4.3 - Paper 2 Q5: Developing arguments with examples

Move from viewpoint to claim

From the earlier work on reading the situation, retrieve the full task boundary before developing anything: what is the issue, whom are you addressing, what are you trying to achieve, and what form are you using?

Consider this practice situation:

A town library asks residents to respond to the statement: “An unused meeting room should become a supervised study space one evening each week.” Write an article for the library newsletter in which you argue your point of view.

A sustainable viewpoint is: The library should test the idea for a limited period. A useful claim within it is: A weekly study space could give some residents a quieter place to work. This is narrower than the room will transform the whole town, so it can be supported without pretending to know more than the situation provides.

Argument development mainly strengthens AO5: the relevance, clarity and connection of your ideas. AO6 concerns vocabulary, sentences, spelling and punctuation. A perfectly accurate sentence such as This is essential can still be thin in AO5 because it gives the reader no reason to agree.

Make the reasoning visible

To argue is to present a reasoned case. When a claim is thin, use questions that reveal the missing thinking:

These are choices, not a compulsory sentence order. A paragraph may not need every move, and one example can do several jobs if its significance is explained.

For the library task, an expert compares two possible reasons. People need somewhere to study merely repeats the claim in broader words. A one-evening trial offers an extra quiet option to residents whose homes are difficult places to work, while limiting the library's commitment gives both a possible benefit and a realistic boundary.

That decision can become a concise developed paragraph:

Turning the unused room into a weekly study space would give the library a practical way to test whether the option is useful. Imagine a student who finishes an after-school activity but returns to a busy home where quiet work is difficult: a supervised desk for one evening would give that student another workable choice. This example does not prove that every teenager needs the room, so the library should begin with a six-week trial and review actual use before extending it.

The imagined student clarifies a possible effect; the paragraph does not disguise the example as a survey. The final sentence qualifies the proposal without abandoning it.

Use honest support

Support must be represented for what it is:

• A task-supplied fact or quotation may be cited accurately.
• A known fact should be used only if you are confident it is accurate and relevant.
• An illustrative example can show how a reason might operate. Signal it honestly with wording such as imagine, consider or for example.
• A reasoned hypothetical can predict a possible consequence using cautious language such as could or may.

Invented precision is especially weak. Eighty-seven per cent of pupils cannot attend after-school clubs sounds authoritative, but without a supplied or genuinely known source it adds another unsupported claim. The honest alternative is not vagueness: describe a plausible case precisely, then explain its limited significance.