CIE IGCSE: The
Passage
Question
Tuesday, 16 December 14
Jonathan Peel JLS 2014
Format
 Paper
1 examines Poetry and Prose
 You have to answer 2 questions: 1 on
each genre
 You can choose between a passage
question and an essay question.
 The paper is “closed book”
Jonathan Peel JLS 2014
From the syllabus
Jonathan Peel JLS 2014
Assessment: equal weighting
Jonathan Peel JLS 2014
Approaching the passage
 Focus
only on the passage
 Question is about writer’s craft
 No need to tell the story, but show
knowledge of the context
 Use
the SCASI approach to focus your
writing.
Jonathan Peel JLS 2014
How does Hill create
atmosphere in this passage?
 Note
that you should place the passage
in context in your introduction and then
write.
 There
is no need for generic waffle in the
“Hill creates atmosphere through the use
of a range of literary devices…” This is
obvious and wastes time better spent
telling us about them.
Jonathan Peel JLS 2014
Passage
Jonathan Peel JLS 2014
Setting
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Look for all ideas relating to setting that have been chosen to create an
effect:
“Kingshaw stood at the gate…” Gates are barriers that once crossed
can open new horizons- good and bad.
He enters a church – to cool off and to pass time. What might a church
signify?
Note the description of the “clipped” and “neat” grass and the “straight”
hedge – a sense of order and tamed nature
The gargoyle suggests some threat although in daylight he is not scared
of them
The smell (always be on the lookout for sensory imagery) –creates a
threatening and sad atmosphere – note the simile about “no living or
breathing person”
Decay is suggested by the hymn books with “some of the spines hanging
off them”
The “white marble warrior” suggests coldness, death and possibly purity
The tiles cause pain
He longs to escape to the “sunlight”
Jonathan Peel JLS 2014
Character
 Kingshaw
– give brief context: moved to
Warings as mother takes a job;
hated/hates Hooper the son of the house;
has recently been involved in an
accident caused by climbing on a castle
walls and ending with Hooper falling and
breaking his leg. Feels guilty.
Jonathan Peel JLS 2014
Character: Ideas to explore
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At a loose end and bored: “nothing happening,
nothing to see”
Childish: sticks tongue out at gargoyles
Guilt and fear predominate: “things came back on
you. You were never safe” short sentences for
individual thoughts
Panic? “Oh God I didn’t mean it – yes I did…”
Honest with self – confessional? “He wanted Hooper
to be dead because then things would have been
better”
Punishment: his guilt is obvious? Is this leading to his
eventual suicide? “He feared Hooper more than he
feared anything in the world” No escape
Jonathan Peel JLS 2014
Action
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A boy looks at a field and decides not to
enter it across a boundary gate
He enters a church
He falls to his knees and prays
He is scared of his past and of the church
He is surprised by a second voice (Fielding)
who tells him that he is transgressing - he is
“not supposed to go inside those railings.”
“spun round” “struggle to his feet”
Jonathan Peel JLS 2014
Style
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Section opens with Kingshaw alone - repetition of
“nothing” confirms the negativity of the sequence
Uses reader’s senses
Generally omniscient Third Person Narration
Range of sentence length – focus on 173.4 the short
sentences for the frightened individual thoughts and
the long sentence for the outpouring of frightened
thoughts, with Imperatives and repetition of “Sorry”.
Kingshaw is not speaking in “” form: why? Maintains
narrative… thoughts in head? Not out loud?
Pleads and despairs: “Please… please…never…
never… o God…” (173.8)
Direct speech is used for Fielding’s interruption
Jonathan Peel JLS 2014
Ideas
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Boy is troubled and seeks solace in God, though
this is not intentional. The confessional nature of a
church allows him to share his guilt
He acknowledges that he is not really sorry and
recognises that he wishes his “friend” were dead.
His final “O God…” – despair or mere interruption?
His realisation of his guilt may be the beginning of
his journey to suicide
Voice at end is also threatening – will be relief but
short lived.
Jonathan Peel JLS 2014
TASK
 Read
the passage that begins on page
104.5 : “He found the clearing again…”
and ends on 105.9: “he was afraid of
Hooper dying”
 How
does Hill create an atmosphere of
danger and fear in this passage?
Jonathan Peel JLS 2014