In a nutshell: Choose a short extract (~40 lines) from each work that is dense with authorial choices about your global issue — a passage you could analyse for minutes, not just describe in seconds.
The extract you pick decides how much you'll have to say — choose a rich one and the analysis almost pours out.
You present ONE short extract from the literary work and ONE from the non-literary body of work (around 40 lines each). The best extracts are DENSE: packed with deliberate choices — imagery, structure, tone, design — that all bear on your global issue. Pick a thin, plot-heavy passage and you'll run out of things to analyse.
Choosing a rich extract
Dense with choices
Full of analysable authorial decisions, not just events.
On your global issue
The extract must clearly explore the issue you've chosen.
Short and representative
~40 lines that stand for how the whole work treats the issue.
Enough to fill the time
Rich enough to analyse for several minutes, not describe in one.
The key move: Pick a ~40-line extract dense with choices about your global issue — one you can analyse deeply, that represents how the whole work treats the issue.
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Why it matters in the exam: In the prepared 10 minutes you spend significant time on your two extracts. A rich extract gives you material for Criterion B (analysis of choices); a thin, event-driven one leaves you summarising plot — which earns little.
For an IO on the global issue of ‘surveillance’, a student is choosing between (A) a passage where a character is simply arrested, and (B) a passage describing how the character has learned to feel watched even when alone. Which extract, and why?
Model answer plan
See the mark-by-mark plan — for / against / judgement, with marking guidance — in study mode.
Watch out: Don't choose an extract because it's your favourite SCENE — choose it because it's dense with choices about your global issue. A dramatic event you can only summarise is a weak extract.