'A Hanging' - George Orwell • 12 Marks • 15 Minutes

We set out for the gallows. Two warders marched on either side of the prisoner, with their rifles at the slope; two others marched close against him, gripping him by arm and shoulder, as though at once pushing and supporting him. The rest of us, magistrates and the like, followed behind. Suddenly, when we had gone ten yards, the procession stopped short without any order or warning. A dreadful thing had happened — a dog, come goodness knows whence, had appeared in the yard. It came bounding among us with a loud volley of barks, and leapt round us wagging its whole body, wild with glee at finding so many human beings together. It was a large woolly dog, half Airedale, half pariah. For a moment it pranced round us, and then, before anyone could stop it, it had made a dash for the prisoner, and jumping up tried to lick his face. Everyone stood aghast, too taken aback even to grab at the dog.

pariah: outcasts

1. Re-read the first three sentences.List four things about the people walking to the gallows. 4 marks

1.2.3.4.

2. How does the writer use language here to describe the reaction to the dog's appearance?

include the writer’s choice of:• words and phrases• language features and techniques• sentence forms. 8 marks

GCSEEnglish Language

Paper 1 Explorations in creative reading and writing

'She Wasn't Soft' - T C Boyle • 28 Marks • 45 Minutes

She wasn’t tender, she wasn’t soft, she wasn’t sweetly yielding or coquettish, and she was nobody’s little woman and never would be. That had been her mother’s role, and look at the sad sack of neuroses and alcoholic dysfunction she’d become. And her father. He’d been the pasha of the living room, the sultan of the kitchen, and the emperor of the bedroom, and what had it got him? A stab in the chest, a tender liver, and two feet that might as well have been stumps. Paula Turk wasn’t born for that sort of life, with its domestic melodrama and greedy sucking babies—no, she was destined for something richer and more complex, something that would define and elevate her, something great. She wanted to compete and she wanted to win—always shining before her like some numinous icon was the glittering image of triumph.

And whenever she flagged, whenever a sniffle or the flu ate at her reserves and she hit the wall in the numbing waters of the Pacific or the devilish winds at the top of San Marcos Pass, she pushed herself through it, drove herself with an internal whip that accepted no excuses and made no allowances for the limitations of the flesh. She was twenty-eight years old and she was going to conquer the world.

On the other hand, Jason Barre, the thirty-three-year-old surf-and-dive-shop proprietor she’d been seeing pretty steadily over the past nine months, didn’t really seem to have the fire of competition in him. Both his parents were doctors (and that, as much as anything, had swayed Paula in his favor when they first met), and they’d set him up in his own business, a business that had continuously lost money since its grand opening three years ago.

When the waves were breaking, Jason would be at the beach, and when the surf was flat he’d be stationed behind the counter on his tall swivel stool, selling wax remover to bleached-out adolescents who said things like “gnarly” and “killer” in their penetrating, adenoidal tones. Jason liked to surf and he liked to breathe the cigarette haze in sports bars, a permanent sleepy-eyed, widemouthed Californian grin on his face, flip-flops on his feet, and his waist encircled by a pair of faded baggy shorts barely held in place by the gentle sag of his belly and the twin anchors of his hipbones.

yielding: compliant, gives in easilycoquettish: flirtatiousadenoidal: nasal, spoken through the nose

1. You now need to think about the whole of the Source.This text is from the opening of a novel.How has the writer structured the text to interest you as a reader? You could write about:• what the writer focuses your attention on at the beginning• how and why the writer changes this focus as the Source develops• any other structural features that interest you. 8 marks

2. After reading this opening, a student observed that "The writer creates a negative impression of Jason straight away. Jason seems to be the total opposite of Paula."

To what extent do you agree? In your response, you could:• write about your own impressions of the characters• evaluate how the writer has created these impressions• support your opinions with references to the text.20 marks

'My Antonia' extract chapter: 'My Grandmother’s Garden' - Willa Cather • 12 Marks • 15 Minutes

I DO NOT REMEMBER our arrival at my grandfather’s farm sometime before daybreak, after a drive of nearly twenty miles with heavy work-horses. When I awoke, it was afternoon. I was lying in a little room, scarcely larger than the bed that held me, and the window-shade at my head was flapping softly in a warm wind. A tall woman, with wrinkled brown skin and black hair, stood looking down at me; I knew that she must be my grandmother. She had been crying, I could see, but when I opened my eyes she smiled, peered at me anxiously, and sat down on the foot of my bed.

“Had a good sleep, Jimmy?” she asked briskly. Then in a very different tone she said, as if to herself, “My, how you do look like your father!” I remembered that my father had been her little boy; she must often have come to wake him like this when he overslept. “Here are your clean clothes,” she went on, stroking my coverlid with her brown hand as she talked. “But first you come down to the kitchen with me, and have a nice warm bath behind the stove. Bring your things; there’s nobody about.”

coverlid: a quilt

1. Re-read the first four lines.What FOUR things do we learn about the Grandmother? 4 Marks

1.2.3.4.

2. You now need to think about the whole of the Source.This text is from the middle of a novel.

How has the writer structured the text to interest you as a reader? You could write about:• what the writer focuses your attention on at the beginning• how and why the writer changes this focus as the Source develops• any other structural features that interest you. 8 marks

'The Little Stranger' extract chapter 2 - Sarah Waters • 12 Marks • 15 Minutes

'This used to be a billiard room,' Roderick said to me, seeing my face. 'My great-grandfather kitted it up. I think he must have fancied himself as some sort of baron, don't you? But we lost the billiards stuff years ago, and when I came home from the Air Force-home from hospital, I mean-well, it took me a while to be able to manage stairs and so on, so my mother and sister had the idea of putting a bed for me in here. I've grown so used to it, it's never seemed worth going back upstairs. I do all my work in here, too.'

'Yes,' I said, 'so I see.'

This was the room, I realised, that I had glimpsed from the terrace in July. It was even more of a jumble than it had seemed to me then. One corner was given over to a punishing-looking ironframed bed, with a dressing-table close beside it and, next to that, an antique washing-stand and mirror. Before the Gothic fireplace stood a couple of old leather armchairs, handsome enough, but both very scuffed and split at their seams. There were two curtained windows, one leading out via those convolvulus-choked stone steps to the terrace; in front of the other, and rather spoiling the lovely long line of it, Roderick had set up a desk and swivel chair. He had obviously put the desk there in order to catch the best of the northern daylight, but this also meant that its illuminated surface-which was almost obscured by a litter of papers, ledgers, folders, technical books, dirty teacups and overflowing ashtrays-acted as a sort of magnet on the eye, irresistibly drawing one's gaze from every point in the room. The desk was clearly a magnet for Roderick in other ways too, for even while talking to me he had gone across to it and started rooting about for something in the chaos. At last he produced a stub of pencil, then fished in his pocket for a scrap of paper and began copying down what looked like a series of sums into one of the ledgers.

Billiard: a type of snooker/pool gameconvolvulus: a weed plant

1. Re-read the first four lines.What FOUR things do we learn about the room? 4 Marks

1.2.3.4.

2. How does the writer use language here to describe the effects of the weather? You could include the writer’s choice of:

• words and phrases• language features and techniques• sentence forms.

8 marks

'Elizabeth is Missing' - Emma Healy • 20 Marks • 25 Minutes

'Are you sure this is what you're after?' Reg asks. 'Only you bought a lot of peach slices when you came in yesterday.'

I look down into the basket. Is that true? Did I really buy the same things yesterday? He coughs and I see a glint of amusement in his eyes.

'Quite sure, thank you,' I say, my voice firm. 'If I want to buy peach slices, I can buy them.'

He raises his eyebrows and begins typing prices into his till. I keep my head high, watching the cans being put into the plastic carrying thing, for carrying, but my cheeks are hot. What was it I came for? I feel in my pocket and find a piece of blue paper with my writing on it: Eggs. Milk? Chocolate. I pick up a bar of Dairy Milk and slip it into the basket, so at least I will have something from the list. But I can’t put the peaches back now, Reg would laugh at me. I pay for my bag of cans and clank back down the road with them. It's slow going, because the bag is heavy, and my shoulder and the back of my knee are hurting. I remember when the houses used to whiz by as I walked – nearly running – to and from home. Ma would ask me afterwards about what I'd seen, whether certain neighbours were out, what I thought about someone's new garden wall. I'd never noticed; it had all gone past in a flash. Now I have plenty of time to look at everything and no one to tell what I've seen.

Sometimes, when I'm having a sort-through or a clear-out, I find photos from my youth, and it’s a shock to see everything in black and white. I think my granddaughter believes we were actually grey-skinned, with dull hair, always posing in a shadowed landscape. But I remember the town as being almost too bright to look at when I was a girl. I remember the deep blue of the sky and the dark green of the pines cutting through it, the bright red of the local brick houses and the orange carpet of pine needles under our feet. Nowadays – though I'm sure the sky is still occasionally blue and most of the houses are still there, and the trees still drop their needles – nowadays, the colours seem faded, as if I live in an old photograph.

1. Read the first three paragraphs and find four things you learn about what the narrator is purchasing. 4 marks

1.2.3.4.

2. You now need to think about the whole of the Source.This text is from the middle of a novel.How has the writer structured the text to interest you as a reader? You could write about:• what the writer focuses your attention on at the beginning• how and why the writer changes this focus as the Source develops• any other structural features that interest you. 8 marks

3. Look closely at the last paragraph. How does the writer use language here to describe the narrator's feelings about the past? You could include the writer’s choice of:

• words and phrases• language features and techniques• sentence forms.8 marks

The End of the Affair by Graeme Greene • 20 Marks • 25 minutes

A story has no beginning or end: arbitrarily one chooses that moment of experience from which to look back or from which to look ahead. I say 'one chooses' with the inaccurate pride of a professional writer who - when he has been seriously noted at all - has been praised for his technical ability, but do I in fact of my own will choose that black wet January night on the Common, in 1946, the sight of Henry Miles slanting across the wide river of rain, or did these images choose me? It is convenient, it is correct according to the rules of my craft to begin just there, but if I had believed then in a God, I could also have believed in a hand, plucking at my elbow, a suggestion, 'Speak to him: he hasn't seen you yet.'

For why should I have spoken to him? If hate is not too large a term to use in relation to any human being, I hated Henry - I hated his wife Sarah too. And he, I suppose, came soon after the events of that evening to hate me: as he surely at times must have hated his wife and that other, in whom in those days we were lucky enough not to believe. So this is a record of hate far more than of love, and if I come to say anything in favour of Henry and Sarah I can be trusted: I am writing against the bias because it is my professional pride to prefer the near-truth, even to the expression of my near-hate.

1. After reading this extract, a critic commented that "It seems that the narrator conveys his own confusion about his feelings through his confusing narration."

To what extent do you agree? In your response, you could:• write about your own impressions of the characters• evaluate how the writer has created these impressions• support your opinions with references to the text.

20 Marks

The Secret History by Donna Tartt • 20 Marks • 25 minutes

The snow in the mountains was melting and Bunny had been dead for several weeks before we came to understand the gravity of our situation. He'd been dead for ten days before they found him, you know. It was one of the biggest manhunts in Vermont history – state troopers, the FBI, even an army helicopter; the college closed, the dye factory in Hampden shut down, people coming from New Hampshire, upstate New York, as far away as Boston.

It is difficult to believe that Henry's modest plan could have worked so well despite these unforeseen events. We hadn't intended to hide the body where it couldn't be found. In fact, we hadn't hidden it at all but had simply left it where it fell in hopes that some luckless passer-by would stumble over it before anyone even noticed he was missing. This was a tale that told itself simply and well: the loose rocks, the body at the bottom of the ravine with a clean break in the neck, and the muddy skidmarks of dug-in heels pointing the way down; a hiking accident, no more, no less, and it might have been left at that, at quiet tears and a small funeral, had it not been for the snow that fell that night; it covered him without a trace, and ten days later, when the thaw finally came, the state troopers and the FBI and the searchers from the town all saw that they had been walking back and forth over his body until the snow above it was packed down like ice.

1. Read the first paragraph carefully, what do you learn about Bunny's death.

1.2.3.4.

4 Marks

2. How does the writer use language here to describe what happened to the body? You could include the writer’s choice of:

• words and phrases• language features and techniques• sentence forms.

8 marks

Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut• 16 Marks • 20 minutes

ALL THIS HAPPENED, more or less. The war parts, anyway, are pretty much true. One guy I knew really was shot for taking a teapot that wasn't his. Another guy I knew really did threaten to have his personal enemies killed by hired gunmen after the war. And so on. I've changed all their names.

I really did go back to Dresden with Guggenheim money (God love it) in 1967. It looked a lot like Dayton, Ohio, more open spaces than Dayton has. There must be tons of human bone meal in the ground.

I went back there with an old war buddy, Bernard V. O'Hare, and we made friends with a cab driver, who took us to the slaughterhouse where we had been locked up at night as prisoners of war. His name was Gerhard Muller. He told us that he was a prisoner of the Americans for a while. We asked him how it was to live under Communism, and he said that it was terrible at first, because everybody had to work so hard, and because there wasn't much shelter or food or clothing. But things were much better now. He had a pleasant little apartment, and his daughter was getting an excellent education. His mother was incinerated in the Dresden fire-storm. So it goes.

1. How does the writer use language here to describe violence? You could include the writer’s choice of:

• words and phrases• language features and techniques• sentence forms.

8 marks

2. You now need to think about the whole of the Source.

This text is from the beginning of a novel.

How has the writer structured the text to interest you as a reader? You could write about:

• what the writer focuses your attention on at the beginning• how and why the writer changes this focus as the Source develops• any other structural features that interest you. 8 marks

The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemmingway• 16 Marks • 20 minutes

In the morning I walked down the Boulevard to the Rue Soufflot for coffee and brioche. It was a fine morning. The horse-chestnut trees in the Luxembourg gardens were in bloom. There was the pleasant early-morning feeling of a hot day. I read the papers with the coffee and then smoked a cigarette. The flower-women were coming up from the market and arranging their daily stock. Students went by going up to the law school, or down to the Sorbonne. The Boulevard was busy with trams and people going to work. I got on an S bus and rode down to the Madeleine, standing on the back platform. From the Madeleine I walked along the Boulevard des Capucines to the Opera, and up to my office. I passed the man with the jumping frogs and the man with the boxer toys. I stepped aside to avoid walking into the thread with which his girl assistant manipulated the boxers. She was standing looking away, the thread in her folded hands. The man was urging two tourists to buy. Three more tourists had stopped and were watching. I walked on behind a man who was pushing a roller that printed the name CINZANO on the sidewalk in damp letters. All along people were going to work. It felt pleasant to be going to work. I walked across the avenue and turned in to my office.

1. What do we find out about what the narrator was doing and why he was there?

1.2.3.4.

4 Marks

2. What different types of people are on the street?

1.2.3.4.

4 Marks

3. How does the writer use language here to describe the street?

You could include the writer's choice of:

• words and phrases• language features and techniques• sentence forms.

8 marks

Little Cloud by James Joyce• 28 Marks • 35 minutes

A little lamp with a white china shade stood upon the table and its light fell over a photograph which was enclosed in a frame of crumpled horn. It was Annie's photograph. Little Chandler looked at it, pausing at the thin tight lips. She wore the pale blue summer blouse which he had brought her home as a present one Saturday. It had cost him ten and elevenpence; but what an agony of nervousness it had cost him! How he had suffered that day, waiting at the shop door until the shop was empty, standing at the counter and trying to appear at his ease while the girl piled ladies' blouses before him, paying at the desk and forgetting to take up the odd penny of his change, being called back by the cashier, and finally, striving to hide his blushes as he left the shop by examining the parcel to see if it was securely tied. When he brought the blouse home Annie kissed him and said it was very pretty and stylish; but when she heard the price she threw the blouse on the table and said it was a regular swindle to charge ten and elevenpence for it. At first she wanted to take it back but when she tried it on she was delighted with it, especially with the make of the sleeves, and kissed him and said he was very good to think of her.

1. What do we find out about the purchase of the gift?

1.2.3.4.

4 Marks

2. How does Annie react to the gift?

1.2.3.4.

4 Marks

3. A reviewer wrote: ‘In this extract, you can really see how nervous Little Chandler is as a person.’ To what extent do you agree?

In your response, you could:

• consider your own impressions of Little Chandler• evaluate how the writer creates a sense of his nervousness• support your response with references to the text.

20 Marks

Section B

Write a description (2-3 paragraphs) on the man and the shadow in this image.

20 marks(12 content, 8 SPAG)25 minutes

Section B

Write a description based of the chairs in this image.

(Half a paper)20 marks(12 content, 8 SPAG)25 minutes

Section B

Write a description of the man climbing over the fence in the image.

20 marks(12 content, 8 SPAG)25 minutes

Section B

Write a description based upon two people in this image.

20 marks(12 content, 8 SPAG) 25 minutes

Section B

Write a description based upon the reflection in the image.

20 marks(12 content, 8 SPAG)25 minutes

Section B20 marks (12 content, 8 SPAG) 25 Minutes

1 Write the opening of a story where someone is trapped- either literally, or mentally.

2 Write the opening of a story titled 'Everything is Broken'.

3 Write the opening of a story that begins with the lines: "Where do they go? There is no where in the world where they belong."

4 Write the middle part of a story that involves a place that has been damaged by war.

5 Write the ending of a story that has the last lines: "The calm returned, and silence fell once again.