YEAR 11 ENGLISH LANGUAGE RESOURCES NEEDED FOR HOME-LEARNING ASSESSMENT.

PLEASE READ THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION CAREFULLY BEFORE STARTING.

This will be your assessment for this half term.

Please complete this over the next two weeks, focusing on a different question each lesson. Use the half
term if extra time is needed.

Your exam answers will need to be submitted by Sunday 21st February for your teacher to mark.

PLEASE TYPE YOUR ANSWERS ONTO A WORD DOCUMENT. Please make it clear what question and paper
you are answering.

We are asking you to complete the following:

Paper 1 section A: 1 hour – use ‘City of the Beast: Alex Cold’ extract
Paper 1 section B: 45 minutes – Creative writing
Paper 2 section A: 1 hour – use ‘All cyclist fear bad drivers’ and ‘On a bicycle in the streets of London’
extracts
Paper 2 section B: 45 minutes – Opinion writing

This MUST be completed by everyone - your mark/grade for this paper will be used by
your teacher to help forecast a grade at the end of the school year.
PAPER 1 SECTION A: Source A: 21st Century prose-fiction. It is an extract from the novel City of the
Beasts by Isabel Allende published in 2004. It tells the story of fifteen-year-old Alex Cold and his family.
Source A
Alex Cold lives with his parents and two younger sisters, Andrea and Nicole, in a small American town, but when
his mother becomes ill, family life changes beyond recognition.

1.Alexander Cold awakened at dawn, startled by a nightmare. He had been dreaming that an
enormous black bird had crashed against the window with a clatter of shattered glass, flown into
the house, and carried off his mother. In the dream, he had watched helplessly as it clasped her
clothing in its yellow claws, flew out the same broken window, and disappeared into a sky heavy
5.with dark clouds.

6.What had awakened him was the noise from the storm: wind lashing the trees, rain on the
rooftop, and thunder. He turned on the light with a sensation of being adrift in a boat, and pushed
closer to the bulk of the large dog sleeping beside him. He pictured the roaring Pacific Ocean a
few blocks from his house, spilling in furious waves against the rocks. He lay listening to the
10.storm and thinking about the black bird and about his mother, waiting for the pounding in his
11.chest to die down. He was still tangled in the images of his bad dream.

Alexander looked at the clock: 6.30, time to get up. Outside, it was beginning to get light. He
decided that this was going to be a terrible day, one of those days when it’s best to stay in bed
because everything is going to turn out bad. There had been a lot of days like that since his
15.mother got sick; sometimes the air in the house felt heavy, like being at the bottom of the sea.

16.At breakfast Alex was not in the mood to applaud his father’s efforts at making pancakes. His
father was not exactly a good cook; the only thing he knew how to do was pancakes, and they
always turned out like rubber-tyre tortillas. His children didn’t want to hurt his feelings, so they
pretended to eat them, but any time he wasn’t looking, they spit them out.

20.‘When’s Momma going to get better?’ Nicole asked, trying to spear a rubbery pancake with her
fork.
‘Shut up, Nicole,’ Alex replied.
‘Momma’s going to die,’ Andrea added.
‘Liar! She’s not going to die!’ shrieked Nicole.
25.‘You two are just kids. You don’t know what you’re talking about!’ Alex exclaimed.
‘Here, girls. Quiet now. Momma is going to get better,’ his father interrupted, without much
conviction.

Alex was angry with his father, his sisters, life in general – even with his mother for getting sick.
He rushed out of the kitchen, ready to leave without breakfast.

30.Except for his father’s pancakes and an occasional tuna-and-mayonnaise sandwich, no one in
the family had cooked for months. There was nothing in the refrigerator but orange juice, milk
and ice cream; at night they ordered in pizza or Chinese food. At first it was almost like a party,
because each of them ate whenever and whatever they pleased, mainly sweets, but by now
everyone missed the balanced diet of normal times.

35.Alex had realised during those months how enormous their mother’s presence had been and
how painful her absence was now. He missed her easy laughter and her affection, even her
discipline. She was stricter than his father, and sharper. It was impossible to fool her; she could
see the unseeable. He missed her music, her flowers, the once-familiar fragrance of fresh-baked
cookies, and the smell of paint. It used to be that his mother could work several hours in her
40.studio, keep the house immaculate, and still welcome her children after school with cookies.
Now she barely got out of bed to walk through the rooms with a confused air, as if she didn’t
recognise anything; she was too thin, and her sunken eyes were circled with shadows. Her
canvases, which once were explosions of colour, sat forgotten on their easels, and her oil paints
dried in their tubes. His mother seemed to have shrunk; she was little more than a silent ghost.
QUESTIONS for Source A – Section A of Paper 1:

Q1) Read again the first part of the source from lines 1 to 5. List four things about the bird
in Alex’s nightmare from this part of the source. [4 marks]

1.
2.
3.
4.

Q2) Look in detail at this extract from lines 6 to 11 of the source:

What had awakened him was the noise from the storm: wind lashing the trees, rain on the rooftop, and thunder.
He turned on the light with a sensation of being adrift in a boat, and pushed closer to the bulk of the large dog
sleeping beside him. He pictured the roaring Pacific Ocean a few blocks from his house, spilling in furious waves
against the rocks. He lay listening to the storm and thinking about the black bird and about his mother, waiting
for the pounding in his chest to die down. He was still tangled in the images of his bad dream.

How does the writer use language here to describe the effects of the storm?
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 taken from the
beginning of a novel. How is the text structured to interest you as a reader?
You could write about: • what the writer focuses your attention on at the beginning • how
and why the writer changes this focus as the source develops • any other structural
features that interest you. [8 marks]

Q4) Focus this part of your answer on the second half of the source from line 16 to the end.
A student said ‘This part of the story, set during breakfast time, shows that Alex is
struggling to cope with his mother’s illness.’ To what extent do you agree?
In your response, you could: • consider your own impressions of Alex • evaluate how the
writer shows that Alex is struggling to cope • support your response with references to the
text. [20 marks]
Section B: Creative 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) A magazine has asked for contributions for their creative writing page. Either: Write a
description of a stormy sea as suggested by this picture:

Or: Write a story that begins with the sentence: ‘This was going to be a terrible day, one of
those days when it’s best to stay in bed because everything is going to turn out bad.’

(24 marks for content and organisation 16 marks for technical accuracy)
[40 marks]
PAPER 2 SECTION A: Reading
The two sources that follow are:
Source A: 21st Century non-fiction All cyclists fear bad drivers An article published in The Guardian
newspaper in 2016
Source B: 19th Century literary non-fiction ON A BICYCLE IN THE STREETS OF LONDON An article
published in a magazine in 1896.

Source A

Source A was published in The Guardian newspaper in 2016. In this article, the writer, Peter Walker, explores
how people who cycle in the city are at risk from other road users.

All cyclists fear bad drivers

1.Ask most people who ride a bike regularly in the UK and they’ll happily recount a list of
terrifying or alarming incidents caused by the deliberate actions of another road user,
usually someone in a motor vehicle.

My last such incident happened just under a week ago, when a driver decided to overtake
5.my bike very closely and at speed on a narrow residential street near my home in south-east
London. I was unharmed, but the driver was gambling on the assumption that I would not,
for example, hit a sudden pothole and swerve or wobble.

Inevitably the congested traffic meant I caught up with the driver at the next junction. His
relatively minor, but nonetheless very real, roll of the dice with my chances of making it
10.home safely that evening had all been for nothing. That’s appallingly common.

A couple of things must be noted. First, however distressing such incidents can be – and
there is evidence they help keep levels of cycling in Britain as pathetically low as they are –
riding a bike is still safer than many people think. The average Briton would ride 2 million
miles before they suffered a serious injury.

15.Secondly, while some are tempted to characterise such events as part of a ‘war on the
roads’ it’s nothing of the sort, not least as the majority of cyclists also drive, and would thus
be somehow waging war on themselves.

The thing to grasp is that it’s about the person, not the mode of transport they happen to be
using at that particular time. As well as cycling, I walk, use buses and trains, sometimes
20.drive, occasionally get planes. My personality is not changed, or defined, by any of those. I
get the sense that all these forms of transport are populated by roughly similar proportions
of idiots. They might push on to a train, barge past you on an escalator at an Underground
station, recline their plane seat just as the meals are being served.

Driving is, however, different in one way. It is the sole event in most people’s everyday lives
25.where there is a plausible chance they could kill another human being. It’s not about morals,
it’s simple physics. If I hit someone at 12mph even on my solid, heavy everyday bike it
would impart something like 1,200 joules of kinetic energy. If I were in the last car I owned, a
relatively tiny Nissan Micra, doing 30mph, you’re suddenly at 100,000 joules. It’s a very
different impact.

30.It’s why police should take incidents more seriously than they generally do. It’s why the
driving tuition and testing system should be revamped to place far more stress on drivers’
vast, overriding responsibility to look out for and protect vulnerable road users, those not
cocooned within a tonne of metal.
Next time you’re in a car and you think a cyclist in front is holding you up, I’d urge you to
35.hold two very clear thoughts in your mind.

The first is this: despite the apparent belief of many drivers, cyclists are not obliged or even
advised to ride in the gutter. If a rider is in the middle of the lane it could be to stay clear of
opened doors on parked cars; it could be because the edge of the road is rutted and
potholed; it might even be to stop drivers squeezing past when it would be clearly unsafe to
40.do so.

Also bear this in mind: even if you’re absolutely convinced the cyclist is in the wrong, hold
back and be cautious anyway. In the majority of urban traffic situations, your overtake will be
a very brief victory – they’ll pedal past again in the queue for the next red light or junction.
But most of all, remember that these are human beings, unprotected flesh and bone seeking
45.to get to work, to see their friends, to return to their loved ones. However much of a rush you
think you’re in, it never, ever, justifies putting them at risk.

Source B

In this extract, the Countess of Malmesbury describes her experience of riding a bicycle in the streets of London.
She wrote the magazine article in 1896, at a time when city streets were full of horsedrawn vehicles. Cycling was
ON A BICYCLE IN THE STREETS OF LONDON BY SUSAN, COUNTESS OF
MALMESBURY

1.A new sport has lately been devised by the drivers of

hansom cabs.* It consists of chasing the lady who rides
her bicycle in the streets of the metropolis. Having now
been the prey of the hansom cabman for nearly a year,
5.and having given him several exciting runs, I cannot
help feeling that cycling in the streets would be nicer, to
use a mild expression, if he’d not try to kill me.

8.Riding on a track began to bore me as soon as I had learnt to balance, but I remained steadily
practising until I could turn easily, cut figures of eight, get on and off quickly on either side and
10.stop without charging into unwelcome obstacles. This done, burning to try my fate in traffic, and
yet as nervous as a hare that feels the greyhound’s breath, I launched my little bicycle early
one Sunday morning in July into the stormy oceans of Sloane Street, on my way to visit a sick
friend who lived about four miles off. The streets were really very clear, but I shall never forget
my terror. I arrived in about two hours, streaming and exhausted, much more in need of
15.assistance than the invalid I went to visit. Coming home it was just as bad; I reached my house
about three o’clock and went straight to bed, where I had my lunch, in a state bordering on
collapse. I only recount this adventure in order to encourage others who may have had the
18.same experience as myself, but who may not have tried to conquer their nervousness.

20.What cured my fear was the purchase of a little book called ‘Guide to Cycling’,
where it is written that I had an actual legal existence on the roadway. Yes, I
had as good a right to my life as even my arch-enemy the hansom. Cautious
and alert, I merrily proceeded on my way, using my bicycle as a means of doing
my morning shopping or other business. I found that my experience in driving
an exceedingly naughty pony and cart in town stood me here in very good
25.stead, my eye being well-educated to pace and distance.

Drivers of hansoms have various ways of inflicting torture on a fellow-creature, one of which is
suddenly and loudly to shout out ‘Hi!’ when they have ample room to pass, or when you are
only occupying your lawful position in a string of vehicles. Also, they love to share your
handle-bars and wheels, passing so close that if you swerve in the slightest it must bring you to
30.serious grief. They are also fond of cutting in just in front of you, or deliberately checking you at
a crossroads, well knowing that by so doing they risk your life.

I myself always ride peaceably about seven or eight miles an hour, and keep a good look-out
some way ahead, as by that means you can often slip through a tight place or avoid being
made into a sandwich composed of a pedestrian who will not, and an omnibus* which cannot,
35.stop.

Many a time when I first began to ride in traffic have I meekly escorted an omnibus in a
crowded street, thankful for the shelter it afforded from the wild and skirmishing jungle round
me, and feeling like what I may perhaps describe as a dolphin playing round an ocean liner.
Many acts of kindness have I received at a difficult crossroads from hard-worked men, to whom
40.pulling up their horses must have been a serious inconvenience. Indeed, on one occasion, I
might have been killed but for the consideration of a driver. I found myself wedged in between
an omnibus and a large cart. They had both been standing, and at the moment of my
appearance each pulled out from the kerb in a slanting direction. I was thus fairly caught in a
trap; but, not having time to faint or go into hysterics, I thought it best to catch the nearest
45.omnibus horse by the harness and try to stop him.

My life was safe, it is true; but what is life if your new white gloves are ruined?
Glossary
* hansom cab – a taxi carriage pulled by a horse
* omnibus – a large horse-drawn vehicle used for carrying passengers

Paper 2 Section A: Reading

Q1) Read again the first part of Source A from lines 1 to 10. Choose four statements below
which are true.
• write down the letters 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 Most people in Britain ride a bike regularly.
B Most UK cyclists are pleased about the number of dangerous incidents on the roads.
C The writer has never had a dangerous incident whilst cycling.
D The writer lives in south-east London.
E As the car passed, the writer did not swerve.
F The writer soon caught up with the driver.
G The writer thought the driver’s actions had been pointless. H It is rare to meet dangerous
drivers whilst cycling.

Q2) You need to refer to Source A and Source B for this question. Both sources describe the
similar ways in which drivers behave.
Use details from both sources to write a summary of what you understand about the
similar behaviour of the drivers. [8 marks]

Q3) You now need to refer only to Source B from lines 8 to 18.
How does the writer use language to describe her first experiences of cycling? [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 similar perspectives on cycling in the city.
In your answer, you could: • compare their similar perspectives on cycling in the city •
compare the methods the writers use to convey their perspectives • support your response
with references to both texts. [16 marks]
Paper 2 Section B: Opinion 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.

‘Cars are noisy, dirty, smelly and downright dangerous. They should be banned from all
town and city centres, allowing people to walk and cycle in peace.’

Write a letter to the Minister for Transport arguing your point of view on this statement.

(24 marks for content and organisation 16 marks for technical accuracy)
[40 marks]
You are advised to plan your answer to Question 5 before you start to write.