17/25 Klara and the Sun and The White Tiger

Read the following Paper 2 exam and the student's response to it, which was written in 1 hour and 45 minutes. Apply the assessment criteria and discuss the marks that you would award the essay before reading the examiner's marks and comments. How different were your marks and comments from the examiner's marks and comments? What improvements could be made to achieve better results?

Essay question: What does it mean to be human? Comment on how two literary works explore this question.

Student Response
Paper 2 SL/HL assessment criteria for first exams 2026
Examiner's comments and marks
Model response

Assessment

The model essay on this page has been explored in great detail various pages on this Support Site (see 'related pages' below). You may find it useful to constantly come back to a model piece of student work that you hold up as a kind of template or benchmark.

Related pages
  • P2 Prepare and compare
  • P2 Unpacking questions
  • P2 Thesis and outlines
  • P2 paragraphing
  • P2 sentence starters
  • P2 Do's and Don'ts