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Task B · personal / reflective ~30 minutes in the real exam

Identity & the Self

Who we are, who we were, and who we are becoming. A practice set in the authentic Section II format — a set of related statements on one theme; your job is an essay that finds an angle engaging several of them.

Consider the following statements

  • We are not who we were, and not yet who we will be.
  • The self is a story we keep editing to make the past make sense.
  • We are shaped most by the places we have left.
  • To know yourself is to discover how much of you was given to you by others.

Write a response developing your own view on the theme, engaging with one or more of the statements. Give yourself 30 minutes, planning included.

How to approach a Task B set

  • 1Reflective doesn’t mean structureless: you still develop one idea about the theme — your lens is experience rather than argument.
  • 2Ground it in something specific and real to you; the mark comes from what the experience lets you say about the theme, not from how dramatic it is.
  • 3Let the essay arrive somewhere: the strongest Task B responses end with a view the opening didn’t yet hold.

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