task: where similarities are requested, explain similarities instead. Older papers asked you to use details from both sources to write a summary of what you understood about their differences. The underlying skill remains the same: select evidence, infer meaning and connect the sources.

AQA’s suggested timing is eight minutes for Question 2, alongside an initial fifteen minutes of reading and planning for Questions 1–3.

An inference goes beyond repeating a detail. If a worker carries coal on her back, the explicit information is how she transports it. An inference is that transporting the coal places a direct physical burden on her body. Synthesis then connects that understanding with relevant evidence from the other source.

Two accounts of working underground

These sources share the theme of work in coal mines, but come from different periods and genres. Source A is George Orwell’s account in The Road to Wigan Pier, published in 1937. He describes watching miners called ‘fillers’, whose job is to shovel fallen coal onto a conveyor belt. Source B contains children’s testimony collected for the 1842 Children’s Employment Commission investigating mine work.

Source A: George Orwell, The Road to Wigan Pier (1937)

You cannot see very far, because the fog of coal dust throws back the beam of your lamp, but you can see on either side of you the line of half-naked kneeling men, one to every four or five yards, driving their shovels under the fallen coal and flinging it swiftly over their left shoulders. They are feeding it on to the conveyor belt, a moving rubber belt a couple of feet wide which runs a yard or two behind them. Down this belt a glittering river of coal races constantly. In a big mine it is carrying away several tons of coal every minute. It bears it off to some place in the main roads where it is shot into tubs holding half a ton, and thence dragged to the cages and hoisted to the outer air.

It is impossible to watch the 'fillers' at work without feeling a pang of envy for their toughness. It is a dreadful job that they do, an almost superhuman job by the standard of an ordinary person. For they are not only shifting monstrous quantities of coal, they are also doing it in a position that doubles or trebles the work. They have got to remain kneeling all the while—they could hardly rise from their knees without hitting the ceiling—and you can easily see by trying it what a tremendous effort this means. Shovelling is comparatively easy when you are standing up, because you can use your knee and thigh to drive the shovel along; kneeling down, the whole of the strain is thrown upon your arm and belly muscles.

They are on the job for seven and a half hours, theoretically without a break, for there is no time 'off'. Actually they snatch a quarter of an hour or so at some time during the shift to eat the food they have brought with them, usually a hunk of bread and dripping and a bottle of cold tea.

Source B: children’s evidence to the Children’s Employment Commission (1842)

Sarah Gooder, aged eight

I'm a trapper in the Gawber pit. It does not tire me, but I have to trap without a light and I'm scared. I go at four and sometimes half past three in the morning, and come out at five and half past. I never go to sleep. Sometimes I sing when I've light, but not in the dark; I dare not sing then. I don't like being in the pit. I am very sleepy when I go sometimes in the morning.

Isabella Read, aged twelve, coal-bearer

Works on mother's account, as father has been dead two years. Mother bides at home, she is troubled with bad breath, and is sair weak in her body from early labour. I am wrought with sister and brother, it is very sore work; cannot say how many rakes or journeys I make from pit's bottom to wall face and back, thinks about 30 or 25 on the average; the distance varies from 100 to 250 fathom.

I carry about 1 cwt. and a quarter on my back; have to stoop much and creep through water, which is frequently up to the calves of my legs. When first down fell frequently asleep while waiting for coal from heat and fatigue.

I do not like the work, nor do the lassies, but they are made to like it. When the weather is warm there is difficulty in breathing, and frequently the lights go out.

Some older vocabulary needs unpacking: Isabella’s ‘sair weak’ means very weak, and ‘wrought’ means worked. A ‘fathom’ measures distance, while ‘cwt.’ means hundredweight, a unit of weight. For this question, the important information is that she repeatedly travels through the mine carrying a heavy load; no unit conversion is needed.

Start with a narrow focus

Question: What can you infer about the differences between the work done by the miners in Source A and the children in Source B? Support your answer with details from both sources. [8 marks]

The shared theme is mining, but the question is not asking for everything you learn about mines. It asks about the workers’ work. Relevant details include their tasks, physical demands and working hours.

A useful plan puts comparable details beside each other:

The final column matters most. The first two columns collect evidence; the final column begins to interpret it.

Develop a Level 2 answer into detailed synthesis

Consider this short response:

The men in Source A shovel coal onto a ‘conveyor belt’, which suggests machinery helps them. Isabella in Source B carries coal on her back and creeps through water, so her work is difficult. The men work seven and a half hours, but Sarah goes in at four in the morning and comes out at five or half past five, so she works longer.

Examiner’s judgement: Level 2, 4/8. It uses relevant evidence from both sources and attempts some inference. However, ‘machinery helps them’ and ‘her work is difficult’ are broad conclusions. The working-time comparison mainly repeats explicit information. To reach Level 3, explain clearly what the paired details reveal.

First, establish what each passage actually tells you. The men shovel coal onto a moving belt. Isabella carries coal on her back, making many journeys and creeping through water.

Next, explain the implication. The belt removes the coal once the men have loaded it. Isabella must physically carry her load along the route herself, so transport places additional demands on her body. This develops ‘machinery helps them’ into a precise explanation of how their tasks differ.

Then, preserve the important qualification. The men’s work is not easy simply because a machine is involved: they shovel while kneeling, with the strain concentrated in their upper bodies. The difference concerns how the coal is moved, not a contrast between effortless adult work and exhausting child work.

Now develop the working-time comparison. Repeating that the men work seven and a half hours is a summary of explicit information. Connecting their shift with Sarah’s very early arrival, early-evening departure and sleepiness allows you to infer that her work occupies far more of the day and can leave her poorly rested. Sarah says her task does not tire her: distinguish the burden of her long working day from Isabella’s strenuous carrying.

These changes improve the interpretation rather than simply adding more quotations.

Turn paired thinking into connected writing

Your answer can be one integrated paragraph or linked paragraphs. What matters is that the connection between the sources is clear. Organising each paragraph around an aspect of work makes this straightforward.

Use your own words for the explanation, with short quotations or precise references as support. A connective such as ‘whereas’ identifies a contrast, but the explanation must show what makes that contrast significant.

Here is the developed response:

The miners in Source A work within a mechanised system for moving coal, whereas Isabella in Source B personally bears the load during transport. The men feed coal onto a ‘conveyor belt’; Orwell explains that in a big mine it carries away several tons each minute. This suggests that machinery enables large quantities to be removed without the fillers having to carry each load along the mine themselves. By contrast, Isabella says, ‘I carry about 1 cwt. and a quarter on my back’, and describes repeated journeys, stooping and creeping through water. Transport therefore places a direct burden on her body as well as requiring difficult movement through the mine. However, the machinery does not make the men’s work easy: they must remain kneeling to shovel, so both accounts involve severe physical strain, but in different tasks.

The time spent at work is also different. Orwell’s miners work for ‘seven and a half hours’ and snatch a brief meal, suggesting an intensive shift with little opportunity to recover. Sarah enters the pit at four, or even half past three, in the morning and does not leave until five or half past five in the early evening. Her working day therefore occupies substantially longer than the men’s shift, although she is only eight. Her admission that she is ‘very sleepy’ when she arrives suggests that this early start can leave her poorly rested. Unlike the physically demanding work described for the men, Sarah says her task ‘does not tire me’: the burden revealed here is particularly its long duration and disruption of rest.

Examiner’s judgement: Level 4, 8/8. The response provides detailed, sustained synthesis and interpretation of both texts, meeting the top level through the detailed route. Its carefully selected evidence supports precise differences in how coal is transported and how working time burdens the workers. The transport inference is developed through the machinery’s capacity, Isabella’s repeated carrying and the qualification that mechanisation does not remove the men’s physical strain. The second comparison distinguishes the men’s intensive shift from Sarah’s longer day, using her sleepiness while respecting her statement that the task itself does not tire her. These qualifications also make the interpretation perceptive: the answer recognises different kinds of burden rather than assuming all difficult work is difficult in the same way. It fully sustains the correct focus and connects supported inferences from both sources, justifying full marks.

What separates the levels

The levels describe the quality of the whole response, not a number of quotations or paragraphs.

• Level 1, 1–2 marks: mainly repeats or rephrases details, with a basic connection between the sources.
• Level 2, 3–4 marks: begins to draw conclusions and identify differences, but explanations are limited or uneven.
• Level 3, 5–6 marks: clearly interprets evidence from both sources and explains relevant differences.
• Level 4, 7–8 marks: develops insightful or detailed interpretations, selecting evidence carefully and explaining precise connections between the texts.

Level 4 can be reached through perceptive or detailed synthesis and interpretation. Detailed means developing supported inferences and connections fully, not merely writing more; perceptive means recognising insightful implications or distinctions. A response may demonstrate both.

A more perceptive reading might connect Isabella’s work ‘on mother's account’ with her father’s death and her mother’s weakness. Together, these details suggest that her labour carries a family responsibility as well as a physical burden. Such an inference must still answer the set focus and be connected to relevant evidence from Source A; an insightful comment about one source alone is not synthesis.

To reach Level 3 or above, an answer must address both texts and the correct focus. There is no reward for discussing an interesting detail if it does not help answer this particular question.