About the Critical Reading paper
The National 5 English Critical Reading exam is worth 40 marks and has been designed to assess:
- your knowledge and understanding of texts studied in class
- your ability to analyse and evaluate features of language used by the writer of these texts
- your ability to draw connections between different episodes (in prose fiction or drama) or between different poems by the same poet
The Critical Reading exam is 1 hour and 30 minutes long. Overall, this paper constitutes 40% of your final score.
The paper is divided into two sections:
SQA recommends that you spend 45 minutes on each section, in order to allow you to give each section the attention it deserves.
