The discursive question

An essay that develops your own judgement

A discursive question gives you responsibility for selecting the evidence and building the argument. In OCR Component 02 Section B, you answer one question on your studied Shakespeare play, choosing between an extract-based question and a discursive question. The examination is closed book: you do not take the play into the examination.

The discursive question has no extract of its own. It may ask you to weigh a statement using wording such as ‘To what extent’, or it may ask how Shakespeare presents a character or develops a relationship. Both kinds need an informed personal response: your interpretation, supported by the play and explained through Shakespeare’s choices.

‘To what extent’ means deciding how far a view is convincing. You can largely agree, largely disagree or qualify it. A consistent viewpoint does not mean ignoring contradictory evidence. It means explaining how that evidence affects your judgement instead of moving randomly between agreement and disagreement.

The Shakespeare answer is worth 40 marks: 36 for the literary response and 4 for written expression. Plan your timing within the two-hour paper. If your overall examination plan allows about 45 minutes for Shakespeare, a workable allocation is roughly five minutes to plan, 35 to write and five to check. This is a suggested strategy, not an OCR timing rule.

What makes an answer convincing

AO1 rewards understanding, a critical personal response and relevant textual support. Your essay should answer the particular question, not reproduce everything you know about the play.

AO2 rewards analysis of language, form and structure. Language includes imagery and word choices; form includes the conventions of tragedy or comedy and the use of verse or prose; structure includes contrasts, turning points, repeated images and the order in which the audience receives information. AO1 and AO2 are equally dominant: a strong interpretation needs an explanation of how Shakespeare creates it.

AO3 rewards relevant context used to develop the response. In an essay about Romeo and Juliet’s love, family expectations surrounding marriage can explain why their private choices are dangerous. A separate paragraph about Shakespeare’s life would not do that teaching job.

AO4 rewards accurate spelling and punctuation, together with vocabulary and sentence structures that control meaning effectively. Precise, readable writing matters more than unnecessarily elaborate words. A short sentence can establish a judgement; a longer one can explain a qualification.

The literary response is assessed as a whole. You do not earn a fixed mark each time you identify a metaphor or mention a contextual fact.

Choosing moments that work together

OCR’s discursive questions ask you to explore at least two moments. A moment might be a speech, an exchange or a scene with a clear dramatic purpose. Several quotations from the same exchange do not automatically provide coverage of different moments.

Choose evidence that develops the argument. For a question about whether a character deserves pity, an early moment might establish responsibility, while a later one reveals suffering. The relationship between those moments helps you judge the character’s development.

Two to four closely analysed moments can make a manageable plan, but this is not a compulsory paragraph count. Depth and relevance matter more than collecting scenes. An answer referring only to one moment cannot move beyond Level 3, or 18 out of 36. An answer with only a brief reference to a second moment cannot move beyond Level 4, or 24 out of 36. These are ceilings, not marks automatically awarded.

Begin with a thesis: an answer to the question that your essay can test and develop. Then give each paragraph a purpose. Useful connections include ‘Initially’, ‘However’, ‘This becomes more troubling when’ and ‘By the ending’. The connection must be real: it should show how the next point changes or strengthens the argument.

A conclusion settles the judgement. Rather than repeat every paragraph, explain which interpretation is most convincing and why the play as a whole supports it.

Remembering and using quotations

Learn short quotations as parts of scenes. For each, know who speaks, whom they address, what they want and what the audience knows. This prevents a memorable phrase from becoming detached from its meaning.

For example, Romeo calls his lips ‘two blushing pilgrims’ in Act 1 Scene 5. You could write: Romeo’s metaphor of ‘two blushing pilgrims’ turns attraction into an act of devotion. The quotation is woven into a sentence, and the explanation begins to connect the language to the question.

Develop the analysis by considering Juliet’s response and the shared sonnet, rather than stopping after naming the metaphor. Her participation may suggest mutual understanding; alternatively, their polished language may suggest that both are adopting familiar romantic roles.

Precise references to actions also support an interpretation. You can explain the Friar’s decision to marry the lovers without remembering his entire speech. If uncertain about exact wording, use an accurate reference rather than inventing a quotation and analysing invented words. When quoting across verse lines, use a slash to mark the line break; do not use slashes within prose.

You may use the printed extract attached to the alternative question on your play. OCR permits this, but the passage was not selected for the discursive task. Check its relevance before using it, and still develop your response through at least two moments.

Planning the June 2025 Romeo and Juliet question

The question was:

To what extent does Shakespeare suggest the love of Romeo and Juliet is fantasy rather than realistic? Explore at least two moments from the play to support your ideas.

Here, ‘fantasy’ is worth exploring as idealisation, romantic performance or an unrealistic expectation that love can overcome social obstacles. ‘Realistic’ can mean emotionally convincing, practically grounded or aware of consequences. The task is about Shakespeare’s presentation, not whether every event could happen in ordinary life.

A possible thesis is: Shakespeare presents the lovers’ feelings as genuine, but repeatedly exposes the fantasy that those feelings can protect them from family hostility and violence.

Model answer: genuine love, unrealistic hopes

Shakespeare suggests that Romeo and Juliet’s love is emotionally real but surrounded by fantasy. Their language idealises each other, and the speed of their commitment raises doubts about their judgement. Nevertheless, their responsiveness and willingness to honour their marriage distinguish their relationship from Romeo’s earlier, unreturned attachment to Rosaline. The tragedy ultimately exposes not simply imaginary love, but the belief that genuine love can overcome the violent society in which they live.

At their first meeting in Act 1 Scene 5, Romeo transforms Juliet into a ‘holy shrine’ and describes his lips as ‘two blushing pilgrims’. The extended religious metaphor elevates physical attraction into worship: Juliet appears sacred rather than an ordinary person he has only just encountered. This supports the view that Romeo projects an ideal onto her. His earlier question, ‘Did my heart love till now?’, also makes his feelings seem unstable, since the audience has already heard his extravagant devotion to Rosaline. Shakespeare therefore invites doubt about a lover who repeatedly believes his present attraction is uniquely true. The contemporary fashion for idealised love poetry makes Romeo’s language recognisable as a romantic performance, rather than automatically proving its sincerity.

However, Shakespeare gives this meeting a form that complicates such doubts. Romeo and Juliet jointly construct a sonnet, with Juliet answering his image of pilgrimage rather than merely receiving his praise. Their alternating contributions and completed rhyme scheme make the encounter reciprocal: unlike Rosaline, Juliet responds. The final couplet moves towards the kiss, allowing poetic harmony to become physical action on stage. Yet Juliet’s ‘You kiss by the book’ can suggest either admiration for Romeo’s skill or playful awareness that his behaviour follows a familiar script. Shakespeare leaves room to see romantic convention as both a means of expressing genuine feeling and a possible substitute for knowing another person.

In Act 2 Scene 2, Juliet introduces a more practical voice. When Romeo proposes an oath, she rejects the ‘inconstant moon’, recognising that changing appearances make an unsuitable guarantee of lasting commitment. Her description of their agreement as ‘too rash, too unadvised, too sudden’ shows awareness of the relationship’s speed. The repeated ‘too’ accumulates reservations, preventing the scene from becoming uninterrupted romantic celebration. She also asks whether his purpose is marriage, giving their attraction an honourable social form. In a world where wealthy families expected to influence marriage arrangements, this demand makes the relationship serious rather than simply a private game. Nevertheless, proposing marriage almost immediately means Juliet’s caution does not entirely overcome her impulsiveness.

The staging also exposes the distance between their hopes and their circumstances. Juliet appears above Romeo, and their private conversation is interrupted by the Nurse’s calls from within. These interruptions make the household’s presence audible even while the lovers imagine freedom from it. Juliet warns that her relatives will murder Romeo if they discover him, whereas he claims that ‘stony limits cannot hold love out’. His language turns love into a force capable of overcoming physical barriers. It is moving because he has actually entered the dangerous orchard, but unrealistic because affection cannot remove the feud. Juliet’s willingness to abandon the Capulet name expresses genuine commitment while imagining that inherited identity can be discarded more easily than the surrounding society allows.

By Act 3 Scene 5, their marriage is real, but its consequences cannot be avoided. Juliet insists, ‘It was the nightingale, and not the lark’, trying to interpret the sound as proof that night continues. Because the lark announces morning, her denial creates a temporary fantasy in which Romeo can remain safely beside her. When he accepts the danger of staying, however, she urgently tells him to leave. This reversal presents her love as protective as well as possessive. Romeo’s ‘More light and light; more dark and dark our woes!’ reverses the earlier association between Juliet and illuminating beauty: daylight now threatens separation. The scene then moves from intimacy to pressure for Juliet to marry Paris, structurally replacing the lovers’ chosen relationship with the family’s incompatible expectations.

Finally, Act 5 Scene 3 makes appearance fatally misleading. The audience knows that Juliet’s death is temporary, but Romeo interprets what he sees as permanent loss. His final ‘Thus with a kiss I die’ echoes the first meeting while transforming its intimacy into destruction. Their devotion remains powerful, yet they cannot survive failed communication and the decisions made around them. Shakespeare therefore suggests that their love is not merely fantasy. Its emotional truth makes the ending painful; the fantasy lies chiefly in expecting that truth to guarantee a future beyond the feud.

How this model would be assessed

A strict assessment would place this answer in Level 6: 32 out of 36, with 4 out of 4 for AO4, giving 36 out of 40.

It sustains a qualified judgement, integrates precise references and substantially explores four moments. It analyses language, the shared sonnet, staging, interruptions, structural contrasts and dramatic irony. Context informs the evaluation of poetic performance and marriage rather than appearing as detached information. Its expression is consistently controlled.

The answer belongs near the lower end of Level 6 rather than receiving full marks: the ending is less closely explored than the earlier scenes, and the implications of Juliet’s practical commitment could be developed further. This is an assessment of this model, not a mark promised for following its structure.

Comparing clearer explanation with more developed analysis

These paragraphs show a difference in analytical development often associated with Grade 5 and Grade 8 work. An individual paragraph has no GCSE grade: grades depend on performance across the qualification.

The second paragraph does not merely contain more terminology. It connects language to form, explains Juliet’s contribution, integrates relevant cultural context and weighs two interpretations in relation to the question.

What recent questions reveal about the task

The following summaries identify the central focus of each question. Every question also required at least two moments. Study only your chosen play; the other titles demonstrate the range of discursive tasks.

For Romeo and Juliet in 2025, examiners praised structured arguments that weighed idealistic poetry against harsher realities, including expectations surrounding marriage and family honour. Stronger responses considered Juliet as well as Romeo. Some explored whether the Nurse and Friar encouraged unrealistic hopes of their own. Simply arguing that the events would never happen in real life restricted analysis.

For Romeo and Juliet in 2024, successful responses explored Mercutio’s dramatic function, the loss of his wit and the movement from comedy towards tragedy. They also weighed the alternative that the feud and the announced tragic ending had already established the play’s direction. Weaker responses narrated later events while giving Mercutio little attention.

For Macbeth in 2025, successful responses defined kingly qualities and compared Macbeth with Duncan and Malcolm as contrasting figures. This allowed the argument to distinguish military bravery from justice, wisdom and compassion. Less successful answers described wicked actions without analysing Shakespeare’s presentation, or drifted towards Lady Macbeth instead of the named subject.

For Macbeth in 2024, examiners praised responses that weighed Lady Macbeth’s early manipulation against her later suffering and traced the changing marriage. Stronger answers recognised that a moment could support different readings before reaching a judgement about pity. Reproducing a prepared character essay without adapting it to sympathy weakened the response.

For The Merchant of Venice in 2025, the question calls for a structural argument: Antonio’s support enables Bassanio’s courtship, the bond places that friendship under threat, and the ring plot tests competing loyalties. In 2024, the young lovers could be interpreted as resourceful figures overcoming obstacles or as ruthless figures whose success invites criticism. These are contrasting approaches to weigh, not a requirement to praise everyone who succeeds.

For Much Ado About Nothing in 2025, the gulling of Beatrice and Benedick invites analysis of comic foolishness, but Claudio’s jealousy and Benedick’s defence of Hero complicate the relationship between love and judgement. In 2024, Hero and Claudio’s early dependence on others could be compared with their involvement in the gulling scenes and their later responses to accusation and repentance. The argument should consider development rather than attach a permanent label to either character.

Across both examination years, OCR highlighted the value of relevant planning, connected arguments and analysis of dramatic choices. A sustained personal response grows from knowing the play securely and making that knowledge serve the question.

Recall the task

• Answer one Shakespeare question: discursive or extract-based.
• Closed book; the discursive question has no extract of its own.
• Explore at least two moments substantially.
• 40 marks: 36 literary response + 4 AO4.

Build the argument

Thesis → connected analysis → weighed alternatives → final judgement.

For ‘To what extent’, decide how far the view is convincing. For ‘How’, explain Shakespeare’s presentation or dramatic development.

Choose moments that test or develop your viewpoint. Quality and depth matter more than a fixed paragraph count.

Remember the assessment

• AO1: informed interpretation and relevant textual evidence.
• AO2: effects of language, form and structure; equally dominant with AO1.
• AO3: relevant context that informs the interpretation.