Key Stage Four
Planning your Home Learning
Use this planner to keep track of what you have done during this time working from home. For all
learning, you should be considering 45-60 minutes timeframes. This allocation of time would support
one the following tasks per ‘lesson’:
Date
English Language Paper 1 Section A (QI-4)
English Language Paper 1 Section B (Q5)
English Language Paper 2 Section A (QI-4)
English Language Paper 2 Section B (Q5)
1 of the English Literature Questions from either paper.
Language Revision
Teacher/Parent
Seen
Date
Literature Revision
Teacher/Parent
Seen
Useful Websites for both Language and Literature:
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www.englishbiz.co.uk
www.learnthings.co.uk
www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/
www.bbc.co.uk/schools/revision/
www.sparknotes.com/
www.universalteacher.org.uk
www.podcastrevision.co.uk
www.s-cool.co.uk
www.mrbruff.com
http://www.sparknotes.com/lit
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/english_literature/dramainspectorc
alls/
• http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/english_literature/
GCSE English Literature
Recommended revision sites and resources
Websites to visit
GCSEPOD
Doddle
Youtube: Check out - Mr Bruff and Stacey Reay
https://www.bbc.com/bitesize/examspecs - choose AQA
https://www.litcharts.chttp
http://www.gojimo.com/
https://revisionworld.com
Helpful websites for revision materials:
Helpful revision guides:
1. CPG Guides
GCSE English
Language and literature For the Grade 1-9 Exams
2. Collins Snap revision guides for short tasks relating to language papers.
3. Pearson Revise AQA GCSE(9-1) English Language
Model answer workbook
4. Cambridge English Language
Progress plus
Student Book
5. York Notes for GCSE
AQA Language and literature
Revision and exam practice
Key Dates(For Year 11):
Wednesday 13th May- English Literature Paper 1 ( Macbeth and A Christmas
Carol)
Thursday 21st May- English Literature Paper 2 (An Inspector Calls, Power and
Conflict Poetry and Unseen Poetry)
Tuesday 2nd June- English Language Paper 1 (Fiction)
Friday 5th June- English Language Paper 2 (Non-Fiction)
A High Wind in Jamaica by Richard Hughes
It was the custom that, whenever Mr. Thornton had been to St. Anne's, John
and Emily should run out to meet him, and ride back with him, one perched on
each of his stirrups.
That Sunday evening they ran out as soon as they saw him coming, in spite
of the thunderstorm that by now was clattering over their very heads, with
the lightning bounding from tree to tree, bouncing about the ground, while
the thunder seemed to proceed from violent explosions in your own very core.
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"Go back! Go back, you damned little fools!" Mr Thornton yelled furiously: "Get
into the house!"
They stopped, aghast: and began to realise that after all it was a storm of more
than ordinary violence. They discovered that they were drenched to the skin
must have been the moment they left the house. The lightning kept up a
continuous blaze: it was playing about their father's stirrup-irons; and all of a
sudden they realized that he was afraid. They fled to the house, shocked to the
heart: and he was in the house almost as soon as they were.
Mrs. Thornton rushed out, saying that she thought the worst was over now.
Perhaps it was; but all through supper the lightning shone almost without
flickering. And John and Emily could hardly eat: the memory of that momentary
look on their father's face haunted them. It was an unpleasant meal altogether.
he lightning kept up its play. The thunder made talking arduous, but no one was
anyhow in a mood to chatter. Only thunder was heard, and the hammering of the
rain.
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15
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But suddenly, close under the window, there burst out the most appalling inhuman
shriek of terror.
"Tabby!" cried John, and they all rushed to the window.
But Tabby had already flashed into the house: and behind him was a whole club
of wild cats in hot pursuit. John momentarily opened the dining-room door and
puss slipped in, disheveled and panting. Not even then did the brutes desist:
What insane fury led these jungle creatures to pursue him into the very house is
unimaginable; but there they were, in the passage, caterwauling in concert: and
as if at their incantation the thunder awoke anew, and the lightning nullified the
meagre table lamp.It was such a din as you could not speak through. Tabby, his fur
on end, pranced up and down the room, his eyes blazing, talking and sometimes
exclaiming in a tone of voice the children had never heard him use before and
which made their blood run cold. He had gone utterly manic: and in the passage
Hell's pandemonium reigned terrifically.
Outside, above the door the fanlight was long since broken. Something black
and yelling flashed through the fanlight, landing clean in the middle of the supper
table, scattering the forks and spoons and upsetting the lamp. And another and
another - but already Tabby was through the window and streaking again for the
bush. The whole dozen of those wild cats leapt one after the other clean through
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the fanlight onto the supper table, and away from there only too hot in his tracks: in
a moment the whole devil-hunt and its hopeless quarry had vanished into the night.
Q1 Read again the first part of the source, lines 1 to 9.
List four things from this part of the text about the weather.
A
B
C
D
[4 marks]
Q2 [AO2 - language]
Look in detail at this extract from lines 10 to 22 of the source:
They stopped, aghast: and began to realize that after all it was a storm of more
than ordinary violence. They discovered that they were drenched to the skin
must have been the moment they left the house. The lightning kept up a
continuous blaze: it was playing about their father's stirrup-irons; and all of a
sudden they realized that he was afraid. They fled to the house, shocked to the
heart: and he was in the house almost as soon as they were.
Mrs. Thornton rushed out, saying that she thought the worst was over now.
Perhaps it was; but all through supper the lightning shone almost without
flickering. And John and Emily could hardly eat: the memory of that momentary
look on their father's face haunted them. It was an unpleasant meal altogether.
he lightning kept up its play. The thunder made talking arduous, but no one was
anyhow in a mood to chatter. Only thunder was heard, and the hammering of the
rain.
How does the writer use language here to describe the ferocity of the weather?
You could include the writer’s choice of:
• words and phrases
• language features and techniques
• sentence forms.
[8 marks]
Q3
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 extract develops
• any other structural features that interest you.
[8 marks]
Q4 [AO4 - evaluate with reference]
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15
20
Focus this part of your answer on the second half of the source, from line 23 to the end.
A student, having read this section of the text said: “The writer skilfully conveys Tabby’s fear
and the determination of the wild cats in pursuit of him. It is as if you are actually there.”
To what extent do you agree?
In your response, you should:
• write about your own impressions of the scene
• evaluate how the writer has created these impressions
• support your opinions with quotations from the text. [20 marks]
Lord Of The Flies – William Golding
Over the island the build-up of clouds continued. A steady current of
heated air rose all day from the mountain and was thrust to ten thousand
feet; revolving masses of gas piled up until the air was ready to explode.
It was early evening, the sun had gone and a brassy glare had taken the
place of clear daylight. Even the air that pushed in from the sea was hot
and held no refreshment. Colours drained from water and trees and pink
surfaces of rock, and the white and brown clouds brooded. Nothing move
but the flies who blackened the pig’s head and made the spilt guts look
like a heap of glistening coal. Even when the vein broke in Simon’s
nose and the blood gushed out the flies left him alone, preferring the
pig’s high flavour.
With the running of the blood Simon’s fit passed into the weariness of
sleep. He lay in the mat of creepers while the evening advanced and the
thunder continued to rumble. At last he woke and saw dimly the dark earth
close by his cheek. Still he did not move but lay there, his face sideways
on the earth, his eyes looking dully before him. Then he turned over wearily,
drew his feet under him and got hold of the creepers to pull himself up.
When the creepers shook, the flies exploded from the pig’s guts with a
vicious note and clamped back on again. Simon carefully got to his feet.
The light was unearthly. The pig’s head hung on its stick like a black ball.
Simon spoke aloud to the clearing.
“What else is there to do?”
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15
20
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Nothing replied. Simon turned away from the open space and crawled
through the creepers till he was in the dusk of the forest. He walked
drearily between the trunks, his face empty of expression, and the blood
was dry round his mouth and chin. A buffet of wind made him stagger
and he saw that he was out in the open, on rock, under a brassy sky. He
found his legs were weak and his tongue gave him pain all the time.
When the wind reached the mountaintop he could see something: a
humped thing suddenly sat up and look down at him.
Q1
Read again the first part of the source, lines 1 to 10.
List four details from this paragraph that describe the weather.
[4 marks]
Q2 [AO2 - language]
Look in detail at this extract from lines 11 to 21 of the source:
With the running of the blood Simon’s fit passed into the weariness of
sleep. He lay in the mat of creepers while the evening advanced and the
thunder continued to rumble. At last he woke and saw dimly the dark earth
close by his cheek. Still he did not move but lay there, his face sideways 15
on the earth, his eyes looking dully before him. Then he turned over, wearily
25
30
drew his feet under him and got hold of the creepers to pull himself up.
When the creepers shook, the flies exploded from the pig’s guts with a
viscous note and clamped back on again. Simon carefully got to his feet.
The light was unearthly. The pig’s head hung on its stick like a black ball. 20
Simon spoke aloud to the clearing.
How does the writer use language here to describe what Simon does and
what Simon sees?
You could include the writer’s choice of:
• words and phrases
• language features and techniques
• sentence forms.
[8 marks]
Q3
You now need to think about the whole of the source. This text is from 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 extract develops
• any other structural features that interest you.
[8 marks]
Q4 [AO4 - evaluate with reference]
Focus this part of your answer on the second half of the source, from line 22
to the end.
A student, having read this section of the text said: “The writer vividly conveys
how Simon feels and moves. It is as if you are there with the narrator.”
To what extent do you agree?
In your response, you should:
• write about your own impressions of Simon
• evaluate how the writer has created these impressions
• support your opinions with quotations from the text.
The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells
[20 marks]
Chapter Two: The Falling Star
Then came the night of the first ‘falling star’. It was seen early in the morning, rushing
over Winchester eastward, a line of flame high in the atmosphere. Hundreds must
have seen it, and taken it for an ordinary falling star.
I was at home and saw nothing of it. Some of those who saw its flight say it travelled
with a hissing sound. I myself heard nothing of that.
But very early in the morning poor Ogilvy, who had seen the ‘shooting star’, rose early
with the idea of finding it. Find it he did, soon after dawn, and not far from the sand
pits. An enormous hole had been made by the impact of the thing, and the sand and
gravel had been flung violently in every direction over the heath, forming heaps visible
a mile and a half away. The heather was on fire eastward, and a thin blue smoke rose
against the dawn.
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10
The Thing itself lay almost entirely buried in sand, amidst the scattered splinters of a fir
tree it had shook to fragments in its descent. The uncovered part had the appearance
of a huge cylinder, caked over by a thick scaly muddy-coloured incrustation. It had a
diameter of about thirty yards. Ogilvy tentatively approached the mass, flabbergasted
15
at the size and more so at the shape, since most meteorites are round. It was,
however, still extremely hot from its flight through the air and this prevented Ogilvy
from getting too close. There was a stirring noise within its cylinder he assumed to be
the cooling of its surface; for at that time it had not occurred to him that it might be hollow.
He remained standing at the edge of the pit that the Thing had made for itself,
transfixed by its strange appearance, astonished chiefly at its unusual shape and
colour. The early morning was wonderfully still and he did not remember hearing any
birds that morning, there was certainly no breeze stirring, and the only sounds were
the faint movements from within the cindery cylinder. He was all alone on the common.
20
Then suddenly he noticed with a start that some of the ashy incrustation that covered
the ‘meteorite’, was falling off! It was dropping off in flakes and raining down upon the
sand. A large piece suddenly came off and fell with a sharp noise that brought his
heart into his mouth.
25
For a minute he scarcely realised what this meant, and, although the heat was
excessive, he clambered down into the pit close to the bulk to see the Thing more
clearly. And then he perceived that, very slowly, the circular top of the cylinder was
rotating and he heard a muffled grating. Suddenly, it came upon him in a flash. The
cylinder was hollow - with an end that screwed out! Something within the cylinder was
unscrewing the top!
The thought of the confined creature was so dreadful to Ogilvy that he momentarily
forgot the heat and went forward to the cylinder to help turn. But luckily the heat
stopped him before he could burn his hands on the still-glowing metal. At that he stood
irresolute for a moment, then turned, scrambled out of the pit, and set off running
wildly into Woking.
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35
Q1
Read again the first part of the source, lines 1 to 11.
List four things from this part of the text about the ‘falling star’/Thing.
[4 marks]
Q2 [AO2 - language]
Look in detail at this extract from lines 11 to 18 of the source:
The Thing itself lay almost entirely buried in sand, amidst the scattered splinters of a fir
tree it had shook to fragments in its descent. The uncovered part had the appearance
of a huge cylinder, caked over by a thick scaly muddy-coloured incrustation. It had a
diameter of about thirty yards. Ogilvy tentatively approached the mass, flabbergasted
15
at the size and more so at the shape, since most meteorites are round. It was,
however, still extremely hot from its flight through the air and this prevented Ogilvy
from getting too close. There was a stirring noise within its cylinder he assumed to be
the cooling of its surface; for at that time it had not occurred to him that it might be hollow.
He remained standing at the edge of the pit that the Thing had made for itself,
transfixed by its strange appearance, astonished chiefly at its unusual shape and
colour. The early morning was wonderfully still and he did not remember hearing any
birds that morning, there was certainly no breeze stirring, and the only sounds were
the faint movements from within the cindery cylinder. He was all alone on the common.
How does the writer use language here to describe how the Ogilvy feels?
You could include the writer’s choice of:
• words and phrases
• language features and techniques
• sentence forms.
[8 marks]
Q3
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 extract develops
• any other structural features that interest you.
[8 marks]
Q4 [AO4 - evaluate with reference]
Focus this part of your answer on the second half of the source, from line 25 to the end.
A student, having read this section of the text said: “The writer brings the excitement and
fear of what Ogilvy saw to life for the reader. It is as if you are there with him.”
To what extent do you agree?
In your response, you should:
• write about your own impressions of the Thing
• evaluate how the writer has created these impressions
• support your opinions with quotations from the text.
[20 marks]
20
Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit – from Chapter 1
My mother and I walked on towards the hill that stood at the top of our street.
We lived in a town stolen from the valleys, a huddled place full of chimneys
and little shops and back-to-back houses with no gardens, The hills surrounded
us, and swept out into the Pennines, broken now and again with a farm or a
relic from the war. There used to be a lot of old tanks but the council took
them
5
away. The town was a fat blot and the streets spread back from it into the
green, steadily upwards.
Our house was almost at the top of a long, stretchy street. A flagged street with
a cobbly road. When you climbed to the top of the hill and looked down you
could see everything. Over to the right was the viaduct and behind the
viaduct
10
was where we had the fair once a year. I was allowed to go there on condition I
brought back a tub of black peas for my mother. Black peas are like rabbit
droppings to look at and they come in a thin gravy made of stock and gypsy
mush but they taste wonderful. The gypsies made a mess and stayed up all
night and my mother called them breeders but on the whole we got on very
well.
15
They turned a blind eye to toffee apples going missing, and sometimes, if it was
quiet and you didn't have enough money, they still let you have a ride on the
dodgems. We used to have fights round the caravans, the ones like me, from the
street, we fought the posh ones from the Avenue. The posh ones went to Brownies
and didn't stay for school
dinners.
20
Once, when I was collecting the black peas, about to go home, the old gypsy
woman got hold of my hand. I thought she was going to bite me. She looked at
my palm and laughed a bit. 'You'll never marry,' she said, 'not you, and you'll
never be still.' She didn't take any money for the peas, and she told me to run
home fast. I ran and ran, trying to understand what she meant. I hadn't
thought
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about getting married anyway. There were two women I knew who didn't have
any husbands at all; they were old though, as old as my mother. They owned the
paper shop and sometimes, on a Wednesday, they gave me a banana bar with
my comic. I liked them a lot, and talked about them a lot to my mother. One day
they asked me if I'd like to go to the seaside with them. I ran home, gabbled
out
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their invitation, and was busy emptying my money box to buy a new spade,
when my mother said firmly and forever, no. I couldn't understand why not, and
she wouldn't explain. She didn't even let me go back to say I couldn't. Then she
cancelled my comic and told me to collect it from another shop, further away. I
was sorry about that. A couple of weeks later I heard my mother telling
Mrs
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White about it. She said the women dealt in unnatural passions. I though she
meant they put chemicals in their sweets.
Q1 Read again the first part of the source, lines 1 to 7.
List four details about the area in which the narrator lived.
[4 marks]
Q2 [AO2 - language]
Look in detail at this extract from lines 8 to 20 of the source:
Our house was almost at the top of a long, stretchy street. A flagged street with
a cobbly road. When you climbed to the top of the hill and looked down you
could see everything. Over to the right was the viaduct and behind the viaduct
was where we had the fair once a year. I was allowed to go there on condition I
brought back a tub of black peas for my mother. Black peas are like rabbit
droppings to look at and they come in a thin gravy made of stock and gypsy
mush but they taste wonderful. The gypsies made a mess and stayed up all
night and my mother called them breeders but on the whole we got on very well.
They turned a blind eye to toffee apples going missing, and sometimes, if it was
quiet and you didn't have enough money, they still let you have a ride on the
dodgems. We used to have fights round the caravans, the ones like me, from the
street, we fought the posh ones from the Avenue. The posh ones went to Brownies
and didn't stay for school dinners.
How does the writer use language here to create vivid memories from her youth?
You could include the writer’s choice of:
• words and phrases
• language features and techniques
• sentence forms.
[8 marks]
Q3
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 extract develops
• any other structural features that interest you.
[8 marks]
Q4 [AO4 - evaluate with reference]
Focus this part of your answer on the second half of the source, from line 21 to
the end. A student, having read this section of the text said: “The writer skilfully
conveys the prejudice of the mother and the naivety of the child. It is really convincing.”
To what extent do you agree?
In your response, you should:
• write about your own impressions of the narrator as a child and of her mother
• evaluate how the writer has created these impressions
• support your opinions with quotations from the text.
[20 marks]
War Horse
The novel is about a horse’s life from his early
years being trained to work on a farm to his experiences in war.
My earliest memories are a confusion of hilly fields and dark, damp
stables, and rats that scampered along the beams above my head.
But I remember well enough the day of the horse sale. The terror of
It stayed with me all my life.
I was not yet six months old, a gangling, leggy colt who had never
been further than a few feet from his mother. We were parted that
day in the terrible hubbub of the auction ring and I was never to see
her again. She was a fine working farm horse, getting on in years but
with all the strength and stamina of an Irish draught horse quite evident
in her fore and hind quarters. She was sold within minutes, and before
I could follow her through the gates, she was whisked out of the ring
and away. But somehow I was more difficult to dispose of. Perhaps it
was the wild look in my eye as I circled the ring in a desperate search
for my mother, or perhaps it was that none of the farmers and gypsies
there were looking for a spindly-looking half thoroughbred colt. But
whatever the reason they were a long time haggling over how little I was
worth before I heard the hammer go down and I was driven out through
the gates and into a pen outside.
‘Not bad for three guineas, is he? Are you, my little firebrand? Not bad
at all.’ The voice was harsh and thick with drink, and it belonged quite
evidently to my owner. I shall not call him my master, for only one man
was ever my master. My owner had a rope in his hand and was
clambering into the pen followed by three or four of his red-faced friends.
Each one carried a rope. They had taken off their hats and jackets and
rolled up their sleeves; and they were all laughing as they came towards
me. I had as yet been touched by no man and backed away from them
until I felt the bars of the pen behind me and could go no further. They
seemed to lunge at me all at once, but they were slow and I managed to
slip past them and into the middle of the pen where I turned to face them
again. They had stopped laughing now. I screamed for my mother and
heard her reply echoing in the far distance. It was towards that cry that I
bolted, half charging, half jumping the rails so that I caught my off foreleg
as I tried to clamber over and was stranded there. I was grabbed roughly
by the mane and tail and felt a rope tighten around my neck before I was
thrown to the ground and held there with a man sitting it seemed on
every part of me. I struggled until I was weak, kicking out violently every
time I felt them relax, but they were too many and too strong for me. I felt
the halter slip over my head and tighten around my neck and face. ‘So
you’re quite a fighter, are you?’ said my owner, tightening the rope and
smiling through gritted teeth. ‘I like a fighter. But I’ll break you one way or
the other. Quite the little fighting cock you are, but you’ll be eating out of
my hand quick as a twick.’
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10
15
20
25
30
35
40
Q1 [AO1] Read again the first part of the source, lines 1 to 4.
List four things from this part of the text that we learn about the
horse’s early memories.
[4 marks]
Q2 [AO2] Look in detail at this extract from lines 5 to 18 of the source.
I was not yet six months old, a gangling, leggy colt who had never
5
been further than a few feet from his mother. We were parted that
day in the terrible hubbub of the auction ring and I was never to see
her again. She was a fine working farm horse, getting on in years but
with all the strength and stamina of an Irish draught horse quite evident
in her fore and hind quarters. She was sold within minutes, and before
10
I could follow her through the gates, she was whisked out of the ring
and away. But somehow I was more difficult to dispose of. Perhaps it
was the wild look in my eye as I circled the ring in a desperate search
for my mother, or perhaps it was that none of the farmers and gypsies
there were looking for a spindly-looking half thoroughbred colt. But
15
whatever the reason they were a long time haggling over how little I was
worth before I heard the hammer go down and I was driven out through
the gates and into a pen outside.
How does the writer use language here to show us what the horse felt about
being up for sale?
You could include the writer’s choice of:
• words and phrases
• language features and techniques
• sentence forms.
[8 marks]
Q3 [AO2] You now need to think about the whole of the source.
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 the focus as the extract develops
• any other structural features that you think help to develop the
introduction of the horse.
[8 marks]
Q4 [A04] Focus this part of your answer on the second half of the source,
from line 19 to the end.
A teacher, having read this section of the text said: “I like how the writer
helps my students to feel involved in this moment. It is as if they are there
in the pen with the Horse.”
To what extent do you agree?
In your response, you could:
• write about your own impressions of the horse and the man
• evaluate how the writer has created these impressions
• support your opinions with quotations from the text.
[20 marks]
SOURCE A: BBC News - Why Some Japanese Pensioners Want to Go to Jail (31st January 2019)
Japan is in the grip of an elderly crime wave - the proportion of crimes committed by people over
the age of 65 has been steadily increasing for 20 years.
At a halfway house in Hiroshima - for criminals who are being released from jail back into the
community - 69-year-old Toshio Takata tells me he broke the law because he was poor. He wanted
somewhere to live free of charge, even if it was behind bars.
"I reached pension age and then I ran out of money. So it occurred to me - perhaps I could live for
free if I lived in jail," he says. "So I took a bicycle and rode it to the police station and told the guy
there: 'Look, I took this.'"
The plan worked. This was Toshio's first offence, committed when he was 62, but Japanese courts
treat petty theft seriously, so it was enough to get him a one-year sentence. Small, slender, and with
a tendency to giggle, Toshio looks nothing like a habitual criminal, much less someone who'd
threaten women with knives. But after he was released from his first sentence, that's exactly what
he did.
"I went to a park and just threatened them. I wasn't intending to do any harm. I just showed the
knife to them hoping one of them would call the police. One did."
Altogether, Toshio has spent half of the last eight years in jail. He represents a striking trend in
Japanese crime. In a remarkably law-abiding society, a rapidly growing proportion of crimes is
carried about by over-65s. In 1997 this age group accounted for about one in 20 convictions but 20
years later the figure had grown to more than one in five. Many of these elderly lawbreakers are
repeat offenders. Of the 2,500 over-65s convicted in 2016, more than a third had more than five
previous convictions.
Another example is Keiko (not her real name). Seventy years old, small, and neatly presented, she
also tells me that it was poverty that was her undoing.
"I couldn't get along with my husband. I had nowhere to live and no place to stay. So it became my
only choice: to steal," she says. "Even women in their 80s who can't properly walk are committing
crime. It's because they can't find food, money."
Theft, principally shoplifting, is overwhelmingly the biggest crime committed by elderly offenders.
They mostly steal food worth less than 3,000 yen (£20) from a shop they visit regularly.
Michael Newman, an Australian-born demographer, points out that the "measly" basic state pension
in Japan is very hard to live on. In a paper published in 2016 he calculates that the costs of rent, food
and healthcare alone will leave recipients in debt if they have no other income - and that's before
they've paid for heating or clothes.
"The pensioners don't want to be a burden to their children, and feel that if they can't survive on the
state pension then pretty much the only way not to be a burden is to shuffle themselves away into
prison. The repeat offending is a way "to get back into prison" where there are three square meals a
day and no bills,” he says.
Newman points out that suicide is also becoming more common among the elderly - another way for
them to fulfil what he they may regard as "their duty to bow out".
SOURCE B: Extract from Children in Prison and Other Cruelties of Prison Life by the poet, novelist
and playwright Oscar Wilde. This text was originally published in 1897 as a letter to the editor of
the Daily Chronicle newspaper.
The child consequently, being taken away from its parents by people whom it has never seen, and of
whom it knows nothing, and finding itself in a lonely and unfamiliar cell, waited on by strange faces,
and ordered about and punished by the representatives of a system that it cannot understand,
becomes an immediate prey to the first and most prominent emotion produced by modern prison
life – the emotion of terror. The terror of a child in prison is quite limitless, I remember once in
Reading, as I was going out to exercise, seeing in the dimly-lit cell, right opposite my own, a small
boy. Two warders, not unkindly men, were talking to him, with some sternness apparently, or
perhaps giving him some useful advice about his conduct. One was in the cell with him, the other
was standing outside. The child's face was like a white wedge of sheer terror. There was in his eyes
the mute appeal of a hunted animal. The next morning I heard him at breakfast-time crying, and
calling to be let out. His cry was for his parents. From time to time I could hear the deep voice of the
warder on duty warning him to keep quiet. Yet he was not even convicted of whatever little offence
he had been charged with. He was simply on remand. That I knew by his wearing his own clothes,
which seemed neat enough. He was, however, wearing prison socks and shoes. This showed that he
was a very poor boy, whose own shoes, if he had any, were in a bad state. Justices and magistrates,
an entirely ignorant class as a rule, often remand children for a week, and then perhaps remit
whatever sentence they are entitled to pass. They call this “not sending a child to prison.” It is, of
course, a stupid view on their part. To a little child, whether he is in prison on remand or after
conviction, is a subtlety of social position he cannot comprehend. To him the horrible thing is to be
there at all. In the eyes of humanity it should be a horrible thing for him to be there at all.
This terror that seizes and dominates the child, as it seizes the grown man also, is of course
intensified beyond power of expression by the solitary cellular system of our prisons. Every child is
confined to its cell for twenty-three hours out of the twenty-four. This is the appalling thing. To shut
up a child in a dimly lit cell for twenty-three hours out of the twenty-four is an example of the
cruelty of stupidity. If an individual, parent or guardian did this to a child, he would be severely
punished. The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children would take the matter up at once.
There would be on all hands the utmost detestation of whomsoever had been guilty of such cruelty.
A heavy sentence would undoubtedly follow conviction. But our own actual society does worse
itself.
The second thing from which a child suffers in prison is hunger. The food that is given to it consists of
a piece of usually badly-baked prison bread and a tin of water for breakfast at half-past seven. At
twelve o’clock it gets dinner, composed of a tin of coarse Indian meal stirabout and at half-past five
it gets a piece of dry bread and a tin of water for its supper. This diet in the case of a strong grown
man is always productive of illness of some kind, chiefly of course diarrhoea, with its attendant
weaknesses. In the case of a child, the child is, as a rule, incapable of eating the food at all. Anyone
who knows anything about children knows how easily a child’s digestion is upset by a fit of crying, or
trouble and mental distress of any kind. A child who has been crying all day long, and perhaps half
the night, in a lonely dimly-lit cell, and is preyed upon by terror, simply cannot eat food of this
coarse, horrible kind.
English Language Mini Mock
Q1.
Read again the first part of Source A from lines 1 to 16.
Choose four statements below which are true.
Shade the circles in the boxes of the ones that you think are true.
Choose a maximum of four statements.
If you make an error cross out the whole box.
If you change your mind and require a statement that has been crossed out then draw a circle around
the box.
[4 marks]
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
The proportion of crimes committed by people over the age of 65 has fallen steadily.
Toshio Takata lives in the city of Hiroshima.
Toshio Takata’s first crime was to threaten a woman with a knife.
Japanese courts do not imprison people for theft.
Toshio Takata stole a bicycle.
Toshio Takata looks like a stereotypical criminal.
Toshio Takata broke the law because he did not have the means to live.
The trend in crime rates described in the article has been going on for at least 20 years.
¡
¡
¡
¡
¡
¡
¡
¡
Q2.
You need to refer to Source A and Source B for this question.
The experience of going to prison presented in the two sources is different.
Use details from both sources to write a summary of the differences in the treatment received by the
prisoners in Source A and the prisoners in Source B.
[8 marks]
Q3.
You now need to refer only to Source B from lines 22 to 41.
How does the writer use language to evoke sympathy for child prisoners?
[12 marks]
Q4.
For this question, you need to refer to the whole of Source A, together with the whole of source B.
Compare how the writers convey their different perspectives and feelings about people living in poverty
who end up in prison.
In your answer, you could:
•
•
•
Compare their different perspectives and feelings
Compare the methods the writers use to convey their different perspectives and feelings
Support your response with references to both texts.
[16 marks]
The Victorian era saw an horrific number of fatal train crashes. The writer Charles Dickens was involved in a
train crash in Staplehurst on 9th June 1865 but fortunately survived. Here is his eyewitness account in a letter
written to a friend:
SOURCE A
My dear Mitton,
I should have written to you yesterday or the day before, if I had been quite up to writing. I am a little shaken,
not by the beating and dragging of the carriage in which I was, but by the hard work afterwards in getting out
the dying and dead, which was most horrible.
I was in the only carriage that did not go over into the stream. It was caught upon the turn by some of the ruin
of the bridge, and hung suspended and balanced in an apparently impossible manner. Two ladies were my
fellow passengers; an old one, and a young one. This is exactly what passed:- you may judge from it the precise
length of the suspense. Suddenly we were off the rail and beating the ground as the car of a half emptied
balloon might. The old lady cried out “My God!” and the young one screamed. I caught hold of them both (the
old lady sat opposite, and the young one on my left) and said: “We can’t help ourselves, but we can be quiet
and composed. Pray don’t cry out.” They both answered quite collectedly, “Yes,” and I got out without the
least notion of what had happened.
Fortunately, I got out with great caution and stood upon the step. Looking down, I saw the bridge gone and
nothing below me but the line of the rail. Some people in the two other compartments were madly trying to
plunge out of the window, and had no idea there was an open swampy field 15 feet down below them and
nothing else! The two guards (one with his face cut) were running up and down on the down side of the bridge
(which was not torn up) quite wildly. I called out to them “Look at me. Do stop an instant and look at me, and
tell me whether you don’t know me.” One of them answered, “We know you very well, Mr Dickens.” “Then,” I
said, “my good fellow for God’s sake give me your key, and send one of those labourers here, and I’ll empty
this carriage.”
We did it quite safely, by means of a plank or two and when it was done I saw all the rest of the train except
the two baggage cars down in the stream. I got into the carriage again for my brandy flask, took off my
travelling hat for a basin, climbed down the brickwork, and filled my hat with water. Suddenly I came upon a
staggering man covered with blood (I think he must have been flung clean out of his carriage) with such a
frightful cut across the skull that I couldn’t bear to look at him. I poured some water over his face, and gave
him some to drink, and gave him some brandy, and laid him down on the grass, and he said, “I am gone”, and
died afterwards.
Then I stumbled over a lady lying on her back against a little pollard tree, with the blood streaming over her
face (which was lead colour) in a number of distinct little streams from the head. I asked her if she could
swallow a little brandy, and she just nodded, and I gave her some and left her for somebody else. The next
time I passed her, she was dead. No imagination can conceive the ruin of the carriages, or the extraordinary
weights under which the people were lying, or the complications into which they were twisted up among iron
and wood, and mud and water.
I don’t want to be examined at the Inquests and I don’t want to write about it. It could do no good either way,
and I could only seem to speak about myself, which, of course, I would rather not do. But in writing these
scanty words of recollection, I feel the shake and am obliged to stop.
Ever faithfully, Charles Dickens
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SOURCE B: A newspaper interview with the parents of a woman who was killed in a train crash
15 years earlier known as the Paddington Rail Disaster, which occurred in London on October 5th
1999
Those present at the scene of the Paddington rail crash have said that the worst memory they
have endured over the past 15 years is the sound of mobile phones ringing from the bodies of
the dead. Among the scorched metal carcases of the two trains involved in one of Britain’s
worst-ever rail disasters, a cacophony of telephones bleeped and buzzed. At the other end of
the line were anxious family and friends, their desperation building with each missed call.
Denman Groves first phoned his daughter, Juliet, at around 8.30am on October 5 1999. He and
his wife Maureen had woken up in their home in the village of Ashleworth, near Gloucester, and
as usual, switched on the television news. Like the rest of the nation watching that crisp autumn
morning, they stared in shock at the plume of smoke rising from the wreckage of the two
passenger trains that had collided just outside Paddington station. Neither could even imagine
that their 25-year-old daughter might have been on board.
“I didn’t even think she was anywhere near Paddington that day,” says Denman. Still, when he
left for work, he tried to phone her from the car – just to make sure. There was no answer. “I
thought I’d try again, but then I was so busy that I forgot. It wasn’t until lunchtime that I called. I
still couldn’t get an answer, so phoned her company. They said: 'We’re afraid she hasn’t arrived
yet, Mr Groves, and we’re very worried.’ At that point my heart sank.”
Juliet Groves, an accountant with Ernst & Young, was one of hundreds aboard a Thames Trains
commuter service from Paddington station at 8.06am that morning. Petite, pretty and fiercely
intelligent – the previous year she had come seventh in the entire country in her chartered
accountancy exams, Juliet lived in Chiswick but was travelling by train to Slough, where she was
winding up a company. Despite her young age, she was already a specialist in bankruptcy and
was being fast-tracked to become a partner in the company. From birth she had suffered from
partial blindness and was unable to drive. As a result, she travelled everywhere by rail.
She was in the front carriage of the train when it passed through a red signal at Ladbroke Grove
and into the path of the oncoming Paddington-bound First Great Western express travelling
from Cheltenham Spa in Gloucestershire. Both drivers were killed, as well as 29 passengers, and
400 others were injured. Juliet’s body was one of the last to be discovered. She was finally found
on the eighth day.
The outcry that followed led to the biggest-ever safety shake‑up of the country’s rail network.
In 2007, after years of campaigning by the families, Network Rail was fined £4 million for health
and safety breaches.
Travelling by train on the same line from Paddington towards Gloucestershire, it is easy to
imagine the scene in those carriages seconds before the impact. Passengers gaze out of
windows across the snaking railway lines bordered by city scrub. A few talk business into mobile
phones; others sip coffees and browse through their newspapers. The disaster, says Network
Rail, “simply could not happen today”.
But that promise is not enough for Denman and Maureen Groves. Neither have boarded a
British train since the crash, and never will again. Their grief would not allow it, nor the sense of
lingering injustice. “I can’t do it, I won’t do it,” says Denman. “I don’t want any involvement with
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Network Rail. The last contact I had with them was at the trial in 2007. I told the chairman he
ought to be ashamed of himself.”
Q1: Read lines 4 to 11 of Source A.
Choose four statements below which are TRUE.
marks]
[4
• Two carriages did not go over into the stream
• There were two ladies in the carriage with Dickens
• The young lady screamed. The old lady said “My God!”
• Two old ladies were in the carriage with Dickens
• Only one carriage did not go over into the stream
• The old lady screamed. The young one said “My God!”
• Dickens told the ladies to be quiet and calm down
Q2: Refer to Source A and Source B. Write a summary of the differences
in the
rail disasters they each describe.
[8
marks]
Q3: Refer to Source A.
How does Charles Dickens use language to convey his thoughts and
feelings about the disaster?
[12
marks]
Q4: Refer to Source A and Source B.
Compare how the writers present their different perspectives
of the national railway disasters they describe.
marks]
[16
In your answer, you should:
• compare their different perspectives
• compare the methods they use to convey their attitudes
• support your ideas with quotations from both texts
Section B: Writing
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.
Q5
“The government should invest more money in public transport as there are so many
good reasons to use it.”
Write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper, explaining your views on this
statement.
(24 marks for content and organisation
16 marks for technical accuracy)
[40 marks]
SOURCE A
This is an extract from a letter Oscar Wilde wrote to ‘The Daily Chronicle’ newspaper after his own
release in 1897 from Reading prison. The letter, entitled: "The Case of Warder Martin: Some Cruelties
of Prison Life", shows his concern over the treatment of children in prisons.
To The Editor, The Daily Chronicle, Friday 28th May 1897.
Dear Sir, the present treatment of children is terrible, primarily from people not understanding the
psychology of a child’s nature. A child cannot understand a punishment inflicted by society.
The child consequently, being taken away from its parents by people whom it has never seen before, and
of whom it knows nothing, and finding itself in a lonely and unfamiliar cell, waited on by strange faces,
and ordered about and punished by representatives of a prison system that it cannot understand,
becomes an immediate prey to the first and most prominent emotion produced by modern prisons - the
emotion of terror.
The terror of a child in prison is quite limitless. I remember once, in Reading prison, as I was going out to
exercise, seeing in the dimly-lit cell right opposite my own, a small boy. Two warders — not unkindly men
— were talking sternly to him, or perhaps giving him some useful advice about his behaviour. One was in
the cell with him, the other was standing outside. The child’s face was like a white wedge of sheer terror.
There was in his eyes the terror of a hunted animal.
The next morning I heard him at breakfast time crying and begging to be let out. His cry was for his
parents. From time to time I could hear the deep voice of the warder on duty telling him to keep quiet.
Yet he was not even convicted of whatever little offence he had been charged with. He was simply on
remand. This I knew by his wearing of his own clothes, which seemed neat enough. He was, however,
wearing prison socks and shoes. This showed that he was a very poor boy, whose own shoes, if he had
any, were in a bad state. Justices and magistrates, an entirely ignorant class as a rule, often remand
children for a week. They call this "not sending a child to prison". It is, of course, a stupid view on their
part. To a little child whether he is in prison on remand, or after conviction, is no different. To him, the
horrible thing is to be there at all. In the eyes of humanity it should be a horrible thing for him to be
there at all.
SOURCE B: Newspaper article: ‘Back to the Chain Gang’ by Dermot Purgavie
Beyond the sleek, mirror-glass guard towers and the coils of razor wire glinting around the perimeter, the
Rocky Mountains are already glazed with snow, but soothing views are not part of the programme.
Inside each cell, the window is positioned so all you can see is sky. That’s the good part. The bed is a slab
of concrete. Meals come through a slot in the steel door. The whole place smells of fresh paint and
hopelessness.
Welcome to Florence Federal Prison, the new showpiece of America’s booming penal system. Built at a
cost of £40 million, it offers trendsetting advances in the evolution of the dungeon and redefines the
concept of ‘doing time’. It’s typical of the trend in America towards tougher and tougher prisons and
prison regimes, which in some states now include old-fashioned chain gangs. Florence Prison makes
Britain’s maximum security prisons look like holiday camps. Those unfortunate enough to qualify for a
place at Florence had better get used to cheerlessness. They will get out of their cells for just one hour a
day and then only in handcuffs and leg-irons and escorted by three guards armed with yard-long prods
known as ‘rib-spreaders’.
As my footsteps echoed along the corridors, the thought occurred that not even Mike Tyson would cause
trouble here. The chances of inmates indulging in the antics the British have become used to – plotting
escapes with mobile phones, running businesses from their prison cells and planning every type of crime
– are next to zero here.
When it opens next month this will be the toughest prison in America, designed for America’s most
dangerous convicts. It’s in Colorado but once you’re inside, you’re nowhere. Florence is a glimpse of the
future and an expression of the anger and fear of a crime-ridden society. America has been locking up
criminals with such enthusiasm that it needs 250 new cells every day. The expense is staggering; it costs
much more to send someone to prison than to university and it has been calculated that at the present
rate of imprisonment – already five times higher than Europe – there will be more Americans inside jails
than outside them by 2053.
The convict population of 1.4 million is certain to grow even more under strict laws that impose longer
sentences and restrict parole. As the prison system expands, public hostility to the idea of cosy jails has
so far encouraged 36 states to adopt unforgiving methods for their most troublesome prisoners.
Florence is meant to inspire fear and deter criminals from causing trouble. The prisoners will have to
endure three years of rugged isolation, without incident, to gain release to a gentler prison. They are
confined alone in their cell for 23 hours a day of relentless tedium. There is no recreation, no socialising,
no work, no communal meals. The potential for trouble is reduced by severely limiting prisoners’
movement. The accommodation is basic, with bed, desk, bookcase and stool made from vandal-proof,
reinforced concrete, anchored to the floor. Matches and lighters are banned. An electric device gives
smokers a light when they push cigarettes through a hole in the wall.
Florence believes in sensory deprivation. Cells are built on a staggered system to prevent eye contact
between prisoners. A steel door thwarts any conversation. Perhaps cruellest of all, the TV is in black &
white and shows only religious and educational programmes. Prisoners get one ten-minute long phone
call a month. No visits are allowed.
While the trend towards tougher prisons has much public support, critics argue that it simply toughens
criminals while others complain it is inhumane and criminals still commit crimes.
Q1: Read Source A, lines 9 – 24.
Choose four statements below which are TRUE.
•
Wilde believes that prison is a good punishment for children
•
Wilde claims that prison is a terrifying experience for children
•
Wilde witnessed a child begging to be released from prison
•
Wilde believes sending children to prison is a stupid idea
•
The boy had lost his own shoes and socks
•
The boy was so poor he did not have his own shoes and socks
•
The boy cried because he missed his friends
[4 marks]
Q2: Refer to Source A and Source B. Write a summary of the two writers’
attitudes to prison as a form of punishment.
[8 marks]
Q3: Re-read this extract, taken from Source B.
Florence is meant to inspire fear and deter criminals from causing trouble. The prisoners will have to
endure three years of rugged isolation, without incident, to gain release to a gentler prison. They are
confined alone in their cell for 23 hours a day of relentless tedium. There is no recreation, no socialising,
no work, no communal meals. The potential for trouble is reduced by severely limiting prisoners’
movement. The accommodation is basic, with bed, desk, bookcase and stool made from vandal-proof,
reinforced concrete, anchored to the floor. Matches and lighters are banned. An electric device gives
smokers a light when they push cigarettes through a hole in the wall.
Florence believes in sensory deprivation. Cells are built on a staggered system to prevent eye contact
between prisoners. A steel door thwarts any conversation. Perhaps cruellest of all, the TV is in black &
white and shows only religious and educational programmes. Prisoners get one ten-minute long phone
call a month. No visits are allowed.
While the trend towards tougher prisons has much public support, critics argue that it simply toughens
criminals while others complain it is inhumane and criminals still commit crimes.
How does the writer use language here to convey his opinions of this prison?
[12 marks]
Q4: Refer to Source A and Source B.
Compare how the writers present their attitudes to the experiences of
the prisons they describe.
In your answer, you should:
• compare their different perspectives
• compare the methods they use to convey their attitudes
• support your ideas with quotations from both texts
[16 marks]
Section B: Writing
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.
Q5
“Prison is a waste of time: it’s like home from home and is no punishment at all!”
Write an article for a broadsheet newspaper explaining your views on this statement.
(24 marks for content and organisation
16 marks for technical accuracy)
[40 marks]
Macbeth
Read the following extract from Act 1 Scene 5 of Macbeth and then answer the
question that follows.
At this point in the play Lady Macbeth is speaking. She has just received the news
that King Duncan will be spending the night at her castle.
The raven himself is hoarse
That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan
Under my battlements. Come, you spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,
And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full
Of direst cruelty! make thick my blood;
Stop up the access and passage to remorse,
That no compunctious visitings of nature
Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between
The effect and it! Come to my woman's breasts,
And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers,
Wherever in your sightless substances
You wait on nature's mischief! Come, thick night,
And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,
That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,
Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark,
To cry 'Hold, hold!'
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Q1: Starting with this speech, explain how far you think Shakespeare presents
Lady Macbeth as a powerful woman.
Write about:
• how Shakespeare presents Lady Macbeth in this speech
• how Shakespeare presents Lady Macbeth in the play as a whole. [30 marks]
SPAG [4 marks]
Things you might write about:
•
The connotations of the “raven” and her use of the adjective “fatal” to describe
Duncan’s entrance to Dunsinane castle. What does it convey about her immediate
thoughts and reactions to Macbeth’s letter?
•
Summoning evil spirits. Explain clearly what Lady Macbeth invites the “murdering
ministers” to do to her body and why she requests their assistance.
•
The fact she imagines committing the regicide herself in this soliloquy: she refers to the
weapon as “my keen knife”. However, she does not later commit the crime herself.
What reason does she give for not doing so, in an aside to the audience in Act 2 scene 2,
lines 15 – 16? Explain what impressions this private admission conveys about Lady
Macbeth’s character to the audience.
•
Think now about Act 3 scene 2, where we first see Lady Macbeth as Queen. In an aside
to the audience at the opening of this scene, explain what feelings she privately admits
to, now that her ambition to be queen has been fulfilled.
•
Now think about our final impressions of Lady Macbeth, in Act 5 scene 1. Write about
the significance of having “light by her continually” and how this links to her desire to
be wrapped in “the dunnest smoke of Hell” when first contemplating Duncan’s murder.
Explain also the irony of her constantly rubbing her hands, given her comment to
Macbeth on the night of Duncan’s murder: “A little water clears us of this deed.”
At this point in the play, Macbeth has decided he will not kill King Duncan. He is
just about to share this news with his wife, Lady Macbeth.
MACBETH
We will proceed no further in this business:
He hath honour'd me of late; and I have bought
Golden opinions from all sorts of people,
Which would be worn now in their newest gloss,
Not cast aside so soon.
LADY MACBETH
Was the hope drunk
Wherein you dress'd yourself? hath it slept since?
And wakes it now, to look so green and pale
At what it did so freely? From this time
Such I account thy love. Art thou afeard
To be the same in thine own act and valour
As thou art in desire? Wouldst thou have that
Which thou esteem'st the ornament of life,
And live a coward in thine own esteem,
Letting 'I dare not' wait upon 'I would,'
Like the poor cat i' the adage?
MACBETH
Prithee, peace:
I dare do all that may become a man;
Who dares do more is none.
LADY MACBETH
What beast was't, then,
That made you break this enterprise to me?
When you durst do it, then you were a man;
And, to be more than what you were, you would
Be so much more the man.
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Q1: Starting with this conversation, explain how far you think Shakespeare
presents Lady Macbeth as the dominant partner in this relationship.
Write about:
• how Shakespeare presents Lady Macbeth in this speech
• how Shakespeare presents Lady Macbeth elsewhere in the play.
[30 marks]
SPAG [4 marks]
Things to think and write about:
• Comment on Lady Macbeth’s violent emotional reaction to Macbeth’s decision.
Comment on Shakespeare’s choice of imagery here, where Macbeth’s “hope” is
personified by Lady Macbeth in a scathing criticism of his cowardice (see lines 6
to 9).
• Comment on Macbeth’s attempt to assert his dominance in this exchange (see
lines 17 to 19). Is it successful? What is Macbeth’s view of murder here? How is it
different from hers?
• Her use of euphemisms (on lines 21 and 22) to cleverly avoid having to use the
word “murder”, given Macbeth’s announcement in this exchange that he will not
commit the deed. How does this show her dominance in their relationship?
• Explain how the dynamics of their relationship changes once Macbeth usurps
Duncan’s throne. Consider their disagreement over Macbeth’s plans for Banquo
in Act 3 scene 2. How does Lady Macbeth try to assert her dominance in that
conversation (see Act 3 Scene 2, lines 25 to 40)? Is she successful?
• Our final impressions of her: a pitiable, tragic and troubled woman, frightened of
the “dunnest smoke of Hell” she so willingly asked to be wrapped in at the
beginning of the play.
This is from Act 3 scene 1 of the play. At this point in the play, Macbeth is now
king of Scotland. His friend Banquo expresses his private fears that Macbeth was
involved in the murder of King Duncan.
BANQUO
Thou hast it now: king, Cawdor, Glamis, all,
As the weird women promised, and, I fear,
Thou play'dst most foully for't: yet it was said
It should not stand in thy posterity,
But that myself should be the root and father
Of many kings. If there come truth from them-As upon thee, Macbeth, their speeches shine-Why, by the verities on thee made good,
May they not be my oracles as well,
And set me up in hope? But hush! no more.
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Enter MACBETH, as king, LADY MACBETH, as queen, LENNOX,
ROSS, Lords, Ladies, and Attendants
MACBETH
Here's our chief guest.
LADY MACBETH
If he had been forgotten,
It had been as a gap in our great feast,
And all-thing unbecoming.
MACBETH
To-night we hold a solemn supper sir,
And I'll request your presence.
BANQUO
Let your highness
Command upon me; to the which my duties
Are with a most indissoluble tie
For ever knit.
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Q1: Starting with this conversation, explain how Shakespeare presents the
relationship between Banquo and Macbeth.
Write about:
• how Shakespeare presents their relationship in this conversation
• how Shakespeare presents the relationship elsewhere in the play.
Things to think and write about:
•
•
•
•
•
The relationship presented in this extract is one of mutual - but unspoken - mistrust. Look
closely at Banquo’s aside, where he reflects on Macbeth’s recent gains. Explain what
emotion Banquo privately expresses here and what this conveys to the audience about
the reality of their relationship as friends at this point in the play.
Macbeth’s reference to Banquo as the “chief guest” at the “solemn supper” to be held
later the same evening – an ironic comment given Macbeth’s soliloquy immediately after
this conversation when he admits that his “fears in Banquo stick deep”, followed by a
plot to murder him.
Explain Banquo’s function in the play. Discuss the qualities that Banquo and Macbeth
have in common. (Look at the first five lines of Macbeth’s soliloquy, Act 3 scene 1 lines 50
to 55, where Macbeth explains what those qualities are!) Explain why Shakespeare
presents these two characters as being so similar in many ways.
Now, explain the major difference between them and in what way Banquo’s virtue shapes
the audience’s opinion of Macbeth’s vice. You might refer to the way the two men react
differently to the witches and their predictions in Act 1 scene 3 to illustrate how they are
dissimilar in one very significant way.
You might discuss the significance and the irony of Banquo’s ghost honouring Macbeth’s
request, delivered in this extract: “To-night we hold a solemn supper sir, / And I'll request
your presence.” Plagued by a guilty conscience, the betrayer is tormented by the ghost
of his innocent victim. None of the guests yet know Banquo is dead. Ironically, the guests
assume that Macbeth is being haunted by the ghost of someone else, perhaps Duncan.
Macbeth’s seemingly bizarre conversation with “a stool” incriminate him in a murder and
so Banquo’s initial suspicion in this extract, that Macbeth “play’dst most foully” for
Duncan’s crown is a suspicion now entertained by all the guests at this supposedly
“solemn supper.”
OR
JB Priestley: An Inspector Calls
Compare and contrast the characters of Mr Birling and Inspector Goole.
Write about:
how the two characters behave in the play
how Priestley presents the two characters
[30 marks]
AO4 [4 marks]
OR
“And so you used the power you had, as a daughter of a good customer and also of a man well known in the
town, to punish the girl just because she made you feel like that?”
How does JB Priestley present different types of power in the play?
Write about:
the different types of power examined in the play
how Priestley presents different types of power in the ways he writes
[30 marks]
AO4 [4 marks]
OR
JB Priestley: An Inspector Calls
Compare and contrast the characters of Sheila Birling and Eva Smith.
Write about:
how the two characters behave in the play
how Priestley presents the two characters
[30 marks]
AO4 [4 marks]
OR
“When you’re married, you’ll realise that men with important work to do sometimes have to spend all their time
and energy on their business. You’ll have to get used to that, just as I had to.”
How does JB Priestley present romantic relationships and marriage in the play?
Write about:
the importance of romantic relationships and marriage in the play
how Priestley presents romantic relationships and marriage in the ways he writes
[30 marks]
AO4 [4 mar
OR
JB Priestley: An Inspector Calls
Compare and contrast the characters of Gerald Croft and Eric Birling.
Write about:
how the two characters behave in the play
how Priestley presents the two characters
[30 marks]
AO4 [4 marks]
OR
Inspector Goole speaks of ‘”these young women counting their pennies in their dingy little back bedrooms”.
How does JB Priestley present exploitation in the play?
Write about:
the different types of exploitation in the play
how Priestley presents exploitation in the ways he writes
[30 marks]