What this lesson teaches
I can find an idea in one passage that supports or undermines a claim in another, and justify the link.
Syllabus 8881, Paper 2 questions: connections. Connections of ideas across two passages: Passages 1 and 3, and Passages 2 and 3 (4-6 marks).
I can compare ideas across passages and judge whether one supports or undermines another.
Syllabus 8881, 3.1.3. evaluate and synthesise arguments and evidence across texts
Make a guess
A connection question has 2 marks. One is for naming an idea from Passage 3. What do you think the other mark is for?
- Explaining how that idea supports or undermines the claim
- Quoting the idea from Passage 3 in full
- Saying whether you agree with the claim yourself, and why
Show the answer
Explaining how that idea supports or undermines the claim
Right. The justification mark is for the link: why this idea makes the claim stronger or weaker.
Identify one specific idea from Passage 3 in your own words, then explain exactly how it supports or undermines the claim.
Connection questions test whether you can read two passages against each other. Each one quotes a claim from Passage 1 or Passage 2. It then asks you to identify one specific idea from Passage 3 that supports or undermines that claim, and to justify your answer. Each question is usually worth 2 marks.
The first mark is for identifying the idea. It must be one specific idea, not the general stance of Passage 3. Put it in your own words in one sentence, so the examiner can see you understood it.
The second mark is for the justification. Explain how the idea affects the claim. An idea supports a claim when it gives a reason or a case in which the claim holds. It undermines a claim when it shows the claim is false, has an exception, or comes at a cost the claim ignores.
Sort these
Passage 1 claims: 'When the corner shop goes, the neighbourhood goes with it.' Does each idea from Passage 3 support or undermine this claim?
Groups: Supports the claim, Undermines the claim.
- Community has moved online and comes alive when it is needed.
- Strangers in a block checked on the elderly within minutes of a fire.
- For many neighbours, daily contact has shrunk to a nod in the lift.
- Chat-group complaints can leave a neighbour more isolated than before.
- Many families barely know who lives next door.
Show the answer
Supports the claim
- For many neighbours, daily contact has shrunk to a nod in the lift. Contact cut down to a nod fits the claim that the neighbourhood has faded along with places like the shop.
- Chat-group complaints can leave a neighbour more isolated than before. The online replacement can divide neighbours, so it does not rebuild what the shop gave.
- Many families barely know who lives next door. Thin everyday ties fit the claim that the neighbourhood has faded with places like the shop.
Undermines the claim
- Community has moved online and comes alive when it is needed. It says the neighbourhood survives in a new form, which contradicts the claim that it disappears.
- Strangers in a block checked on the elderly within minutes of a fire. Neighbours still acted together with no shop at all, so the neighbourhood had not gone.
Start with the claim, not with Passage 3. Underline its key words and ask what it really says. 'The neighbourhood goes with it' means the community disappears. So an idea undermines it if it shows a community surviving, and supports it if it shows ties fading.
Then scan Passage 3 for ideas on the same issue. Being on the same topic is not enough. The idea must bear on the exact claim. An idea about long working hours, on its own, says nothing about whether the community survives the shop.
End the justification by echoing the claim's key words. 'This undermines the claim because neighbours still acted together without any shop, so the neighbourhood had not gone' is precise. 'This shows the opposite' is not, because it never says what the opposite is.
- Connection marks
- Usually 2 per question: 1 to identify, 1 to justify.
- Support
- A reason or a case in which the claim holds.
- Undermine
- A counter-case, a limit, or a cost the claim ignores.
Practice passages (our own)
The claims
Passage 1 (paragraph 4): 'When the corner shop goes, the neighbourhood goes with it.' Passage 2 (paragraph 3): 'neighbourly ties are good for the mind'. Passage 2 (paragraph 1): neighbours 'are often the first to help' in an emergency.
Passage 3, paragraph 2
Not every block is a village, however. Many young families work long hours and barely know who lives next door, and some prefer it that way: a nod in the lift is friendly without being intrusive. Yet when a fire broke out in one estate, residents who had never spoken used their block's chat group to check on elderly neighbours floor by floor within minutes. Community, it seems, has not vanished; it has moved online, and it springs to life when it is needed. The same chat groups can turn sour, though. A complaint about a noisy neighbour can snowball into public shaming, leaving its target more isolated than before.
Ways an idea can undermine a claim
Counter-case
It shows a case where the claim is false: the community survived without the shop.
Limit
It shows the claim holds only for some people or places, not all.
Hidden cost
It shows a downside the claim ignores: the chat group that helps can also shame.
Could go either way
Some ideas bear both ways. 'Some residents prefer to keep a polite distance' supports the claim if you read it as ties fading. It undermines the claim if you argue that people chose the distance, so the shop's closing was not the cause. Either reading can earn the mark, as long as your justification says which part of the claim the idea affects.
Try it on a new passage: Set 2, crowds and civility (our own)
Passage 1, paragraph 1
The doors of the merchandise booth had not even opened when the queue dissolved into a scrum. Adults who would hold a lift for a stranger on any other day were suddenly shoving past children for a limited-edition T-shirt. Something happens to good manners when people become a crowd. Each person feels less watched, and so less responsible.
Passage 3, paragraph 1
Whether a crowd is rude or kind depends less on the people in it than on how the event is run. Where queues are clearly marked, exits are staggered and tickets are sold by ballot, crowds stay calm. Where everyone must rush for the same door at the same moment, even patient people push.
Passage 3, paragraph 2
Manners in a crowd are also learned from what others do. People copy those around them, for good or ill. One person cutting the queue invites ten more, and one person clearing a table invites the next. Rules help, but mostly by making the good habit the normal one. Once most of a cinema audience has switched off their phones, the last glowing screen starts to look rude.
Your question
In Passage 1, paragraph 1, the writer claims that 'something happens to good manners when people become a crowd'. Identify one idea from Passage 3 that undermines this claim, and one that supports it. Justify each in a sentence.
Check your answer has
Undermines: how an event is run matters more than the crowd itself, since marked queues and staggered exits keep crowds calm. So manners need not fail just because people gather. Supports: people copy those around them, so one queue-cutter invites ten more. In a crowd, bad behaviour spreads, which is the change the claim describes.
Worked example: Finding a supporting idea
Passage 2 says neighbours 'are often the first to help' in an emergency. Find an idea in Passage 3 that supports this.
- Key words in the claim: 'first to help', 'emergency'.
- Scan Passage 3 for an emergency: the fire in the estate.
- Identify in your own words: after a fire, residents who had never spoken checked on elderly neighbours within minutes.
- Justify: neighbours, not outside services, were the first to act in an emergency, which is what the claim says.
Watch out for this
Any idea from Passage 3 on the same topic will do, as long as I say it undermines the claim.
The idea must bear on the exact claim. Being on the same topic is not enough; show precisely how it makes the claim stronger or weaker.
Check your understanding
Claim: 'When the corner shop goes, the neighbourhood goes with it.' Which justification best explains why the fire story undermines it?
- The fire story shows the opposite of what Passage 1 says about neighbourhoods
- Neighbours acted together without any shop to gather in, so the community had not gone
- Fires are dangerous, so neighbours must help one another
Show the answer
Neighbours acted together without any shop to gather in, so the community had not gone
Right. It shows the community surviving without the shop, which is exactly what the claim denies.
Check your understanding
Which identification is specific enough for the first mark?
- Passage 3 thinks that community life in Singapore is far more complicated now
- A chat-group complaint can grow into shaming that isolates a neighbour
- Neighbours, fires and block chat groups, which Passage 3 discusses
Show the answer
A chat-group complaint can grow into shaming that isolates a neighbour
Right. It names one precise idea from Passage 3 in fresh words.
Check your understanding
Set 2. Passage 1 claims: 'Something happens to good manners when people become a crowd.' Which justification shows that Passage 3, paragraph 1 undermines it?
- Crowds stay calm where queues and exits are well planned, so manners depend on design, not crowding
- Even patient people push when a whole crowd rushes for one door, so crowds do change how people behave
- Passage 3 disagrees with Passage 1 because it thinks that people in crowds are actually kind to strangers
Show the answer
Crowds stay calm where queues and exits are well planned, so manners depend on design, not crowding
Right. It names the Passage 3 idea and says exactly why it weakens the claim: being in a crowd is not what spoils manners.