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Question 1: True Statements Practice Questions

Question 1

4 marks

In 1851 the journalist Henry Mayhew published interviews with people who earned their living on the streets of London. In this passage he describes meeting a girl who sold watercress.

1The little watercress girl who gave me the following statement, although
only eight years of age, had entirely lost all childish ways, and was,
indeed, in thoughts and manner, a woman. There was something cruelly
pathetic in hearing this infant, so young that her features had scarcely
5formed themselves, talking of the bitterest struggles of life, with the
calm earnestness of one who had endured them all. I did not know how to
talk with her. At first I treated her as a child, speaking on childish
subjects; so that I might, by being familiar with her, remove all
shyness, and get her to narrate her life freely. I asked her about her
10toys and her games with her companions; but the look of amazement that
answered me soon put an end to any attempt at fun on my part. I then
talked to her about the parks, and whether she ever went to them. “The
parks!” she replied in wonder, “where are they?” I explained to her,
telling her that they were large open places with green grass and tall
15trees, where beautiful carriages drove about, and people walked for
pleasure, and children played. Her eyes brightened up a little as I
spoke; and she asked, half doubtingly, “Would they let such as me go
there—just to look?”

From London Labour and the London Poor, Volume 1, by Henry Mayhew (1851)

Glossary: watercress: a leafy green vegetable, sold in bunches · infant: here, a very young child · narrate: tell

Read the passage again.

Choose four statements below which are true.

  • Choose a maximum of four statements.

  • A The girl was eight years old.

  • B The girl behaved in a very childish way.

  • C The writer was unsure how to talk to the girl.

  • D The girl enjoyed talking about her toys and games.

  • E The girl went to the parks most weeks.

  • F The writer explained to the girl what the parks were like.

  • G The writer promised the girl that she would be allowed into the parks.

  • H The girl was not sure she would be welcome in the parks.

Question 2

4 marks

This passage is from a blog post written by a teenager about her first morning volunteering at a food bank.

1I signed up to volunteer at the food bank on Saxby Road mostly because
my mum had been nagging me to do something with my Saturdays that didn't
involve a screen. I arrived ten minutes late, which did not go
unnoticed. Pauline, who has run the place for eleven years, looked at
5her watch, looked at me, and handed me a pair of blue gloves without a
word.
My first job was sorting tins. There were hundreds of them, stacked in
crates that smelled faintly of cardboard and damp, and the rule was
simple: anything past its best-before date went in the red box. By
10eleven o'clock the red box held exactly four tins of peaches.
Then the doors opened. I had expected a queue of strangers. Instead, the
first person through was Mr Ellery, who used to teach me science in Year
6. He saw me, hesitated, and then said, with a brightness that didn't
quite reach his eyes, that he was "just picking up for a neighbour". I
15said that was kind of him. Neither of us believed it, and both of us
were grateful for the lie.

Original passage.

Read the passage again.

Choose four statements below which are true.

  • Choose a maximum of four statements.

  • A The writer volunteered partly because a parent kept urging her to.

  • B The writer arrived on time for her first shift.

  • C Pauline told the writer off for being late.

  • D The writer's first job was sorting tins.

  • E Most of the tins were past their best-before date.

  • F The first person to come in was someone the writer already knew.

  • G Mr Ellery had been the writer's secondary school teacher.

  • H The writer did not really believe Mr Ellery's explanation.

Question 3

4 marks

Source A

In 1902 the American writer Jack London spent several weeks in London dressed as a penniless man, so that he could report on the lives of the very poor. In this chapter of his book he describes walking the streets of the West End through one wet night.

1“To carry the banner” means to walk the streets all night; and I, with
the figurative emblem hoisted, went out to see what I could see. Men and
women walk the streets at night all over this great city, but I selected
the West End, making Leicester Square my base, and scouting about from
5the Thames Embankment to Hyde Park.
The rain was falling heavily when the theatres let out, and the
brilliant throng which poured from the places of amusement was hard put
to find cabs. The streets were so many wild rivers of cabs, most of
which were engaged, however; and here I saw the desperate attempts of
10ragged men and boys to get a shelter from the night by procuring cabs
for the cabless ladies and gentlemen. I use the word “desperate”
advisedly, for these wretched, homeless ones were gambling a soaking
against a bed; and most of them, I took notice, got the soaking and
missed the bed.
15One old woman, between fifty and sixty, a sheer wreck, I had noticed
earlier in the night standing in Piccadilly, not far from Leicester
Square. She seemed to have neither the sense nor the strength to get out
of the rain or keep walking, but stood stupidly, whenever she got the
chance, meditating on past days, I imagine, when life was young and
20blood was warm. But she did not get the chance often. She was moved on
by every policeman, and it required an average of six moves to send her
doddering off one man’s beat and on to another’s. By three o’clock, she
had progressed as far as St. James Street, and as the clocks were
striking four I saw her sleeping soundly against the iron railings of
25Green Park. A brisk shower was falling at the time, and she must have
been drenched to the skin.
So I sat down on the stone steps of a building. Five minutes later a
policeman was looking at me. My eyes were wide open, so he only grunted
and passed on. Ten minutes later my head was on my knees, I was dozing,
30and the same policeman was saying gruffly, “’Ere, you, get outa that!”
I got. And, like the old woman, I continued to get; for every time I
dozed, a policeman was there to rout me along again.
And now I wish to criticise the powers that be. They are the powers,
therefore they may decree whatever they please; so I make bold only to
35criticise the ridiculousness of their decrees. All night long they make
the homeless ones walk up and down. They drive them out of doors and
passages, and lock them out of the parks. The evident intention of all
this is to deprive them of sleep. Well and good, the powers have the
power to deprive them of sleep, or of anything else for that matter; but
40why under the sun do they open the gates of the parks at five o’clock in
the morning and let the homeless ones go inside and sleep? If it is
their intention to deprive them of sleep, why do they let them sleep
after five in the morning? And if it is not their intention to deprive
them of sleep, why don’t they let them sleep earlier in the night?
45And so, dear soft people, should you ever visit London Town, and see
these men asleep on the benches and in the grass, please do not think
they are lazy creatures, preferring sleep to work. Know that the powers
that be have kept them walking all the night long, and that in the day
they have nowhere else to sleep.

From "Carrying the Banner", a chapter of The People of the Abyss by Jack London (1903).

Glossary

  • figurative emblem hoisted: he means that the "banner" is only an expression, not a real flag
  • throng: crowd
  • hard put: struggled
  • procuring: getting hold of
  • advisedly: deliberately, after careful thought
  • a sheer wreck: completely worn out and broken down
  • doddering: shuffling unsteadily
  • beat: the area a policeman patrols
  • rout: drive out
  • the powers that be: the people in authority
  • decree: order or rule
  • make bold: dare

Read again the first part of Source A from lines 1 to 14.

Choose four statements below which are true.

  • Choose a maximum of four statements.

  • A The writer explains that "carrying the banner" means walking the streets all night.

  • B The writer says that only a few people walk London's streets at night.

  • C The writer made Leicester Square his base.

  • D The rain had stopped by the time the theatres let out.

  • E Most of the cabs in the streets were already taken.

  • F The people leaving the theatres were poorly dressed.

  • G Ragged men and boys hoped to earn shelter for the night by finding cabs for people.

  • H Most of the ragged men and boys earned enough for a bed.

Question 4

4 marks

Source A

In 1928 the writer Virginia Woolf gave two talks on women and fiction to students at women's colleges in Cambridge, and turned them into a book. In it she imagines spending a day at "Oxbridge", an invented university standing for Oxford and Cambridge. She has been sitting by the river, lost in thought about her subject.

1It was thus that I found myself walking with extreme rapidity across a
grass plot. Instantly a man’s figure rose to intercept me. Nor did I at
first understand that the gesticulations of a curious-looking object, in a
cut-away coat and evening shirt, were aimed at me. His face expressed
5horror and indignation. Instinct rather than reason came to my help, he
was a Beadle; I was a woman. This was the turf; there was the path. Only
the Fellows and Scholars are allowed here; the gravel is the place for me.
Such thoughts were the work of a moment. As I regained the path the arms
of the Beadle sank, his face assumed its usual repose, and though turf is
10better walking than gravel, no very great harm was done. The only charge I
could bring against the Fellows and Scholars of whatever the college might
happen to be was that in protection of their turf, which has been rolled
for 300 years in succession they had sent my little fish into hiding.
What idea it had been that had sent me so audaciously trespassing I could
15not now remember. It then occurred to me that the very manuscript itself
which Lamb had looked at was only a few hundred yards away, so that one
could follow Lamb’s footsteps across the quadrangle to that famous library
where the treasure is kept. Moreover, I recollected, as I put this plan
into execution, it is in this famous library that the manuscript of
20Thackeray’s Esmond is also preserved. The critics often say that Esmond is
Thackeray’s most perfect novel. But then one would have to decide what is
style and what is meaning, a question which—but here I was actually at the
door which leads into the library itself. I must have opened it, for
instantly there issued, like a guardian angel barring the way with a
25flutter of black gown instead of white wings, a deprecating, silvery,
kindly gentleman, who regretted in a low voice as he waved me back that
ladies are only admitted to the library if accompanied by a Fellow of the
College or furnished with a letter of introduction.
That a famous library has been cursed by a woman is a matter of complete
30indifference to a famous library. Venerable and calm, with all its
treasures safe locked within its breast, it sleeps complacently and will,
so far as I am concerned, so sleep for ever. Never will I wake those
echoes, never will I ask for that hospitality again, I vowed as I
descended the steps in anger.
35So I went back to my inn, and as I walked through the dark streets I
pondered this and that, as one does at the end of the day’s work. I
pondered why it was that Mrs Seton had no money to leave us; and what
effect poverty has on the mind; and what effect wealth has on the mind;
and I thought of the queer old gentlemen I had seen that morning with
40tufts of fur upon their shoulders; and I remembered how if one whistled
one of them ran; and I thought of the organ booming in the chapel and of
the shut doors of the library; and I thought how unpleasant it is to be
locked out; and I thought how it is worse perhaps to be locked in; and,
thinking of the safety and prosperity of the one sex and of the poverty
45and insecurity of the other and of the effect of tradition and of the lack
of tradition upon the mind of a writer, I thought at last that it was time
to roll up the crumpled skin of the day, with its arguments and its
impressions and its anger and its laughter, and cast it into the hedge.

From A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf (1929).

Glossary

  • grass plot: lawn
  • intercept: stop, block the way of
  • gesticulations: wild arm movements
  • cut-away coat: a formal coat with tails at the back
  • indignation: anger at something thought to be wrong or unfair
  • Beadle: a college officer whose job was to keep order
  • Fellows and Scholars: the senior teachers and the prize-winning students of the college
  • repose: calm, rest
  • my little fish: the idea she had been thinking about; she has compared thinking to fishing
  • audaciously: boldly
  • Lamb: Charles Lamb, an essayist of the early 1800s, who wrote about seeing the handwritten copy of a poem by John Milton kept in this library
  • manuscript: the original handwritten copy of a book or poem
  • quadrangle: a square courtyard surrounded by college buildings
  • Thackeray’s Esmond: a novel by the Victorian writer W. M. Thackeray
  • issued: came out
  • deprecating: apologetic
  • silvery: silver-haired, soft-voiced
  • Venerable: old and respected
  • complacently: smugly, without a care
  • Mrs Seton: the mother of her friend Mary Seton, who teaches at a women's college that has very little money
  • tufts of fur upon their shoulders: the fur trimming on the gowns of elderly university men she had watched going into chapel
  • if one whistled one of them ran: an old joke she had heard, that one professor broke into a gallop at the sound of a whistle
  • tradition: customs and knowledge handed down over centuries

Read again the first part of Source A from lines 1 to 13.

Choose four statements below which are true.

  • Choose a maximum of four statements.

  • A The writer was walking very quickly across a patch of grass.

  • B The writer realised at once that the man's gestures were aimed at her.

  • C The man looked horrified and angry.

  • D The writer worked out what was wrong by careful reasoning.

  • E Only the Fellows and Scholars were allowed to walk on the turf.

  • F The Beadle stayed angry after the writer went back to the path.

  • G The writer thinks that turf is better for walking on than gravel.

  • H The turf had been laid only a few years earlier.

Question 5

4 marks

Source A

In the 1920s the writer George Orwell worked as a police officer in Burma (now Myanmar), which was then ruled by Britain. In this essay, published in 1936, he remembers a morning when he was called out because an elephant was causing trouble in the town where he was posted.

1Early one morning the sub-inspector at a police station the other end of
the town rang me up on the phone and said that an elephant was ravaging
the bazaar. Would I please come and do something about it? It was not, of
course, a wild elephant, but a tame one which had gone “must.” The Burmese
5population had no weapons and were quite helpless against it.
As I started forward practically the whole population of the quarter
flocked out of the houses and followed me. They had seen the rifle and
were all shouting excitedly that I was going to shoot the elephant. They
had not shown much interest in the elephant when he was merely ravaging
10their homes, but it was different now that he was going to be shot. It was
a bit of fun to them, as it would be to an English crowd; besides they
wanted the meat. It made me vaguely uneasy. The elephant was standing
eight yards from the road, his left side towards us. He took not the
slightest notice of the crowd’s approach. He was tearing up bunches of
15grass, beating them against his knees to clean them and stuffing them into
his mouth.
I had halted on the road. As soon as I saw the elephant I knew with
perfect certainty that I ought not to shoot him. It is a serious matter to
shoot a working elephant—it is comparable to destroying a huge and costly
20piece of machinery—and obviously one ought not to do it if it can possibly
be avoided. And at that distance, peacefully eating, the elephant looked
no more dangerous than a cow.
But at that moment I glanced round at the crowd that had followed me. It
was an immense crowd, two thousand at the least and growing every minute.
25They were watching me as they would watch a conjurer about to perform a
trick. They did not like me, but with the magical rifle in my hands I was
momentarily worth watching. And suddenly I realized that I should have to
shoot the elephant after all. The people expected it of me and I had got
to do it; I could feel their two thousand wills pressing me forward,
30irresistibly. The crowd would laugh at me.
But I did not want to shoot the elephant. I watched him beating his bunch
of grass against his knees, with that preoccupied grandmotherly air that
elephants have. It seemed to me that it would be murder to shoot him.
There was only one alternative. I shoved the cartridges into the magazine
35and lay down on the road to get a better aim. The crowd grew very still,
and a deep, low, happy sigh, as of people who see the theatre curtain go
up at last, breathed from innumerable throats. They were going to have
their bit of fun after all.
When I pulled the trigger I did not hear the bang or feel the kick—one
40never does when a shot goes home—but I heard the devilish roar of glee
that went up from the crowd. In that instant, in too short a time, one
would have thought, even for the bullet to get there, a mysterious,
terrible change had come over the elephant. He neither stirred nor fell,
but every line of his body had altered. At last, after what seemed a long
45time—it might have been five seconds, I dare say—he sagged flabbily to his
knees. His mouth slobbered. An enormous senility seemed to have settled
upon him. One could have imagined him thousands of years old.
In the end I could not stand it any longer and went away. I heard later
that it took him half an hour to die. I often wondered whether any of the
50others grasped that I had done it solely to avoid looking a fool.

From "Shooting an Elephant" by George Orwell (1936).

Glossary

  • sub-inspector: a junior police officer
  • ravaging: causing great damage to
  • bazaar: market
  • must: a period when a male elephant becomes aggressive and hard to control (now usually spelled "musth")
  • quarter: district of a town
  • conjurer: a magician who performs tricks
  • cartridges: bullets in their cases
  • magazine: the part of a rifle that holds the cartridges
  • innumerable: too many to count
  • senility: the weakness of extreme old age

Read again the first part of Source A from lines 1 to 16.

Choose four statements below which are true.

  • Choose a maximum of four statements.

  • A The writer was told about the elephant by telephone.

  • B The elephant was a wild animal that had wandered into the town.

  • C The local people had no weapons to defend themselves against the elephant.

  • D Only a small group of people followed the writer.

  • E The people became more interested in the elephant once it seemed it would be shot.

  • F The writer felt confident with the crowd behind him.

  • G The elephant turned towards the crowd as it came closer.

  • H The elephant was eating grass when the writer reached it.

Question 6

4 marks

Source A

In January 1912 the British naval officer Robert Falcon Scott and four companions reached the South Pole, only to find that a Norwegian team had got there first. On the long journey back across the Antarctic ice, Scott kept a journal. These are some of his last entries. The final two paragraphs come from a "Message to the Public" that he wrote at the back of the same notebook. Temperatures are in degrees Fahrenheit.

1Friday, March 16 or Saturday 17.—Lost track of dates, but think the
last correct. Tragedy all along the line. At lunch, the day before
yesterday, poor Titus Oates said he couldn’t go on; he proposed we
should leave him in his sleeping-bag. That we could not do, and induced
5him to come on, on the afternoon march. In spite of its awful nature
for him he struggled on and we made a few miles. At night he was worse
and we knew the end had come.
Should this be found I want these facts recorded. Oates’ last thoughts
were of his Mother, but immediately before he took pride in thinking
10that his regiment would be pleased with the bold way in which he met
his death. We can testify to his bravery. He did not—would not—give up
hope to the very end. He was a brave soul. This was the end. He slept
through the night before last, hoping not to wake; but he woke in the
morning—yesterday. It was blowing a blizzard. He said, ‘I am just going
15outside and may be some time.’ He went out into the blizzard and we
have not seen him since.
We knew that poor Oates was walking to his death, but though we tried
to dissuade him, we knew it was the act of a brave man and an English
gentleman. We all hope to meet the end with a similar spirit, and
20assuredly the end is not far.
The cold is intense, -40° at midday. My companions are unendingly
cheerful, but we are all on the verge of serious frostbites, and though
we constantly talk of fetching through I don’t think anyone of us
believes it in his heart.
25Thursday, March 22 and 23.—Blizzard bad as ever—Wilson and Bowers
unable to start—to-morrow last chance—no fuel and only one or two of
food left—must be near the end.
Thursday, March 29.—Since the 21st we have had a continuous gale from
W.S.W. and S.W. We had fuel to make two cups of tea apiece and bare
30food for two days on the 20th. Every day we have been ready to start
for our depot 11 miles away, but outside the door of the tent it
remains a scene of whirling drift. I do not think we can hope for any
better things now. We shall stick it out to the end, but we are getting
weaker, of course, and the end cannot be far.
35It seems a pity, but I do not think I can write more.
For God’s sake look after our people.
We are weak, writing is difficult, but for my own sake I do not regret
this journey, which has shown that Englishmen can endure hardships,
help one another, and meet death with as great a fortitude as ever in
40the past. We took risks, we knew we took them; things have come out
against us, and therefore we have no cause for complaint, but bow to
the will of Providence, determined still to do our best to the last.
Had we lived, I should have had a tale to tell of the hardihood,
endurance, and courage of my companions which would have stirred the
45heart of every Englishman. These rough notes and our dead bodies must
tell the tale, but surely, surely, a great rich country like ours will
see that those who are dependent on us are properly provided for.

From the journals of Robert Falcon Scott, published in Scott's Last Expedition (1913).

Glossary

  • Titus Oates: Captain Lawrence Oates, one of Scott's four companions; "Titus" was his nickname
  • induced: persuaded
  • regiment: the army unit Oates belonged to
  • testify: give evidence of
  • dissuade: talk someone out of doing something
  • assuredly: certainly
  • -40°: forty degrees below zero Fahrenheit, which is also about -40°C
  • fetching through: getting back safely
  • Wilson and Bowers: Scott's two remaining companions
  • depot: a store of food and fuel left on the route for the return journey
  • W.S.W. and S.W.: west-south-west and south-west
  • apiece: each
  • drift: snow blown along by the wind
  • fortitude: courage in pain or trouble
  • Providence: God's care and will
  • hardihood: toughness and boldness

Read again the first part of Source A from lines 1 to 16.

Choose four statements below which are true.

  • Choose a maximum of four statements.

  • A The writer is no longer sure of the exact date.

  • B Oates suggested that the others should leave him in his sleeping-bag.

  • C The others agreed to leave Oates behind.

  • D The party made no progress on the afternoon march.

  • E Oates's last thoughts were of his mother.

  • F Oates gave up hope some time before the end.

  • G Oates went to sleep hoping that he would not wake up.

  • H The weather was calm when Oates left the tent.

Question 7

4 marks

Source A

In 1916, after their ship had been crushed by the Antarctic ice, the explorer Ernest Shackleton and five of his men set out in a lifeboat less than seven metres long, the James Caird, to sail about 800 miles across the Southern Ocean and fetch help for the rest of their crew. In this extract from his account of the expedition, Shackleton describes the voyage.

1The tale of the next sixteen days is one of supreme strife amid heaving
waters. The sub-Antarctic Ocean lived up to its evil winter reputation.
I decided to run north for at least two days while the wind held and so
get into warmer weather before turning to the east and laying a course
5for South Georgia. We took two-hourly spells at the tiller. The men who
were not on watch crawled into the sodden sleeping-bags and tried to
forget their troubles for a period; but there was no comfort in the
boat. The bags and cases seemed to be alive in the unfailing knack of
presenting their most uncomfortable angles to our rest-seeking bodies.
10The first night aboard the boat was one of acute discomfort for us all,
and we were heartily glad when the dawn came and we could set about the
preparation of a hot breakfast.
Cramped in our narrow quarters and continually wet by the spray, we
suffered severely from cold throughout the journey. We fought the seas
15and the winds and at the same time had a daily struggle to keep
ourselves alive. At times we were in dire peril. Generally we were
upheld by the knowledge that we were making progress towards the land
where we would be, but there were days and nights when we lay hove to,
drifting across the storm-whitened seas and watching with eyes
20interested rather than apprehensive the uprearing masses of water, flung
to and fro by Nature in the pride of her strength. So small was our boat
and so great were the seas that often our sail flapped idly in the calm
between the crests of two waves. Then we would climb the next slope and
catch the full fury of the gale where the wool-like whiteness of the
25breaking water surged around us.
Much baling was necessary, and nothing that we could do prevented our
gear from becoming sodden. There were no dry places in the boat, and at
last we simply covered our heads with our Burberrys and endured the
all-pervading water. Real rest we had none. The perpetual motion of the
30boat made repose impossible; we were cold, sore, and anxious.
At midnight I was at the tiller and suddenly noticed a line of clear sky
between the south and south-west. I called to the other men that the sky
was clearing, and then a moment later I realized that what I had seen
was not a rift in the clouds but the white crest of an enormous wave.
35During twenty-six years’ experience of the ocean in all its moods I had
not encountered a wave so gigantic. It was a mighty upheaval of the
ocean, a thing quite apart from the big white-capped seas that had been
our tireless enemies for many days. I shouted, “For God’s sake, hold on!
It’s got us!” Then came a moment of suspense that seemed drawn out into
40hours. White surged the foam of the breaking sea around us. We felt our
boat lifted and flung forward like a cork in breaking surf. We were in a
seething chaos of tortured water; but somehow the boat lived through it,
half-full of water, sagging to the dead weight and shuddering under the
blow. We baled with the energy of men fighting for life, flinging the
45water over the sides with every receptacle that came to our hands, and
after ten minutes of uncertainty we felt the boat renew her life beneath
us. She floated again and ceased to lurch drunkenly as though dazed by
the attack of the sea. Earnestly we hoped that never again would we
encounter such a wave.

From "The Boat Journey", a chapter of South by Ernest Shackleton (1919).

Glossary

  • sub-Antarctic Ocean: the cold, stormy ocean that surrounds Antarctica
  • South Georgia: a remote island in the South Atlantic, where there was a whaling station
  • tiller: the handle used to steer a small boat
  • on watch: on duty, sailing the boat while the others rest
  • hove to: stopped, with the boat held steady facing into the wind, waiting for the weather to improve
  • apprehensive: worried, fearful
  • uprearing: rising up high
  • baling: scooping water out of the boat
  • Burberrys: waterproof coats
  • all-pervading: getting in everywhere
  • repose: rest
  • upheaval: violent heaving upwards
  • receptacle: container

Read again the first part of Source A from lines 1 to 12.

Choose four statements below which are true.

  • Choose a maximum of four statements.

  • A The writer describes a struggle at sea that lasted sixteen days.

  • B The ocean turned out to be calmer than its reputation suggested.

  • C The writer planned to sail north at first to reach warmer weather.

  • D The men took turns of four hours at a time at the tiller.

  • E The sleeping-bags gave the men off watch a dry place to rest.

  • F The bags and cases in the boat made it hard to lie comfortably.

  • G The men slept well on their first night in the boat.

  • H The men were glad to be able to make a hot breakfast after the first night.

Question 8

4 marks

Source A

In 1913 the British campaigner Emmeline Pankhurst toured the United States to win support, and raise money, for the fight to give women the vote in Britain. Members of her organisation, the suffragettes, had broken windows and damaged property to force the government to act. This extract is from a speech she gave to an audience in Hartford, Connecticut, on 13 November 1913.

1Many people come to Hartford to address meetings as advocates of some
reform. Tonight it is not to advocate a reform that I address a meeting
in Hartford. I do not come here as an advocate, because whatever
position the suffrage movement may occupy in the United States of
5America, in England it has passed beyond the realm of advocacy and it
has entered into the sphere of practical politics. It has become the
subject of revolution and civil war, and so tonight I am not here to
advocate woman suffrage. American suffragists can do that very well for
themselves.
10I am here as a soldier who has temporarily left the field of battle in
order to explain—it seems strange it should have to be explained—what
civil war is like when civil war is waged by women. I am not only here
as a soldier temporarily absent from the field at battle; I am here—and
that, I think, is the strangest part of my coming—I am here as a person
15who, according to the law courts of my country, it has been decided, is
of no value to the community at all: and I am adjudged because of my
life to be a dangerous person, under sentence of penal servitude in a
convict prison. I dare say, in the minds of many of you—you will perhaps
forgive me this personal touch—that I do not look either very like a
20soldier or very like a convict, and yet I am both.
They have said to us government rests upon force, the women haven’t
force so they must submit. Well, we are showing them that government
does not rest upon force at all: it rests upon consent. As long as women
consent to be unjustly governed, they can be, but directly women say:
25“We withhold our consent, we will not be governed any longer so long as
that government is unjust.” Not by the forces of civil war can you
govern the very weakest woman. You can kill that woman, but she escapes
you then; you cannot govern her.
Well, they little know what women are. Women are very slow to rouse, but
30once they are aroused, once they are determined, nothing on earth and
nothing in heaven will make women give way; it is impossible. There are
women who are being carried from their sick beds on stretchers into
meetings. They are too weak to speak, but they go amongst their fellow
workers just to show that their spirits are unquenched, and that their
35spirit is alive, and they mean to go on as long as life lasts.
Human life for us is sacred, but we say if any life is to be sacrificed
it shall be ours; we won’t do it ourselves, but we will put the enemy in
the position where they will have to choose between giving us freedom or
giving us death.
40In England, if you could understand it, there is the most pathetic and
the most courageous fight going on, because you find the people whom you
have been accustomed to look upon as weak and reliant, the people you
have always thought leaned upon other people for protection, have stood
up and are fighting for themselves. Women have found a new kind of
45self-respect, a new kind of energy, a new kind of strength: and I think
that of all oppressed peoples who might claim your sympathy and support,
women who are fighting this fight unknown in the history of humanity
before, fighting this fight in the twentieth century for greater powers
of self-development, self-expression and self-government, might very
50well attract the sympathy and the practical help of American people.

From "Freedom or Death", a speech by Emmeline Pankhurst (1913).

Glossary

  • advocates: people who speak publicly in support of a cause
  • reform: a change to the law to improve society
  • suffrage: the right to vote in elections
  • the realm of advocacy: the stage of simply arguing for something
  • practical politics: real political action, rather than talk
  • adjudged: officially judged
  • penal servitude: imprisonment with hard labour
  • convict prison: a prison for people found guilty of serious crimes
  • submit: give in, obey
  • consent: agreement, permission
  • rouse: stir into action
  • unquenched: not put out, still burning
  • pathetic: deeply moving (it does not mean "useless" here)
  • reliant: dependent on other people
  • oppressed: treated cruelly or unjustly by those in power
  • self-government: the right of people to govern themselves

Read again the first part of Source A from lines 1 to 20.

Choose four statements below which are true.

  • Choose a maximum of four statements.

  • A The speaker says that many people come to Hartford to speak in support of reforms.

  • B The speaker has come to Hartford to persuade Americans to support votes for women.

  • C The speaker says that in England votes for women have become a matter of revolution and civil war.

  • D The speaker thinks American suffragists need her help to make their case.

  • E The speaker describes herself as a soldier who has left the battlefield for a while.

  • F The speaker says the law courts have decided that she is very valuable to the community.

  • G The speaker has been sentenced to penal servitude.

  • H The speaker thinks she looks just like a soldier and a convict.

Question 9

4 marks

Source A

In January 1946, a few months after the end of the Second World War, when tea was still rationed in Britain, the writer George Orwell published this article in a London evening newspaper. In it he sets out some of his rules for making tea.

1If you look up ‘tea’ in the first cookery book that comes to hand you
will probably find that it is unmentioned; or at most you will find a
few lines of sketchy instructions which give no ruling on several of the
most important points. This is curious, not only because tea is one of
5the mainstays of civilization in this country, as well as in Eire,
Australia and New Zealand, but because the best manner of making it is
the subject of violent disputes.
When I look through my own recipe for the perfect cup of tea, I find no
fewer than 11 outstanding points. On perhaps two of them there would be
10pretty general agreement, but at least four others are acutely
controversial. Here are my own 11 rules, every one of which I regard as
golden:
First of all, one should use Indian or Ceylonese tea. China tea has
virtues which are not to be despised nowadays—it is economical, and one
15can drink it without milk—but there is not much stimulation in it. One
does not feel wiser, braver or more optimistic after drinking it. Anyone
who has used that comforting phrase ‘a nice cup of tea’ invariably means
Indian tea.
Thirdly, the pot should be warmed beforehand. This is better done by
20placing it on the hob than by the usual method of swilling it out with
hot water.
Fourthly, the tea should be strong. For a pot holding a quart, if you
are going to fill it nearly to the brim, six heaped teaspoons would be
about right. In a time of rationing, this is not an idea that can be
25realized on every day of the week, but I maintain that one strong cup of
tea is better than twenty weak ones. All true tea lovers not only like
their tea strong, but like it a little stronger with each year that
passes—a fact which is recognized in the extra ration issued to old-age
pensioners.
30Sixthly, one should take the teapot to the kettle and not the other way
about. The water should be actually boiling at the moment of impact,
which means that one should keep it on the flame while one pours.
Tenthly, one should pour tea into the cup first. This is one of the most
controversial points of all; indeed in every family in Britain there are
35probably two schools of thought on the subject. The milk-first school
can bring forward some fairly strong arguments, but I maintain that my
own argument is unanswerable. This is that, by putting the tea in first
and stirring as one pours, one can exactly regulate the amount of milk
whereas one is liable to put in too much milk if one does it the other
40way round.
Lastly, tea—unless one is drinking it in the Russian style—should be
drunk without sugar. I know very well that I am in a minority here. But
still, how can you call yourself a true tea-lover if you destroy the
flavour of your tea by putting sugar in it? It would be equally
45reasonable to put in pepper or salt. Tea is meant to be bitter, just as
beer is meant to be bitter.
It is worth paying attention to such details as warming the pot and
using water that is really boiling, so as to make quite sure of wringing
out of one’s ration the 20 good, strong cups that two ounces, properly
50handled, ought to represent.

From "A Nice Cup of Tea" by George Orwell, first published in the Evening Standard (1946).

Glossary

  • mainstays: main supports, the things most relied on
  • Eire: Ireland
  • acutely controversial: causing strong disagreement
  • Ceylonese: from Ceylon, the island now called Sri Lanka
  • stimulation: the effect of making you feel more awake and lively
  • hob: a flat metal shelf beside a fire, or the top of a cooker, where pans are kept hot
  • swilling it out: rinsing it
  • quart: two pints, a little over a litre
  • rationing: during and after the war, each person was only allowed a small, fixed amount of tea
  • realized: carried out
  • schools of thought: groups of people who share an opinion
  • regulate: control
  • in the Russian style: served without milk, often sweetened with sugar or jam
  • wringing out of: squeezing out of, getting the most from
  • two ounces: about 57 grams of tea leaves, roughly one person's weekly ration at the time

Read again the first part of Source A from lines 1 to 12.

Choose four statements below which are true.

  • Choose a maximum of four statements.

  • A The writer says that many cookery books leave tea out or say very little about it.

  • B The writer says that cookery books give clear rulings on the most important points of making tea.

  • C The writer calls tea one of the mainstays of civilisation in his country.

  • D The writer suggests that tea only matters to people in Britain.

  • E The writer says that people argue fiercely about the best way to make tea.

  • F The writer's own recipe for the perfect cup of tea has 11 outstanding points.

  • G The writer expects most people to agree with most of his points.

  • H The writer thinks that only a few of his rules really matter.

Question 10

4 marks

Source A

In the 1890s, as a teenager, the American writer Jack London spent months as a "hobo", travelling across the United States without paying by hiding on trains, and begging for his meals. In this book, published in 1907, he looks back on that life and remembers one day in the town of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

1Perhaps the greatest charm of tramp-life is the absence of monotony. In
Hobo Land the face of life is protean—an ever changing phantasmagoria,
where the impossible happens and the unexpected jumps out of the bushes
at every turn of the road. The hobo never knows what is going to happen
5the next moment; hence, he lives only in the present moment.
Often I think over my tramp days, and ever I marvel at the swift
succession of pictures that flash up in my memory. For instance, I
remember a sunny summer morning in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and
immediately comes to my mind the auspicious beginning of the day—a
10“set-down” with two maiden ladies, and not in their kitchen, but in
their dining room, with them beside me at the table. We ate eggs, out of
egg-cups! It was the first time I had ever seen egg-cups, or heard of
egg-cups! I was a bit awkward at first, I’ll confess; but I was hungry
and unabashed. I mastered the egg-cup, and I mastered the eggs in a way
15that made those two maiden ladies sit up.
Why, they ate like a couple of canaries, dabbling with the one egg each
they took, and nibbling at tiny wafers of toast. Life was low in their
bodies; their blood ran thin; and they had slept warm all night. I had
been out all night, consuming much fuel of my body to keep warm, beating
20my way down from a place called Emporium, in the northern part of the
state. Wafers of toast! Out of sight! But each wafer was no more than a
mouthful to me—nay, no more than a bite.
I swept it bare. I didn’t break anything, but I cleaned out the eggs and
the toast and the coffee. The servant brought more, but I kept her busy,
25and ever she brought more and more. The coffee was delicious, but it
needn’t have been served in such tiny cups.
Those two maiden ladies, with their pink-and-white complexions and gray
curls, had never looked upon the bright face of adventure. As the
“Tramp-Royal” would have it, they had worked all their lives “on one
30same shift.” Into the sweet scents and narrow confines of their
uneventful existence I brought the large airs of the world, freighted
with the lusty smells of sweat and strife, and with the tangs and odors
of strange lands and soils.
Well, well, and what of it? It was fair exchange. For their many cups of
35coffee, and eggs, and bites of toast, I gave full value. Right royally I
gave them entertainment. My coming to sit at their table was their
adventure, and adventure is beyond price anyway.
It was a warm afternoon, and part way across the bridge I came to a lot
of fellows who were in swimming off one of the piers. Off went my
40clothes and in went I. The water was fine; but when I came out and
dressed, I found I had been robbed. Some one had gone through my
clothes. Now I leave it to you if being robbed isn’t in itself adventure
enough for one day. True, the thief that went through my clothes didn’t
get much—some thirty or forty cents in nickels and pennies, and my
45tobacco and cigarette papers; but it was all I had, which is more than
most men can be robbed of, for they have something left at home, while I
had no home.

From "Pictures", a chapter of The Road by Jack London (1907).

Glossary

  • Hobo Land: the world of hoboes, homeless men who travelled from place to place looking for work or food
  • protean: always changing its shape
  • phantasmagoria: a dream-like series of shifting pictures
  • auspicious: promising, lucky
  • “set-down”: tramps' slang for a meal given to a beggar to eat sitting down at a table
  • maiden ladies: unmarried women, here older ones
  • unabashed: not embarrassed
  • beating my way: travelling without paying, by hiding on trains
  • Emporium: a small town in Pennsylvania
  • Out of sight!: an exclamation: unbelievable!
  • nay: no, indeed
  • “Tramp-Royal”: the proud tramp who speaks in a poem by Rudyard Kipling
  • “on one same shift”: at the same job, in the same place, all their lives
  • freighted: loaded
  • lusty: strong and lively
  • tangs: sharp smells and tastes
  • Right royally: generously, like a king
  • nickels: five-cent coins

Read again the first part of Source A from lines 1 to 15.

Choose four statements below which are true.

  • Choose a maximum of four statements.

  • A The writer says that the greatest charm of tramp life is that it is never boring.

  • B The writer says that a hobo always plans carefully for the next day.

  • C The writer remembers a sunny summer morning in Harrisburg.

  • D The writer was given his meal in the kitchen.

  • E The two ladies sat beside the writer at the table.

  • F The writer had often eaten eggs from egg-cups before.

  • G The writer admits that he was a bit awkward at first.

  • H The writer was too embarrassed to eat very much.