Year 11English

Language

Extracts

Name:Class/Teacher:Language Paper 1AEXTRACT 1

This extract is from the opening of a short story by H G Wells. A medical scientist is showing a visitor his laboratory in London.

‘This again,’ said the Bacteriologist, slipping a glass slide under the microscope, ‘is well, - a preparation of the Bacillus cholera – the cholera germ.’

The pale-faced man peered down the microscope. He was evidently not accustomed to that kind of thing, and held a limp white hand over his disengaged eye. ‘I see very little,’ he said.

‘Touch this screw,’ said the Bacteriologist; ‘perhaps the microscope is out of focus for you. Eyes vary so much. Just the fraction of a turn this way or that.’

‘Ah! now I see,’ said the visitor. ‘Not so very much to see after all. Little streaks and shreds of pink. And yet those little particles, those mere atomies, might multiply and devastate a city! Wonderful!’

He stood up, and releasing the glass slip from the microscope, held it in his hand towards the window. ‘Scarcely visible,’ he said, scrutinising the preparation. He hesitated. ‘Are these – alive? Are the dangerous now?’

‘Those have been stained and killed,’ said the Bacteriologist. ‘I wish, for my own part, we could kill and stain every one of them in the universe.’

‘I suppose,’ the pale man said, with a slight smile, ‘that you scarcely care to have such things about you in the living – in the active state?’

‘On the contrary, we are obliged to,’ said the Bacteriologist. ‘Here, for instance –‘He walked across the room and took up one of several sealed tubes. ‘Here is the living thing. This is a cultivation of the actual living disease bacteria.’ He hesitated. ‘Bottled cholera, so to speak.’

A slight gleam of satisfaction appeared momentarily in the face of the pale man. ‘It’s a deadly thing to have in your possession,’ he said, devouring the little tube with his eyes. The Bacteriologist watched the morbid pleasure in his visitor’s expression. This man, who had visited him that afternoon with a note of introduction from an old friend, interested him from the very contrast of their dispositions. The lank black hair and deep grey eyes, the haggard expression and nervous manner, the fitful yet keen interest of his visitor were a novel change from the phlegmatic deliberations of the ordinary scientific worker with whom the Bacteriologist chiefly associated. It was perhaps natural, with a hearer evidently so impressionable to the lethal nature of his topic, to take the most effective aspect of the matter.

He held the tube in his hand thoughtfully. ‘Yes, here is the pestilence imprisoned. Only break such a little tube as this into a supply of drinking-water, say to these minute particles of life that one must needs stain and examine with the highest powers of the microscope even to see, and that one can neither smell nor taste – say to them, “Go forth, increase and multiply, and replenish the cisterns,” and death – mysterious, untraceable death, death swift and terrible, death full of pain and indignity – would be released upon this city, and go hither and thither seeking his victims. Here he would take the husband from the wife, here the child from its mother, here the statesman from his duty, and here the toiler from his trouble. He would follow the water-mains, creeping along streets, picking out and punishing a house here and a house there where they did not boil their drinking-water, creeping into the wells of the mineral water makers, getting washed into salad, and lying dormant in ices. He would wait ready to be drunk in the horse-troughs, and by unwary children in the public fountains. He would soak into the soil, to reappear in springs and wells at a thousand unexpected places. Once start him at the water supply, and before we could ring him in, and catch him again, he would have decimated the metropolis.

Glossary

Phlegmatic – unemotional, calm, down to earth

Cisterns – water storage tanks

Decimated the metropolis – killed everyone in London

EXTRACT 1A – QUESTIONS

[1] Read again the first FOUR paragraphs of the extract.

List four things from this part of the source about the visitor.

[4 marks]

[2] Look in detail at the following lines from the extract:

‘I suppose,’ the pale man said, with a slight smile, ‘that you scarcely care to have such things about you in the living – in the active state?’

‘On the contrary, we are obliged to,’ said the Bacteriologist. ‘Here, for instance –‘He walked across the room and took up one of several sealed tubes. ‘Here is the living thing. This is a cultivation of the actual living disease bacteria.’ He hesitated. ‘Bottled cholera, so to speak.’

A slight gleam of satisfaction appeared momentarily in the face of the pale man. ‘It’s a deadly thing to have in your possession,’ he said, devouring the little tube with his eyes. The Bacteriologist watched the morbid pleasure in his visitor’s expression. This man, who had visited him that afternoon with a note of introduction from an old friend, interested him from the very contrast of their dispositions. The lank black hair and deep grey eyes, the haggard expression and nervous manner, the fitful yet keen interest of his visitor were a novel change from the phlegmatic deliberations of the ordinary scientific worker with whom the Bacteriologist chiefly associated. It was perhaps natural, with a hearer evidently so impressionable to the lethal nature of his topic, to take the most effective aspect of the matter.

How does the writer use language here to describe the visitor?

You could comment on the writer’s choice of:

Words and phrases Language features and techniques Sentence forms

[8 marks]

[3] You now need to think about the whole of the extract.

This text is the opening of a story.

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 extract develops Any other structural features that interest you

[8 marks]

[4] Now look at the last paragraph of the extract.

A student, having read this section of the text said: ‘The writer is very effective in bringing to the life

the threat of the bacillus and the bacteriologist’s attitude towards it.’

To what extent do you agree?

In your response, you could:

Write about your own impressions of the bacillus and the bacteriologist Evaluate how the writer has created these impressions Support your opinions with references to the text

[20 marks]

WRITING TO DESCRIBE 1A

You are advised to spend about 45 minutes on this section.

Write in full sentences.

You are reminded of the need to plan your answer.

You should leave enough time to check your work at the end.

You are going to enter a creative writing competition.

Either: Write a description suggested by this picture:

Or: Write a story about a scientific experiment that goes wrong.

[24 marks for content and organisation

16 marks for technical accuracy]

[40 marks]

Language Paper 1B

EXTRACT 2

This extract is from the opening of a short story by Willa Cather, which was published in 1901. In this section the author describes the Solomon Valley in Kansas, a state of the USA, and the old man who lives there.

El Dorado: A Kansas Recessional

PEOPLE who have been so unfortunate as to have travelled in western Kansas will remember the Solomon valley for its unique and peculiar desolation. The river is a churning, muddy little stream that crawls along between naked bluffs, choked and split by sand bars, and with nothing whatever of that fabled haste to reach the sea. Though there can be little doubt that the Solomon is heartily disgusted with the country through which it flows, it makes no haste to quit it. Indeed, is it one of the most futile little streams under the

sun, and never gets anywhere. Its sluggish current splits among the sand bars and buries itself in the mud until it literally dries up from weariness and ennui, without ever reaching anything.

Beyond the river with its belt of amber woodland rose and bluffs, ragged, broken, covered with shaggy red grass and bare of trees, save for the few stunted oaks that grew upon their steep sides. They were pathetic little trees that sent their roots down through thirty feet of hard clay bluff to the river level. They were as old as the first settler could remember, and yet no one could assert that they had grown an inch. They seldom, if ever, bore acorns; it took all the nourishment that soil could give just to exist. There was a sort of mysterious kinship between those trees and the men who lived, or tried to live, there. They were alike in more ways than one.

Across the river stretched the level land like the top of an oven. It was a country flat and featureless, without tones or shadows, without accent or emphasis of any kind to break its vast monotony. It was a scene done entirely in high lights, without relief, without a single commanding eminence to rest the eye upon. The flat plains rolled to the unbroken horizon vacant and void, forever reaching in empty yearning toward something they never attained.

Near the river was a solitary frame building, low and wide, with a high sham front, like most stores om Kansas villages. Over the door was painted the faded letters, “Josiah Bywaters, Dry Goods Groceries and Notions.” In front of the store ran a straight strip of ground, grass grown and weedy, which looked as if it might once have been a road. Here and there, on either side of this deserted way of traffic, were half demolished buildings and excavations where the weeds grew high, which might once have been the sites of houses. For this was once El Dorado, the Queen City of the Plains, the Metropolis of Western Kansas, the coming Commercial Center of the West.

Whatever may have been there once, now there were only those empty, windowless buildings, that one little store, and the lonely old man whose name was painted over the door. Inside the store, on a chair tilted back against the counter, with his pipe in his mouth and a big gray cat on his knee, sat the proprietor. His appearance was not that of the average citizen of western Kansas, and a very little of his conversation told you that he had come from civilization somewhere. He was tall and straight, and an almost military bearing and an iron jaw. He was thin, but perhaps that was due to his diet. His cat was thin, too, and that was surely owing to his diet, which consisted solely of crackers and water, except when now and then it could catch a gopher; and Solomon valley gophers are so thin that they never tempt the ambition of any discerning cat. If Colonel Bywaters’s manner of living had anything to do with his attenuation, it was the solitude rather than any other hardship that was responsible. He was a sort of “Last Man.” The tide of emigration had gone out and had left him high and dry, stranded on a Kansas bluff. He was living where the rattlesnakes and sunflowers found it difficult to exist.

The only human faces the Colonel ever saw were the starved, bronzed countenances of the poor fellows who sometimes passed in wagons, plodding along with their wives and children and cook stoves and feather beds, trying to get back to “God’s country.” They never bought anything; they only stopped to water their horses and swear a little, and then drove slowly eastward. Once a little girl had cried so bitterly for the red stick candy in the window that her father had taken the last nickel out of his worn, flat pocketbook. But the Colonel was too kind a man to take his money, so he gave the child the money and the candy, too; and he also gave her a little pair of red mittens that the moths had got into, which last she accepted gratefully, though it was August.

Glossary

Bluffs – steep cliffs or banks

Ennui – boredom

Sham front – a storefront that is taller than the store itself

Attenuation - thinness

EXTRACT 1B – QUESTIONS

[Q1] Read again the first paragraph.

List four things from this part of the text about the river.

[4 marks]

[Q2] Look in detail at paragraphs 2 and 3.

How does the writer use language to describe the Solomon Valley?

[8 marks]

[Q3] You now need to think about the whole of the extract.

This extract is the opening of a short story.

How has the writer structured the text to gain and hold the reader’s interest?

[8 marks]

[Q4] Focus this part of your answer from paragraph 4 to the end.

A student, having read this section of the text, said: “The writer makes the reader feel sympathy for

Colonel Bywaters. His life seems to be very hard and lonely.”

To what extent do you agree?

In your response, you could:

Write about your own impressions of Colonel Bywaters Evaluate how the writer has created these impressions Support your opinions with references to the text

[20 marks]

WRITING TO DESCRIBE 1B

You are advised to spend about 45 minutes on this section.

Write in full sentences.

You are reminded of the need to plan your answer.

You should leave enough time to check your work at the end.

Your local newspaper is running a creative writing competition.

The winner will have their work published in the paper.

Either: Write a description suggested by this picture:

Or: Write a short story about a lonely and isolated place.

[24 marks for content and organisation

16 marks for technical accuracy]

[TOTAL = 40 MARKS]

Language Paper 1CDracula by Bram Stoker In this extract, Jonathan Harker has just arrived at Count Dracula’s home. His firm has instructed him to personally deliver important legal documents to one of their most valuable clients who lives in a decaying castle in the Carpathian Mountains near the Borgo Pass in Romania.

I stood in silence where I was, for I did not know what to do. Of bell or knocker there was no sign. Through these frowning walls and dark window openings it was not likely that my voice could penetrate. The time I waited seemed endless, and I felt doubts and fears crowding upon me. What sort of place had I come to, and among what kind of people? What sort of grim adventure was it on which I had embarked? Was this a customary incident in the life of a solicitor's clerk sent out to explain the purchase of a London estate to a foreigner?

I began to rub my eyes and pinch myself to see if I were awake. It all seemed like a horrible nightmare to me, and I expected that I should suddenly awake, and find myself at home, with the dawn struggling in through the windows, as I had now and again felt in the morning after a day of overwork. But my flesh

answered the pinching test, and my eyes were not to be deceived. I was indeed awake and among the Carpathians. All I could do now was to be patient, and to wait the coming of morning.

Just as I had come to this conclusion I heard a heavy step approaching behind the great door, and saw through the chinks the gleam of a coming light. Then there was the sound of rattling chains and the clanking of massive bolts drawn back. A key was turned with the loud grating noise of long disuse, and the great door swung back.

Within stood a tall old man, clean-shaven save for a long white moustache, and clad in black from head to foot, without a single speck of colour about him anywhere. He held in his hand an antique silver lamp, in which the flame bizarrely burned without a chimney or globe of any kind, throwing long quivering shadows as it flickered in the draught of the open door. The old man motioned me in with his right hand with a courtly gesture, saying in excellent English, but with a strange intonation."Welcome to my house! Enter freely and of your own free will!" He made no motion of stepping to meet me, but stood like a statue, as though his gesture of welcome had fixed him into stone. The instant, however, that I had stepped over the threshold, he darted forward, and holding out his hand grasped mine with a strength which made me wince, an effect which was not lessened by the fact that it seemed cold as ice, more like the hand of a dead than a living man. Again, he said:

"Welcome to my house! Enter freely. Go safely, and leave something of the happiness you bring!" The strength of the handshake was so much akin to that which I had noticed in the driver, whose face I had not seen, that for a moment I doubted if it were not the same person to whom I was speaking. So to make sure, I said interrogatively, "Count Dracula?"

He bowed in a courtly way as he replied, "I am Dracula, and I bid you welcome, Mr. Harker, to my house. Come in, the night air is chill, and you must need to eat and rest." As he was speaking, he put the lamp on a bracket on the wall, and stepping out, took my luggage. He had carried it in before I could forestall him. I protested, but he insisted."Nay, sir, you are my guest. It is late, and my people are not available. Let me see to your comfort myself." He insisted on carrying my traps along the passage, and then up a great winding stair, and along another great passage, on whose stone floor our steps rang heavily. At the end of this he threw open a heavy door, and I rejoiced to see within a well-lit room in which a table was spread for supper, and on whose mighty hearth a great fire of logs, freshly replenished, flamed and flared.

Language Paper 1C – QUESTIONS

[Q1] Read again paragraph 1.

List four concerns that the visitor to the castle has.

[4 marks]

[Q2] Look at paragraphs 3 and 4.

How does the writer use language to create tension?

[8 marks]

[Q3] You will need to refer to the whole extract.

How does the writer structure the text to create suspense for the reader?

[8 marks]

[Q4] Refer to paragraph 5 to the end of the extract.

“Despite the setting being tense, Count Dracula is presented as being more kind than I was expecting.”

To what extent do you agree with this statement?

You could include:

Points that show him to be kind Methods used by the writer to present him as being kind Support your points with references to the text

[20 marks]

WRITING TO DESCRIBE 1C

You are advised to spend about 45 minutes on this section.

Write in full sentences.

You are reminded of the need to plan your answer.

You should leave enough time to check your work at the end.

You have been asked to enter a piece of creative writing to a teenage magazine.

Either: Write a description suggested by this picture.

Or: Write about a time when you have been scared about something.

[24 marks for content and organisation

16 marks for technical accuracy]

[TOTAL = 40 MARK]

Language Paper 2AEXTRACT A

Fashion Goes PopAlice Fisher, The Guardian, 20 March 2011 (theguardian.com)

Spring is a fertile time. Not just for the lambs and the budding trees, but for fashion and trends. The first months of each year bring the latest round of catwalk shows from New York, London, Milan and Paris, and the concurrent awards season sent the best dressed in film and music trotting up the red carpets to the Grammys, the Brits, the Baftas and the Oscars. Spring is an orgy of style.

In the old days, if you wanted to look at the beautifully ridiculous, the conceptual or just the plain silly, the fashion shows were your best bet. Awards ceremonies, by contrast, used to be elegant oceans of pretty, colourful gowns by Valentino, Marchesa and Versace. They were so sedate that, in 2001, when Bjork wore a swan dress by fashion designer Marjan Pejoski and laid six eggs on the red carpet at the Oscars, she was lampooned for years. In 2011, a decade later, nobody would blink if Bjork had taken off and flown to her seat. This spring, at the Grammys, Katy Perry sported angel wings, 10-year-old actress and pop star Willow Smith turned up in 8in platform trainers, US singer Nicki Minaj added leopard-print highlights to her pompadour hair to match her leopard-print dress and Lady Gaga arrived in an egg, carried like a Roman emperor.

The designers’ most outrageous creations were papped on celebrities at red-carpet events rather than at the fashion shows. In fact, the most talked-about turn on the catwalk this season wasn’t by Kate Moss, Lara Stone or any other model – it was Lady Gaga’s debut at the Thierry Mugler womenswear show in Paris. Something odd is happening with celebrities and style. The stars are becoming more daring, more avant garde than the designers.

Nowadays, the biggest female names in music don’t particularly set themselves apart from their predecessors through musical style – most of them create surprisingly traditional pop – but the way they look is a whole new world…

The new stars do seem to be more humorous and self-aware than their pop predecessors. When Jessie J won the Critics’ Choice at this year’s Brit Awards she wore a Vivienne Westwood minidress. ‘I look like the evil queen from Snow White,’ she told reporters. ‘I just need to go and find my dwarfs now.’ Similarly, when asked about her big-cat Givenchy couture at this year’s Grammys, Minaj described her outfit as ‘miraculous meets her cub meets ferocity meets fabulosity meets the runway.’ Katy Perry is more pragmatic. ‘We’re all unique. That’s why we all win and we can all exist. People don’t just want vanilla. They want 31 flavours. I couldn’t do what Rhianna does, I couldn’t do what Gaga does. They can’t do what I do.’

What these stars do is create a break in monotony of style that has smothered culture of late. Trends used to wash from catwalk to stage to club and pavement unhampered. They may not be of vast cultural significance, but these new celebrities’ style is vivid and fun. We have come a long way from laughing at a star for laying eggs on a red carpet to applauding one for arriving in an egg. It’s going to be entertaining to see how much further we can go.

Glossary:

Pompadour –a hairstyle in which the hair is brushed upwards with height

Papped – photographed by the paparazzi (independent photographer)

Couture – fashionable made-to-measure clothing

EXTRACT B

Letter from George Bernard Shaw

To The Times 3 July 1905

Sir, The Opera management of Covent Garden regulates the dress of its male patrons. When is it going to do the same to the women?

On Saturday night I went to the Opera. I wore the costume imposed on me by the regulations of the house. I fully recognize the advantage of those regulations. Evening dress is cheap, simple, durable, prevents rivalry and extravagance on the part of male leaders of fashion, annihilates class distinctions and gives men who are poor and doubtful of their social position (that is, the great majority of men) a sense of security and satisfaction that no clothes of their own choosing could confer…

But I submit that what is sauce for the gander is sauce for the goose. Every argument that applies to the regulation of the man’s dress applies equally to the regulation of the woman’s…

At 9 o’clock (the Opera began at 8) a lady came in and sat down very conspicuously in my line of sight. She remained there until the beginning of the last act. I do not complain of her coming late and going early; on the contrary, I wish she had come later and gone earlier. For this lady, who had very black hair, had stuck over her right ear the pitiable corpse of a large white bird, which looked exactly if someone had killed it by stamping on the beast, and the nailed it to the lady’s temple, which was presumably of sufficient solidity to bear the operation. I am not, I hope, a morbidly squeamish person; but the spectacle sickened me. I presume that if I had presented myself at the doors with a dead snake round my neck, a collection of black beetles pinned to my shirtfront, and a grouse in my hair, I should have been refused admission. Why, then, is a woman to be allowed to commit such a public outrage? Had the lady been refused admission, as she should have been, she would have soundly rated the tradesman who imposed the disgusting headdress on her under the false pretence that ‘the best people’ wear such things, and withdrawn her custom from him; and thus the root of the evil would be struck at; for your fashionable woman generally allows herself to be dressed according to the taste of a person who she would not let sit down in her presence. I once, in Drury Lane Theatre, sat behind a matinee hat decorated with the two wings of a seagull, artificially reddened at the joints so as to produce the illusion of being freshly plucked from a live bird. But even that lady stopped short of a whole seagull. Both ladies were evidently regarded by their neighbours as ridiculous and vulgar; but that is hardly enough when the offence is one which produces a sensation of physical sickness in persons of normal human sensibility.

I suggest to the Covent Garden authorities that, if they feel bound to protect their subscribers against the dangers of my shocking them with a blue tie, they are at least equally bound to protect me against the danger of a woman shocking me with a dead bird.

Yours truly,

G Bernard Shaw

PAPER 2A – QUESTIONS

[1] Read again the first two paragraphs of EXTRACT A.

Choose four statements below which are TRUE. [4 marks]

(a) Fashion shows take place in large cities(b) The Brits and the Baftas are fashion shows(c) The writer thinks that modern fashion shows are ridiculous(d) Marchesa is a fashion designer(e) Bjork was once ridiculed for one of her outfits(f) The writer thinks that celebrities wear boring outfits at awards ceremonies(g) Katy Perry wore angel wings to an awards ceremony(h) Modern audiences are surprised when celebrities wear outrageous costumes

[2] You now need to refer to EXTRACT A and EXTRACT B.

Use details from both extracts. Write a summary of the differences in attitudes to fashion in the two

articles. [8 marks]

[3] You now need to refer only to EXTRACT B, Shaw’s letter.

How does Shaw use language to express his views on fashion persuasively? [12 marks]

[4] For this question, you need to refer to the whole of EXTRACT A and EXTRACT B.

Compare how the two writers convey their different attitudes to fashion.

In your answer, you could:

Compare their different attitudes Compare the methods they use to convey their attitudes Support your ideas with references to both texts [16 marks]

WRITING FROM A VIEWPOINT 1

You are advised to spend about 45 minutes on this section.

Write in full sentences.

You are reminded of the need to plan your answer.

You should leave enough time to check your work at the end.

“Celebrities should be more responsible in their fashion choices, especially when they influence so many young fans”

Write the text of a speech for a debate at your school in which you argue for and against this statement.

[24 marks for content and organisation

16 marks for technical accuracy]

[TOTAL = 40 MARKS]

Language Paper 2B

EXTRACT A

Is the journey really better by train?

The TGV network now has a fast route to Marseilles. Vanessa Thorpe raced by train and Martin Bright by plane to the south of France. Who was first there – and who enjoyed it more?

Martin Bright – by plane

Three and a half hours my journey to the south of France and I was still on British soil. The plane from Stansted had been delayed by 45 minutes and although I was still confident of beating the time taken to get to Marseilles on the TGV, I felt like I’d spent my whole morning travelling just to stand still.

However you look at it, airports are a rubbish place to spend even a second of your holiday and you can’t concentrate on a book or genuinely relax over a croissant and coffee when you are waiting for a delayed flight. The whole point of flying is that it is supposed to be fast. With my frustration measured out in an ever-growing pile of Sunday supplements, I began to daydream about lying back in a comfy TGV seat with a big headrest and view of French vineyards.

We boarded the bee-yellow Buzz plane at about 11.30 amid assurances that we should be able to make up some time on this flight. The cabin crew were patient with niggles about the temperature being too cold (or too hot), seat cushions that had come free of their fastenings, seat backs that wouldn’t go upright, and tables and arms rests that were awkward to use.

By now, I’d given up hope of lunch in Marseilles. But the in-flight salad (£3 extra) wasn’t bad and it was clear that even this delayed flight was going to get me to Marseilles in good time. We touched down at 2.30pm, and after picking up a hire car I was on the road by three, just six hours after I left home.

There is now way of making the journey part of the holiday when you fly to the south of France, but it does get you there with hours to spare over the train. Thoughts of Stansted faded after I’d checked in to a hotel and had a glass or two in a café. I felt perfectly relaxed.

Vanessa Thorpe – by train

Train travel makes its initial appeal direct to my vanity. Somehow, no matter how organised I try to be, no matter how smart my luggage is or how freshly washed my hair, I always leave even the shortest aeroplane journey sallow, unkempt and out of control. Whether it is the scramble for the passport at the bottom of the bag, deciding what to pack away in the hold or the unpleasant paradox of seemingly having hours to wait and yet no time to relax, being ‘processed’ by an airport has always sapped my spirits and left me feeling a hostage to fortune.

So it was with visions of remaining neatly coiffed and accoutred that I arrived at the Eurostar terminus at London’s Waterloo ready to take the new train all the way to the South of France in record time – a promised six hours 50 minutes to Marseilles. I’d left my north London flat at the congenial hour of 11.30am so was easily able to check in for my 12.27pm departure ahead of a scary 20-minute cut-off point.

There is, we all know, a degree of stress involved travelling anywhere, no matter how enticingly sunny the destination and easy the route, which is why the idea of a flying bed has always been one of my favourite fantasies. In the case of Eurostar, the sweaty palms and jolting starts to the traveller’s heart are most likely to be caused by not finding the right escalator up to the right bit of platform for the right coach of the train. Apart from that, once aboard, it really is fine to sit back and read, sleep, eat or drink – or all three. In the end it is pretty close to a flying bed really, except with nice scenery and a buffet service.

I pulled into Marseilles at 9.30pm, French time, half an hour late, but I was by now so relaxed that I scarcely noticed the delay. The journey from my door had taken me nine hours, but I felt as refreshed as if I had been lounging around on the sofa all day.

Travelling this way, I decided, connects you to the place you are going to in a way that is uniquely satisfying. Watching the landscape unravel, it is much easier to take pleasure in differences. Arriving anywhere by plane is, in contrast, often disorientating and leaves you with aching ears and ballooned feet.

Of course, it still takes quite a bit longer to go by train, but you are on the move in the right direction the whole time, which I like. And I’d nearly finished reading my book.

Glossary

TGV – a type of high-speed train

Coiffed and accoutred – having hair and clothes arranged well

EXTRACT B

In 1867, the American author Mark Twain travelled from New York to the Middle East, stopping at several other destinations along the way. This text is an extract from a travel writing book he wrote about his trip.

It is hard to make railroading pleasant in any country. It is too tedious. Stagecoaching is infinitely more delightful. Once I crossed the plains and deserts and mountains of the West in a stagecoach, from the Missouri line to California, and since then all my pleasure trips must be measured to that rare holiday frolic. Two thousand miles of ceaseless rush and rattle and clatter, by night and by day, and never a weary moment, never a lapse of interest! The first seven hundred miles a level continent, its grassy carpet greener and softer and smoother than any sea and figured with designs fitted to its magnitude – the shadows of the clouds. Here were no scenes but summer scenes, and no disposition inspired by them but to lie at full length on the mail sacks in the grateful breeze and dreamily smoke the pipe of peace – what other, where all was repose and contentment? In cool mornings, before the sun was fairly up, it was worth a lifetime of city toiling and moiling to perch in the foretop with the driver and see the six mustangs scamper under the sharp snapping of the whip that never touched them; to scan the blue distances of a world that knew no lords but us; to cleave the wind with uncovered head and feel the sluggish pulses rousing to the spirit of a speed that pretended to the resistless rush of a typhoon! But I forgot. I am in elegant France now. It is not meet that I should make too disparaging comparisons between humdrum travel on a railway and that royal summer flight across a continent in a stagecoach. I meant in the beginning to say that railway journeying is tedious and tiresome, and so it is – though at the time I was thinking particularly of a dismal fifty-hour pilgrimage between New York and St.Louis. Of course our trip through France was not really tedious because all its scenes and experiences were new and strange.

The cars are built in compartments that hold eight persons each. The seats and backs are thickly padded and cushioned and are very comfortable; you can smoke if you wish; there are no bothersome peddlers; you are saved the infliction of a multitude of disagreeable fellow passengers. So far, so well. But then the conductor locks you in when the train starts; there is no water to drink in the car; there is no heating apparatus for night travel; if a drunken rowdy should get in, you could not remove a matter of twenty seats from him or enter another car; but above all, if you are worn out and must sleep, you must sit up and do it in naps, with cramped legs and in a torturing misery that leaves you withered and lifeless the next day.

In France, all is clockwork, all is order. They make not mistakes. Every third man wears a uniform, and whether he be a marshal of the empire or a brakeman, he is ready and perfectly willing to answer all your questions with tireless politeness, ready to tell you which car to take, yea, and ready to go and put you into it to make sure that you shall not go astray. But the happiest regulation in French railway government is – thirty minutes to dinner! No five-minute boltings of flabby rolls, muddy coffee, questionable eggs, and pies whose conception and execution are a dark and bloody mystery to all save the cook that created them! No, we sat calmly down and munched through a long table d’hote bill of fare, then paid the trifle it cost and stepped happily aboard the train again, without once cursing the railroad company.

Glossary

Stagecoaching – travelling in a covered horse-drawn wagon

Mustangs – wild horses

Cars – railway carriages

Peddlers – travelling salesman

Table d’hote – a set menu with a fixed price

PAPER 2B – QUESTIONS

[Q1] Read again paragraphs 1 and 2 of EXTRACT A.

Shade FOUR statements, which are true.

[4 marks]

a) Martin Bright’s journey took three and a half hoursb) Martin Bright was unhappy about the delay to his flightc) Martin Bright felt the airport was a good place to relax while he was waiting for his flightd) Martin Bright began to think about how comfortable and relaxing travelling on the TGV

would bee) Martin Bright was told that some of the delay should be made up during the flightf) Some of the passengers on the plane had problems with their seatsg) Martin Bright got a free meal on his flighth) The plane landed at half past two in the morning

[Q2] You need to refer to Extract A and Extract B.

Use details from both sources. Write a summary of the differences between travelling by stagecoach

and travelling by aeroplane.

[8 marks]

[Q3] You now need to refer to only Extract B (paragraph 1).

How does Mark Twain use language to make you, the reader, feel as if you are journeying on the

stagecoach with him?

[12 marks]

[Q4] For this question, you need to refer to Extract A, ‘Vanessa Thorpe – by train’ and the whole of Extract

B.

Compare how the two writers have conveyed their different views and experiences of train travel.

In your answer, you could:

Compare their different views and experiences Compare the methods they use to convey those views and experiences Support your ideas with references to both texts.

[16 marks]

WRITING FROM A VIEWPOINT 2

You are advised to spend about 45 minutes on this section.

Write in full sentences.

You are reminded of the need to plan your answer.

You should leave enough time to check your work at the end.

‘Aeroplane travel is bad for the environment and unnecessarily dangerous. More people should use other forms of transport for long-distance journeys.’

Write an article for a broadsheet newspaper in which you explain your point of view on this statement.

[24 marks for content and organisation

16 marks for technical accuracy]

[TOTAL = 40 MARKS]

Language Paper 2C

Extract AThis is an autobiographical article written by a young entrepreneur (a person who starts up a business) for a newspaper in the 1990s.

When I first told my parents that I wanted to sell soup, I must have been about eight years old – like most sensible parents, they thought I was joking. That weekend, I’d been at my aunt’s house helping her harvest vegetables from her garden. It had been a bumper year, and we’d been staggering back and forth, shifting armfuls of all sorts of things into the house. With my aunt, not a single thing could go to waste, so we set about making soup. Gallons of the stuff. We were surrounded by steaming and bubbling pots and pans, and the air was thick with scents of leek and potato, carrot and coriander and spicy butternut squash. Anyway, when my parents didn’t take me seriously, I went straight to the fridge to dig out one of the soups my aunt and I had made – it was cream of mushroom, I think – and they absolutely lapped it up. “See!” I said, smiling. So it was then that SouperStar was born.

From day one I couldn’t wait to get stuck in. My parents would dutifully help me select produce, whizz up batches of soup and drive me here, there and everywhere so that I could set up shop. I would go to school fairs, farmers’ markets – anywhere that would have me. Dad was my champion haggler. He’d barter with local farmers to get crates of carrots and potatoes at rock-bottom prices. If he could get anything for free, well, that was even better! I think a lot of people were bemused by the sight of this young kid, buying produce and selling soup, and my parents put up with it because they thought that I would grow out of it at some stage. While other kids my age were glued to the TV or playing in the park, I was peeling vegetables and frying croutons.

I begged and pleaded with my parents to let me be home-schooled, as I wanted to dedicate more time to the business, but they insisted I should have a “normal” childhood, and fill my head with “necessary” stuff like formulae and equations. A few years later, and I was sitting my O levels – but instead of panicking over revision, I was, of course, dreaming up new recipes. With all my exams passed and done with, I wanted to press on and really dedicate myself to SouperStar. I think at this point my parents genuinely realised how determined I was, and they began to take it a lot more seriously too.

I struck upon the idea of selling soup at our local train station during the winter months – there was a constant stream of customers all in desperate need of something that would warm up their hands and fill their bellies. Before long, I was hiring extra staff in order to open up soup stands in other nearby train stations and Mum was coming up with advertising slogans and snazzy package designs (her years of marketing experience came in pretty handy here). As the business grew and grew, Mum and Dad couldn’t keep up with all the support I needed, so it made sense for them to get even more involved. Mum reduced her hours at work and Dad quit his job entirely. Fast-forward to today, and I’m the managing director of one of the most successful food companies in the area.

Of course, financially, it’s worked out well for us (thanks must go to my parents for the initial investment, not to mention being old enough to buy the wine for my French onion soup!), but for me it was never the dream of becoming a millionaire that got me started or even kept me going. It was the passion for building a great business based on great food – and that remains at the heart of SouperStar today.

Glossary

O Levels – the qualifications that preceded GCSEs, with examinations taken at the age of 16.

Extract B

Here are two interviews from the 1840s conducted with children who work as street sellers. These interviews were published in a newspaper and highlight the plight of the poor in London.

The first interview is with a young girl who sells flowers, and is an orphan.

“Mother has been dead just a year this month; she took cold at the washing and it went to her chest; she was only bad a fortnight; she suffered great pain, and, poor thing, she used to fret dreadful, as she lay ill, about me, for she knew she was going to leave me. She used to plan how I was to do when she was gone. She made me promise to try and get a place and keep from the streets if I could, for she seemed to dread them so

much. When she was gone I was left in the world without a friend. I am quite alone, I have no relation at all, not a soul belonging to me. For three months I went about looking for a place, as long as my money lasted, for mother told me without a character, and I knew nobody to give me one. I tried very hard to get one, indeed I did; for I thought of all mother had said to me about going into the streets. At last, when my money was just gone, I met a young woman in the street, and I asked her to tell me where I could get a lodging. She told me to come with her, she would show me a respectable lodging-house for women and girls. I went, and I have been there ever since. The women in the house advised me to take to flower-selling, as I could get nothing else to do. One of the young women took me to market with her, and showed me how to bargain with the salesman for my flowers. At first, when I went out to sell, I felt so ashamed I could not ask anybody to buy of me; and many times went back at night with all my stock, without selling one bunch. The woman at the lodging house is very good to me; when I have a bad day she will let my lodging go until I can pay her. She is very kind, indeed, for she knows I am alone. What I shall do in the winter I don’t know. In the cold weather last year, when I could get no flowers, I was forced to live on my clothes, I have none left now but what I have on. What I shall do I don’t know – I can’t bear to think on it.”

The second interview is with a young girl who sells nuts.

“It’s in the winter, sir, when things are far worst with us. Father can make very little then – but I don’t know what he earns exactly at any time – and though mother has more work then, there’s fire and candle to pay for. We were very badly off last winter, and worse, I think, the winter before. Father sometimes came home and had made nothing, and if mother had no work in hand we went to bed to save fire and candle, if it was ever so soon. Father would die afore he would let mother take as much as a loaf from the parish. I was sent out to sell nuts first: ‘If it’s only 1d. you make,’ mother said, ‘it’s a good piece better than staying at home without a fire and with nothing to do, and if I went out I saw other children busy. No, I wasn’t a bit frightened when I first started, not a bit. Some children – but they was such little things – said: ‘O, Liz, I wish I was you.’ I had twelve ha’porths and sold them all. I don’t know what it made; 2d. most likely. I didn’t crack a single nut myself. I was fond of them then, but I don’t care for them now. I could do better if I went into public-houses, but I’m only let go to Mr Smith’s, because he knows father, and Mrs. Smith and him recommends me. I have sold nuts and oranges to soldiers. I was once in a great crowd, and was getting crushed, and there was a very tall soldier close by me, and he lifted me, basket and all, right up to his shoulder, and carried me clean out of the crowd. He had stripes on his arm. ‘I shouldn’t like you to be in such a trade,’ says he, ‘if you was my child.’ He didn’t say why he wouldn’t like it. Perhaps because it was beginning to rain. Yes, we are far better off now. Father makes money. I don’t go out in bad weather in the summer; in the winter, though, I must. I don’t know what I shall be when I grow up. I can read a little. I’ve been to church five or six times in my life. I should go oftener and so would mother, if we had clothes.”

Glossary

A character – a reference

d. – pence

ha’porths – half-penny’s worth

Language Paper 2C – Questions

[Q1] Read the first paragraph of extract A.

Shade the four true statements.

[4 marks]

a) Lisa made her first batches of soup with her parentsb) Lisa wasn’t initially excited about making and selling soupc) Lisa’s parents liked the first sample of soup she made them tryd) Lisa’s aunt didn’t like throwing food awaye) Lisa’s parents thought the business was a great idea from the startf) People were surprised by Lisa working at such a young ageg) Lisa’s dad wasn’t very good at negotiating with farmersh) Lisa chose working on her business over spending time with her friends

[Q2] You now need to refer to extract A and extract B.

Write a summary of the differences between Lisa Goodwin’s parents and the parents of the Victorian

street sellers.

[8 marks]

[Q3] You now only need to refer to extract B, the interview with the flower seller.

How does the flower seller use language to appeal to the reader’s emotions?

[12 marks]

[Q4] For this question, you need to refer to the whole of extract A, together with extract B – interview

with the nut seller.

Compare how Lisa Goodwin and the nut seller convey their different attitudes to work and childhood.

In your answer you should:

Compare their different attitudes Compare the methods used to convey these attitudes Support your ideas with quotations from both texts

[16 marks]

WRITING FROM A VIEWPOINT 3

You are advised to spend about 45 minutes on this section.

Write in full sentences.

You are reminded of the need to plan your answer.

You should leave enough time to check your work at the end.

“More children should get a job before the age of sixteen. Part-time work would teach children valuable skills that they don’t learn in school.”

Write an article for a broadsheet newspaper in which you explain your point of view on this statement.

[24 marks for content and organisation

16 marks for technical accuracy]

[TOTAL = 40 MARKS]