Source A: The opening of a novel called ‘The Whispers’ by Greg Howard, published in 2019

1 There once was a boy who heard the Whispers.

He heard them late in the day as the lazy sun dipped below the treetops and the woods behind his
house came alive with the magic of twilight. The voices came to him so gently he thought it might be
the wind, or the first trickle of summer rain. But as time passed, the voices grew louder and the boy
5 was sure they were calling his name. So he followed them.
The Whispers led the boy to a clearing deep in the woods where a rotted old tree stump sat in the
centre and fallen leaves covered the ground like crunchy brown carpet. The boy stood next to the
stump, waited, and listened. He couldn’t see the Whispers, but he knew they were there. Their wispy
voices surrounded him, ticking the rims of his ears and filling every darkened shadow of the forest.
10 After waiting patiently for quite some time, the Whispers’ garbled words finally began to make
sense to the boy, and they told him things. The Whispers knew everything – all the secrets of the
universe. They told the boy what colour the moon was up so close and how many miles of ocean
covered the Earth. They even told him how long he would live – 26, 332 days. The boy was pleased,
because that sounded like a good long time to him. But as they continued to whisper knowledge into
15 his ear, they never showed themselves to the boy. He only caught glimpses from the corner of his eye
of their faint bluish glow fading in and out around him. He so badly wanted to see them, to know what
kind of creatures they were. How big were they? Or how tiny? Were they thin, fat, or hairy? Were they
made of skin and bones like him, or of dark tree bark, or leaves, or dirt? Or something else entirely?
The Whispers told the boy that if he brought them tributes, they would give him is heart’s desires.
20 The boy wasn’t sure what a tribute was and he didn’t want very much anyway. He could hardly call
them heart’s desires. Maybe a new pair of sneakers so the kids at school wouldn’t tease him about his
raggedy old ones. Maybe a better job for his father so he wouldn’t worry so much about money. And
he would love to see his mother worry so much about money. And he would love to see his mother
smile again, something she rarely did anymore. But he guessed what he really wanted was to see the
25 Whispers with his very own eyes.
One day, as the boy’s mother made a batch of her special blackberry jam, he asked her what a
tribute was. She thought about it a moment and finally told him that a tribute was like a gift to show
respect. The boy eyed his mother’s handiwork spread over the kitchen table. Everyone loved her jam.
When she took it to the local farmers market, she always sold out. And her blackberry jam was his
30 personal favourite. He was sure if would make an excellent tribute for the Whispers. When his mother
left the room, they boy took one of the jars from the same and hid it under his bed.
The following afternoon, as the sun was setting, he went back to the clearing in the woods with the
jam tucked under his arms. He left it sitting on the rotted old tree stump for the Whispers. Satisfied with
his tribute, the boy poke his heart’s desires aloud and then hurried home as not to scare the Whispers
35 away.
When the boy’s father got home from work that evening, his mood was lighter than usual and the
lines of worry had completely vanished from his face. He told the family that he’s received a promotion
at work and tomorrow the boy’s mother could take him shopping to buy him new clothes and shoes for
school. This news made his mother smile. The boy was amazed that he’d received three of his heart’s
40 desires with only one jar of jam.
Questions
Q1 – 4 marks – 5 minutes Q4 – 20 marks – 25 minutes
Use lines 1-5. Use lines 11-40.
List four things you learn about the A student said “The writer makes us feel intrigued, like
Whispers the boy, as to what the Whispers are, but we are also
Q2– 8 marks – 10 minutes worried and uneasy about them.”
To what extent do you agree?
Use lines 6-10.
In your response, you could:
How does the writer use language to
• write your own impressions about the characters
describe the setting?
• evaluate how the writer has created these
Q3– 8 marks – 10 minutes impressions
Use the whole source. • support your opinions with references to the
How does the writer structure the text to text.
interest you as a reader?
 Source A: The opening of a novel, ‘A Polaroid of Peggy’, published in 2015.
1 Peggy and I wandered back down Fifth Avenue with the rest of the crowd dribbling out of the
Robert Palmer concert that had just reached its exhausted finale in Central Park. It was part of the
annual Dr Pepper Central Park Music Festival and whatever Robert Palmer may have thought, I, for
one, was extremely grateful for their sponsorship, because it was one of those unbearable summer
5 nights in Manhattan – very late summer, it was already September – when the humidity is a thousand
per cent and even the most refined of ladies glistens buckets. We grabbed the ice-cold cans that were
being handed out as we left the arena and not just because they were free. On a night like that, an ice-
cold anything is a lifeline. With my de rigueur denim jacket slung over my shoulder – don’t know why
I’d bought it, far too hot to wear, but once a fashionista always a fashionista, I suppose – I tossed back
10 my head and drained the lot.
‘You like this stuff?’ asked Peggy. ’Actually, I’ve never had it before. We don’t get it in England.’
‘We don’t get it here either,’ said Peggy. ‘I mean, we do, but I don’t know anyone who ever, like, gets
it.’ ‘Somebody must,’ I said. ’Yup. Somebody must. I guess somebody must.’
Yes, you’re right. An utterly unremarkable, nothingy, so-what exchange and yet, for me,
15 intoxicating. It was the rhythm of Peggy’s voice that I swooned over. The little staccato bursts, the
subtlest of inflections, the bone dry delivery. It was pure essence of New York. Not the On the
Waterfront, Hell’s Kitchen, Hey-Youse-Gimme-A-Cawfee Noo Yawk. But something else; sharp, smart,
sassy, seductive. Yes, all those clichés that, when put together, beget another whole alliterating string
of them: Manhattan, Martinis, Madison Avenue. It was all there in Peggy’s voice, every time she
20 spoke.
So maybe you’re thinking it was the idea of Peggy that I was so infatuated with. That any pretty
uptown girl might have done just as well. It’s a legitimate debating point, and I will admit that maybe
there’s the tiniest scintilla of truth that I was, indeed, in love with the idea of a girl like Peggy. After all, I
was, with one or two minor caveats, in love with everything ‘New York’. But inside Peggy’s New York
25 wrapper was someone who rang so many bells for me, I would have become every bit as besotted
with her if she’d come from Nanking or Narnia.
I had the not very original idea – still do – that love is a wavelength thing. It’s just a question of
finding someone who is on the same one as you. Nobody that I have ever met – not before nor since –
received my signal and sent back hers so clearly, with so little interference, as Peggy. No moody
30 dropout. No emotional static. It was, for those few short months, such an unburdening relief to find
someone to whom I could get through and who came through to me. As I had had so little real hope of
finding someone like that – never got remotely close to it before so why should I ever? – I was simply
amazed. And even more amazing was Peggy’s often given and never solicited – well, only very rarely
solicited – assurance that the feeling was entirely mutual. There was Peggy in this relationship, there
35 was me, and for the first, and perhaps only, time in my life, there was a real, almost tangible ‘us’, the
sum that was greater than the parts.
So, given all this, how on earth had we managed to get ourselves into a situation where tonight would
38 be our last?

Questions
Q1 – 4 marks – 5 minutes Q4 – 20 marks – 25 minutes
Use lines 1-4. Use lines 21-38.
List four things you learn about the A student said “The writer wants us to realise how in
setting. love the narrator is, so that it is unexpected and
upsetting that the relationship does not last.”
Q2– 8 marks – 10 minutes To what extent do you agree?
Using lines 11-20. How does the writer In your response, you could:
use language to describe the narrator’s • write your own impressions about the characters
view of Peggy’s speech? • evaluate how the writer has created these
Q3– 8 marks – 10 minutes impressions
• support your opinions with references to the
Use the whole source.
text.
How does the writer structure the text to
interest you as a reader?
 Source A: The opening of a novel called ‘The Golden Day’ by Ursula Dubosarsky, published in 2013
1 The year began with the hanging of one man and ended with the drowning of another. But every
year people die and their ghosts roam in the public gardens, hiding behind the gray, dark statues like
wild cats, their tiny footsteps and secret breathing muffled by the sound of falling water in the fountains
and the quiet ponds.
5 "Today, girls," said Miss Renshaw, "we shall go out into the beautiful garden and think about
death."
The little girls sat in rows as the bell for morning classes tolled. Their teacher paused gravely. They
gazed up at her, their striped ties neat around their necks, their hair combed. "I have to tell you that
something barbaric has happened today," said Miss Renshaw in a low, intent voice. "At eight o'clock
10 this morning, a man was hanged."
Hanged! Miss Renshaw had a folded newspaper in her hand. She hit it against the blackboard. The
dust rose, and the little girls jumped in their seats.
"In Melbourne!"
In Melbourne! They did not really even know where Melbourne was. Melbourne was like a far-off
15 Italian city to them; it was Florence or Venice, a southern city of gold and flowers. But now they knew
that it was cruel and shadowy, filled with murderers and criminals and state assassins. In Melbourne
there was a prison with a high wall, and behind it in a courtyard stood a gallows, and a man named
Ronald Ryan had been hanged at eight o'clock that morning.
Hanged . . . Who knew what else went on in Melbourne? That's what Cubby said. But Icara, who
20 had been to Melbourne with her father on a train that took all night, shook her head. "It's not like that,"
she said. "It's just like here, only there aren't so many palm trees."
Trust Icara to notice something peculiar like palm trees when people are being cut down on the
street and carried away and hanged, thought Cubby.
Miss Renshaw beckoned at the little girls to leave their seats and come forward. They gathered
25 around her, their long white socks pulled up to their knees.
"What did he do, Miss Renshaw?" asked Bethany, the smallest girl in the class. She had small legs
and small hands and a very small head. But her eyes were luminously large. "The man who was
hanged?"
"We won't worry about that now," said Miss Renshaw, avoiding Bethany's alarming stare.
30 "Whatever he did, I ask you, is it right to take a man and hang him, coldly, at eight o'clock in the
morning?"
It did seem a particularly wicked thing to do, the little girls agreed, especially in the morning, on
such a warm and lovely day, when everything in it was so alive. Better to hang a person at night, when
it was already sad and dark.
35 Miss Renshaw banged the newspaper again, on the desk this time. The little girls huddled
backward.
"So today, girls, we will go outside into the beautiful garden and think about death."
Miss Renshaw was nuts — that's what Cubby's mother said. "Still, you've got to do what she says,
39 Cubby. Remember, she's the teacher."

Questions
Q1 – 4 marks – 5 minutes Q4 – 20 marks – 25 minutes
Use lines 7-13. Use lines 21-38.
List four things you learn about the girls. A student said “The writer presents the group of girls as
Q2– 8 marks – 10 minutes naïve and young at this point, which makes the
teacher’s anger seem really strange.”
Using lines 14-20. How does the writer
To what extent do you agree?
use language to describe the children’s
In your response, you could:
view of Melbourne?
• write your own impressions about the characters
Q3– 8 marks – 10 minutes • evaluate how the writer has created these
Use the whole source. impressions
How does the writer structure the text to • support your opinions with references to the
interest you as a reader? text.
 Source A: The opening of a novel called ‘Rooftoppers’ by Katherine Rundell, written in 2013
1 ON THE MORNING OF ITS FIRST BIRTHDAY, a baby was found floating in a cello case in the middle
of the English Channel.
It was the only living thing for miles. Just the baby, and some dining room chairs, and the tip of a ship
disappearing into the ocean. There had been music in the dining hall, and it was music so loud and so
5 good that nobody had noticed the water flooding in over the carpet. The violins went on sawing for
some time after the screaming had begun. Sometimes the shriek of a passenger would duet with a
high C.
The baby was found wrapped for warmth in the musical score of a Beethoven symphony. It had drifted
almost a mile from the ship, and was the last to be rescued. The man who lifted it into the rescue boat
10 was a fellow passenger, and a scholar. It is a scholar's job to notice things. He noticed that it was a
girl, with hair the color of lightning, and the smile of a shy person.
Think of nighttime with a speaking voice. Or think how moonlight might talk, or think of ink, if ink had
vocal cords. Give those things a narrow aristocratic face with hooked eyebrows, and long arms and
legs, and that is what the baby saw as she was lifted out of her cello case and up into safety. His
15 name was Charles Maxim, and he determined, as he held her in his large hands—at arm's length, as
he would a leaky flowerpot—that he would keep her.
The baby was almost certainly one year old. They knew this because of the red rosette pinned to her
front, which read, 1!
"Or rather," said Charles Maxim, "the child is either one year old or she has come first in a competition.
20 I believe babies are rarely keen participants in competitive sport. Shall we therefore assume it is the
former?" The girl held on to his earlobe with a grubby finger and thumb. "Happy birthday, my child," he
said.
Charles did not only give the baby a birthday. He also gave her a name. He chose Sophie, on that first
day, on the grounds that nobody could possibly object to it. "Your day has been dramatic and
25 extraordinary enough, child," he said. "It might be best to have the most ordinary name available. You
can be Mary, or Betty, or Sophie. Or, at a stretch, Mildred. Your choice." Sophie had smiled when he'd
said "Sophie," so Sophie it was. Then he fetched his coat, and folded her up in it, and took her home
in a carriage. It rained a little, but it did not worry either of them. Charles did not generally notice the
weather, and Sophie had already survived a lot of water that day.
30 Charles had never really known a child before. He told Sophie as much on the way home: "I do, I'm
afraid, understand books far more readily than I understand people. Books are so easy to get along
with." The carriage ride took four hours; Charles held Sophie on the very edge of his knee and told her
about himself, as though she were an acquaintance at a tea party. He was thirty-six years old, and six
foot three. He spoke English to people and French to cats, and Latin to the birds. He had once nearly
35 killed himself trying to read and ride a horse at the same time. "But I will be more careful," he said,
"now that there is you, little cello child." Charles's home was beautiful, but it was not safe; it was all
staircases and slippery floorboards and sharp corners. "I'll buy some smaller chairs," he said. "And
we'll have thick red carpets! Although— how does one go about acquiring carpets? I don't suppose
you know, Sophie?"
40 Unsurprisingly, Sophie did not answer. She was too young to talk, and she was asleep.
Questions
Q1 – 4 marks – 5 minutes Q4 – 20 marks – 25 minutes
Use lines 1-9. Use lines 23-40.
List four things you learn about the A student said “Although the character of Charles seems
baby. unusual and an unlikely person to take in a young child,
Q2– 8 marks – 10 minutes the writer makes him seem kind and caring”
To what extent do you agree?
Using lines 10-22.
In your response, you could:
How does the writer use language to
• write your own impressions about the characters
describe Charles Maxim?
• evaluate how the writer has created these
Q3– 8 marks – 10 minutes impressions
Use the whole source. • support your opinions with references to the text.
How does the writer structure the text to
interest you as a reader?
 Source A: The opening of a novel ‘A Greyhound of a Girl’ written by Roddy Doyle and published in 2012.
1 Mary O'Hara was walking up her street, to the house she lived in with her parents and her brothers.
The street was long, straight, and quite steep, and there were huge old chestnut trees growing all
along both sides. It was raining, but Mary wasn't getting very wet, because the leaves and branches
were like a roof above her. Anyway, rain and getting wet were things that worried adults, but not Mary
5 - or anyone else under the age of twenty-one. Mary was twelve. She'd be twelve for another eight
months. Then she'd be what she already felt she was - a teenager.
She came home at the same time most days, and she usually came home with her best friend,
Ava. But today was different, because Ava wasn't with Mary. Ava had moved to another part of Dublin
the day before, with her family.
10 As the car moved slowly up the street, they'd seen Mary wave, and run into her house. They might
have heard the front door slam. They might have heard Mary's feet charging up the stairs, and the
springs under Mary's mattress groan when she fell facedown on the bed. They probably didn't hear
her crying, and they definitely didn't hear the softer sound of the bedsprings a little later when Mary
realized that, although she was heartbroken, she was also starving. So she got up and went
15 downstairs to the kitchen and ate until her face was stiff.
Today, Mary walked alone, up the hill. She was nearly home. There were just a few houses left
before she got to hers. There was a gap between the trees for a while, so the raindrops fell on her. But
she didn't notice them, or care.
Someone had once told her that people who'd had their leg cut off still felt the leg, even a long time
20 after they'd lost it. They felt an itch and went to scratch, and remembered that there was no leg there.
That was how Mary felt. She felt Ava walking beside her. She knew she wasn't, but she looked
anyway - and that made it worse.
Mary knew: Ava was somewhere else in Dublin, only seven kilometers away. But if she'd been
acting in a film or a play and she was told she had to cry, she'd have thought of Ava and crying would
25 have been easy. Feeling angry and looking angry would have been easy too. Mary couldn't
understand why people moved house. It was stupid. And she couldn't understand why parents - Ava's
parents - said no when two friends - Mary and Ava - asked if it was okay if one of them - Ava - didn't
move but, instead, lived with the other friend - Mary.
"You won't have to feed her if she lives with us," Mary had told Ava's mother the day before they'd
30 moved. "It'll, like, save you a fortune."
"No."
"Especially with the recession and that."
"No."
"Why not?" Ava asked.
35 "Because you're our daughter and we love you."
"Then do the noble thing and let her stay," said Mary.
"If you, like, really, really love her. It's not funny."
"I know," said Ava's mother. "It's just so sweet."
Which was exactly the sort of stupid thing that adults said. They saw two best friends clinging to
40 each other, wanting to die rather than be separated - and they said it was sweet.
"I suppose you think war and starvation are sweet too, like, do you?" said Mary.
"You're being a little bit rude, Mary," said Ava's mother. "Whatever," said Mary.
She stood at Ava's front door. Then she tried to slam it. But she couldn't. There was a thick rug in
the hall, and it seemed to grab the bottom of the door. So she'd shouted it instead.
Q1 – 4 marks – 5 minutes Q4 – 20 marks – 25 minutes
Use lines 1-9. List four things you learn Use lines 23-39.
about Mary O’Hara. A student said “The writer makes us feel sorry for Mary,
Q2– 8 marks – 10 minutes and her anger and frustration seems justified to the
Using lines 10-22. How does the writer reader”
use language to describe Mary’s To what extent do you agree?
reaction to her friend leaving? In your response, you could:
Q3– 8 marks – 10 minutes • write your own impressions about the characters
Use the whole source. • evaluate how the writer has created these
How does the writer structure the text to impressions
interest you as a reader? • support your opinions with references to the text.
 Source A: The opening of a novel titled ‘Splendors and Glooms’ by Laura A Schlitz, first published in 2012,
1 Clara came awake in an instant. She sat up in bed, tingling with the knowledge that it was her
birthday. On this very day, the puppet master Grisini would perform at her birthday party. If all went
well, she would have tea with Grisini's children.
The room was dim. The curtains were drawn tight against the November chill. Clara gazed at them
5 intently. If it was very foggy, Professor Grisini might not come. Everything would be ruined; her twelfth
birthday would be like all the others, with a trip to Kensal Green in the morning and presents in the
afternoon. Clara loved presents, but she dreaded the ceremony of opening them. It was ill- bred to
show too much excitement, but if she wasn't grateful enough, she ran the risk of hurting her mother's
feelings. Clara thrust the thought aside. This year she would do everything exactly right.
10 She flung back the coverlet and tiptoed across the nursery floor, noiseless as a thief. If anyone came
in, she would be scolded for walking barefoot.
She reached the window and slipped her hand between the curtains. There were two sets between
herself and the outside world: claret-colored velvet on top, frilled muslin next to the glass. The muslin
was sooty from the London fogs; though the windows fit tightly, the fog always found its way in. Clara
15 leaned forward and peered through the peephole she had made. Her face lit up.
The view that greeted her was dismal enough. The trees in the square had shed their leaves, and the
city was dark with grime. But the sky was white, not gray; there was even a wisp of blue sky between
two clouds. It was a rare clear day. Professor Grisini would surely come.
Clara let the curtains fall back together and turned her back to the window. She padded past her
20 sisters' dollhouse and her brother's rocking horse, which she was not supposed to touch. Close to the
toy cupboard hung her birthday dress. It was covered with an old sheet so that it would stay clean, but
she could see the shape of it, with its puffed sleeves and billowing skirt. It was a beautiful dress, but
childish; next year, when she was thirteen, she would wear longer skirts and a whalebone corset.
Clara wasn't looking forward to that. Her present clothes were constrictive enough.
25 Footsteps were coming up the back stair. It was Agnes, the housemaid. In an instant Clara was back
in bed. She hoisted the blankets to her shoulder and shut her eyes.
The door opened. Agnes set a pitcher of hot water on the washstand and went to stir the fire. "Wake
up, Miss Clara."
Clara sat up, blinking. She could not have said why she felt she needed to hide the fact that she was
30 awake. Her secrecy was chronic and instinctive. She put her hand over her mouth as if to stifle a
yawn. "Good morning, Agnes."
"Good morning, miss."
"Agnes, I'm twelve." The words came out in a joyful rush. "I'm twelve years old today."
Agnes knew it. No one in the Wintermute household had been allowed to forget that November the
35 sixth was Clara's birthday. The servants had cleaned the house from top to bottom and decorated the
dining room with white ribbons and evergreen boughs. Seventeen children had been invited to Clara's
party, and their mothers would come with them. There was to be a lavish tea: sandwiches and ices
and a four-layer cake.
"Many happy returns, miss." Agnes twitched the corner of the counterpane. "Now, get up. None of this
40 lying about in bed." Clara had no intention of lying about. She wanted the day to begin.
Questions
Q1 – 4 marks – 5 minutes Q4 – 20 marks – 25 minutes
Use lines 1-9. Use lines 21-40.
List four things you learn about Clara A student said “The writer presents the character’s
excitement in this part, but we as readers find her
Q2– 8 marks – 10 minutes annoying and her lifestyle seems over the top ”
Using lines 10-20. To what extent do you agree?
How does the writer use language to In your response, you could:
describe Clara’s movements? • write your own impressions about the characters
• evaluate how the writer has created these
Q3– 8 marks – 10 minutes impressions
Use the whole source.
• support your opinions with references to the
How does the writer structure the text to
text.
interest you as a reader?
Source A: From the third chapter of ‘The Mostly True Story of Jack’ written by Kelly Barnhill published in 2011
1 Jack sat in the backseat of a rental car, his sketch- book open on his knees, drawing pictures of bells.
His mother hadn't spoken to him in the last four hours, not that it mattered. What was there to say,
really? He'd already argued and cried and reasoned, but the result was the same: His parents, after
years of fighting, were finally calling it quits. Jack was to spend an entire summer in Iowa with relatives
5 he did not know. He couldn't believe it.
Jack watched the passing farmland as it rippled and swelled like a green ocean stretching from the
pavement to the sky. A darkened smudge appeared at the very end of the long, straight road. Jack
squinted, trying to get a better look. There was something familiar about that, he thought, as the
smudge slowly grew into the shape of a hill, though for the life of him he couldn't remember where - or
10 whether - he'd ever seen it.
Jack closed his sketchbook with a firm slap and bound it tightly with a rubber band before slipping it
into his duffel bag. He let his hand linger in the bag for a moment to run his fingers along the
sandpapery surface of the skateboard hiding at the bottom. If his mother knew, he'd never be allowed
to keep it. Still, as it was a gift from his older brother - and an unexpected one at that - it was the only
15 thing that had even a remote possibility of making his time in Iowa bearable, and Jack wasn't going to
give it up. Not without a fight anyway. He zipped up the bag and looked outside.
"Is that where we're going?" he asked, pointing to the hill ahead, but his mother was on her cell phone
with her boss, and didn't hear him. Jack decided not to mind. Nothing new there, he thought. His
mother often didn't notice him. Or hear him. Or even see him half the time. Same with his father. Not
20 that he blamed either of them. They were, after all, very busy. His mother ran the communications
department for the mayor of San Francisco, and his father was an architect - a famous architect, Jack
liked to tell people, though no one ever listened or cared.
It wasn't so bad being invisible. Sometimes invisibility had its uses, though Jack couldn't help but feel
that since the announcement of the divorce, he was growing more invisible than usual. Or that the
25 world around him had shifted just enough that he didn't quite belong to it anymore. He worried he
might disappear from their thoughts altogether. And though these worries troubled him, he tried to
shrug them off. Why worry about what you can't fix?
The town rose up behind a tangle of gnarled trees on a gentle hump of land - the only hill for miles, as
far as Jack could tell. A wooden sign stood at the side of the road, leaning slightly to the left. Welcome
30 to Hazelwood, it said in large black letters, though the paint was faded and chipped in places,
exposing the graying wood underneath like tiny bites.
"Hello?" Jack's mother raised her voice at the phone. "Hello? You've gone out on me, sir."
"No service around here, Mom?" Jack said.
"There's no service around here," his mother repeated, waving her phone as if she could catch signals
35 like butterflies. She acted as though Jack hadn't spoken.
"Isn't that what I just -"
"And always in the middle of something important." She clicked off the phone and sighed. "Typical."
It was clear that his mother wasn't in the mood to chat, so Jack turned toward the window, examining
the signal-free town.
40 The town was clean and quiet. Completely quiet. No cars moved, no buses groaned, no people jostled
one another on the street. There weren't even any barking dogs. Instead, a quiet block of perfectly
mowed yards, where each green square of lawn fitted snugly against the one next to it, with a thin
border of geraniums or gravel in between. Neat white house followed neat white house with porches
and weeded gardens and sometimes a swing set. Although Jack usually liked things neat and orderly
and predictable, the sameness in the town unnerved him. It was as if each house wanted desperately
to be pink or orange or electric green but couldn't.
Q1 – 4 marks – 5 minutes Q4 – 20 marks – 25 minutes
Use lines 1-5. Use lines 12-40.
List four things you learn about Jack. A student said, “The writer wants us to feel sorry for Jack and
Q2– 8 marks – 10 minutes dislike his mother, especially when she seems to be leaving
Using lines 6-10. How does the writer use him somewhere strange and isolated.”
language to describe what is Jack sees To what extent do you agree?
through the window? In your response, you could:
Q3– 8 marks – 10 minutes • write your own impressions about the characters
Use the whole source. • evaluate how the writer has created these
How does the writer structure the text to impressions
interest you as a reader? • support your opinions with references to the text.
 Source A: The opening of a novel titled ‘Wonderstruck’ written by Brian Selznick and published in 2011
1 A sudden streak of light interrupted Ben's memory. Wide-eyed, he watched from the ledge of Robby's
window as a shooting star blazed between the clouds and disappeared. He made a wish about his
mom, one that he knew could never come true.
Ben hadn't realized how tightly he'd been gripping the seashell turtle until he felt it digging into his skin.
5 He almost cried out, but he caught himself, not wanting to wake up Robby again.
That's when Ben noticed something very strange. In the black silhouette of his house, eighty-three
steps away, a light had come on. The curtains in his mom's room glowed a bright yellow.
Ben stared in disbelief.
Feeling dizzy, he placed the turtle in the box, locked it, and tucked it back under the cot. His heart was
10 pounding as he put on an old tank top and slid into his sneakers without bothering to lace them up.
He grabbed the red flashlight and slipped silently out of his cousins' house.
Water lapped at the dock, and the boats clacked against one another. A loon called across the night,
and the stones of Gunflint Lake glittered faintly in the darkness. The woods at night were always
spooky, and the weak beam of the flashlight didn't stretch very far. Ben kept moving toward his house,
15 where the one glowing window beckoned, staring back through the darkness like an unblinking eye.
Under a vault of shaking black branches, he ran.
The doors to his house, like nearly all the doors along the lake, were unlocked. Ben quietly entered
through the back, into the kitchen. He moved his small beam of light around the room. The flowers and
food from the funeral had been cleared out, but the owl-shaped cookie jar sat on the counter with its
20 head off, the way it always had. The junk drawer remained closed crookedly. The refrigerator was still
covered with his mom's favorite quotes. It was like entering a museum of his old life.
Ben realized that he could hear music playing softly in the distance. He turned his head to hear it more
clearly and a chill went down his spine.
"This is Major Tom to ground control;
25 I'm stepping thro' the door,
And I'm floating in a most peculiar way.
And the stars look very different today
For here am I sitting in a tin can far above the
world ...."
30 Ben heard footsteps. He turned his good ear toward the direction he thought the sound was coming
from ... somewhere near his mother's room, he guessed.
Ben had never really believed in ghosts, although some of the stories his mom had read to him when
he was younger had kept him up at night. He tiptoed slowly down the hall to his mom's room, the blood
pounding in his head. A faint smell of cigarette smoke grew stronger as he got closer.
35 Ben paused in the hallway, dizzy with fear. "You shouldn't be such a turtle."
He inched closer until he was right outside her door. He turned off the flashlight and put it in his back
pocket.
The door was open a crack, and he could see the framed Van Gogh print — a big black tree and a
39 swirling night sky with golden stars. A shadow moved across the room.
Ben thought about the shooting star and the impossible wish he'd made. With a trembling hand, he
slowly pushed open the door.
Q1 – 4 marks – 5 minutes Q4 – 20 marks – 25 minutes
Use lines 1-11. Use lines 16-40.
List four things you learn that Ben is A student said “The arrival of the visitors seems exciting
doing in this part of the text. and unusual for the villagers, but the writer makes us
think that something strange is going to happen”
Q2– 8 marks – 10 minutes To what extent do you agree?
Using lines 11-16.
In your response, you could:
How does the writer use language to
• write your own impressions about the characters
describe the setting?
• evaluate how the writer has created these
Q3– 8 marks – 10 minutes impressions
Use the whole source. • support your opinions with references to the
How does the writer structure the text to text.
interest you as a reader?
 Source A: The opening of a novel titled ‘Bird Lake Moon’ by Kevin Henkes and published in 2008
1 Mitch Sinclair was slowly taking over the house, staking his claim. He had just finished carving his
initials into the underside of the wooden porch railing, which was his boldest move so far. The other
things he had done had required much less courage. He had swept the front stoop with his
grandmother's broom. He had cleaned the decaying leaves and the puddle of murky water out of the
5 birdbath in the side yard and filled it with fresh water. He had spat on the huge rotting tree stump at the
corner of the lot each day for the past week, marking the territory as his. And he had taken to crawling
under the screened back porch during the hot afternoons; he'd lean against the brick foundation in the
cool shade, imagining a different life, if, as his mother had said, their old life was over. Forever.
Although he'd seen the house many times while visiting his grandparents, Mitch had never paid much
10 attention to it before. The house was vacant. It was old and plain—white clapboard with dark green
trim—and had been neglected for quite a while, so that all its lines, angles, and corners were softened
like the edges on a well-used bar of soap. The windows were curtained, keeping the interior hidden.
However, the curtains covering the small oval window on the back door were parted slightly, offering a
glimpse of a sparsely furnished, shadowy corner of a room. That's all. With some hesitancy, Mitch had
15 tried to open the door, turning the loose knob gently at first, then rattling it harder and harder. The door
wouldn't budge. The front door was locked as well. Mitch's grandparents' house stood a short distance
from the vacant one. The two yards were separated by a row of scraggly lilac bushes and clumps of
seashells that reminded Mitch of crushed bones.
Both yards sloped down to Bird Lake. Mitch went swimming nearly every day; he lived in his bathing
20 suit. There were more people around because it was summer, and yet it was quiet. A sleepy, sleepy
place, Mitch's grandfather called it. When Mitch made a casual observation at dinner one night—
breaking the dreadful silence—about the lack of potential friends, his grandmother said crisply that she
liked having as few children around as possible. She quickly added that she didn't mean him, of
course. But Mitch hadn't been so sure.
25 Mitch ran his finger over his initials. M.S. His father's initials were W.S. Wade Sinclair. Turn an M
upside down and you get a W, thought Mitch. We're the same. It was an idle thought, but it caused a
burning knot to form in his stomach. "We're not the same at all," Mitch whispered. And we never will
be. At the moment, Mitch hated his father, hated him and yet longed to see him so badly tears pricked
his eyes. He thought he could destroy this empty little house right now with his bare hands, he was
30 that upset. But he wanted this house. He wanted it for himself and for his mother. To live in.
Mitch rubbed his finger over his initials again. "Ouch," he said. A splinter. A big one. But not big
enough to pick out without a tweezers or a needle. He retreated to his spot under the porch and
settled in. He hadn't asked his grandparents yet what they knew about the house, because he didn't
want an answer that would disappoint him. Maybe he'd ask today. He dozed off in the still, hazy
35 afternoon, blaming his father for everything wrong in the world, including his aching finger.
Sometimes he wished his father had simply vanished. That would have been easier to deal with. Then
he could make up any story he wanted to explain his father's absence. Or he could honestly say that
he didn't know where his father was or why he had disappeared. And if he had vanished, there would
be the possibility that, at any moment, he'd return. There he'd be, suddenly—hunched at the sink,
40 humming, scrubbing a frying pan, a dish towel slung over his shoulder. A familiar pose. Everything
back in its proper place, the way it was meant to be.
Q1 – 4 marks – 5 minutes Q4 – 20 marks – 25 minutes
Use lines 1-6. Use lines 19-41.
List four things Mitch Sinclair does in A student said “The writer makes Mitch seem both angry
this section of the text.0 and upset about his father, which leaves us wondering
Q2– 8 marks – 10 minutes what has happened to him.”
Using lines 9-18. How does the writer To what extent do you agree?
use language to describe the house and In your response, you could:
the surrounding area? • write your own impressions about the characters
• evaluate how the writer has created these
Q3– 8 marks – 10 minutes
impressions
Use the whole source.
• support your opinions with references to the
How does the writer structure the text to
text.
interest you as a reader?
 Source A: An extract from a novel called ‘Savvy’ written by Ingrid Law, published in 2008
1 When my brother Fish turned thirteen, we moved to the deepest part of inland because of the
hurricane and, of course, the fact that he’d caused it. I had liked living down south on the edge of land,
next to the pushing-pulling waves. I had liked it with a mighty kind of liking, so moving had been
hard—hard like the pavement the first time I fell off my pink two-wheeler and my palms burned like fire
5 from all of the hurt just under the skin. But it was plain that fish could live nowhere near or nearby or
next to or close to or on or around any largish bodies of water. Water had a way of triggering my
brother and making ordinary, everyday weather take a frightening turn for the worse.
Unlike any normal hurricane, fish’s birthday storm had started without warning. One minute, my
brother was tearing paper from presents in our backyard near the beach; the next minute, both fish
10 and the afternoon sky went a funny and fearsome shade of gray. My brother gripped the edge of the
picnic table as the wind kicked up around him, gaining momentum and ripping the wrapping paper out
of his hands, sailing it high up into the sky with all of the balloons and streamers roiling together and
disintegrating like a birthday party in a blender. Groaning and cracking, trees shuddered and bent over
double, uprooting and falling as easily as sticks in wet sand. Rain pelted us like gravel thrown by a
15 playground bully as windows shattered and shingles ripped off the roof. As the storm surged and the
ocean waves tossed and churned, spilling raging water and debris farther and farther up the beach,
Momma and Poppa grabbed hold of fish and held on tight, while the rest of us ran for cover. Momma
and Poppa knew what was happening. They had been expecting something like this and knew that
they had to keep my brother calm and help him ride out his storm.
20 That hurricane had been the shortest on record, but to keep the coastal towns safe from our fish, our
family had packed up and moved deep inland, plunging into the very heart of the land and stopping as
close to the center of the country as we could get. There, without big water to fuel big storms, fish
could make it blow and rain without so much heartache and ruin.
Settling directly between Nebraska and Kansas in a little place all our own, just off Highway 81, we
25 were well beyond hollering distance from the nearest neighbor, which was the best place to be for a
family like ours. The closest town was merely a far-off blur across the highway, and was not even big
enough to have its own school or store, or gas station or mayor.
Monday through Wednesday, we called our thin stretch of land Kansaska. Thursday through Saturday,
we called it Nebransas. On Sundays, since that was the Lord’s Day, we called it nothing at all, out of
30 respect for His creating our world without the lines already drawn on its face like all my grandpa’s
wrinkles.
If it weren’t for old Grandpa Bomba, Kansaska- Nebransas wouldn’t even have existed for us to live
there. When Grandpa wasn’t a grandpa and was just instead a small-fry, hobbledehoy boy blowing out
thirteen dripping candles on a lopsided cake, his savvy hit him hard and sudden—just like it did to fish
35 that day of the backyard birthday party and the hurricane—and the entire state of Idaho got made. At
least, that’s the way Grandpa Bomba always told the story.
“Before I turned thirteen,” he’d say, “Montana bumped dead straight into Washington, and Wyoming
and Oregon shared a cozy border.” The tale of Grandpa’s thirteenth birthday had grown over the years
just like the land he could move and stretch, and Momma just shook her head and smiled every time
40 he’d start talking tall. But in truth, that young boy who grew up and grew old like wine and dirt, had
been making new places whenever and wherever he pleased. That was Grandpa’s savvy.
Q1 – 4 marks – 5 minutes Q4 – 20 marks – 25 minutes
Use lines 1-6. Use lines 20-41.
List four things you learn about the A student said “The writer intrigues us with what
narrator. happened to Fish by telling us about the Grandpa, who
Q2– 8 marks – 10 minutes seems like a strange person with interesting stories”
To what extent do you agree?
Using lines 7-19.
In your response, you could:
How does the writer use language to
• write your own impressions about the characters
describe the hurricane?
• evaluate how the writer has created these
Q3– 8 marks – 10 minutes impressions
Use the whole source. • support your opinions with references to the
How does the writer structure the text to text.
interest you as a reader?