Eduqas GCSE English Literature Component 2 June 2017 question paper

You are advised to spend about 45 minutes on this question.

You should use the extract below and your knowledge of the whole novel to answer this question.

Write about the relationship between Ralph and Piggy and how it is presented at different points in the novel.

In your response you should:

• refer to the extract and the novel as a whole

• show your understanding of characters and events in the novel

5 of this question’s marks are allocated for accuracy in spelling, punctuation and the use of vocabulary and sentence structures.

Jack snatched from behind him a sizable sheath-knife and clouted it into the trunk. The buzz rose and died away. Piggy stirred. ‘I’ll come.’ Ralph turned to him. ‘You’re no good on a job like this.’ ‘All the same—’ ‘We don’t want you,’ said Jack, flatly. ‘Three’s enough.’ Piggy’s glasses flashed. ‘I was with him when he found the conch. I was with him before anyone else was.’ Jack and the others paid no attention. There was a general dispersal. Ralph, Jack and Simon jumped off the platform and walked along the sand past the bathing-pool. Piggy hung bumbling behind them. ‘If Simon walks in the middle of us,’ said Ralph, ‘then we could talk over his head.’ The three of them fell into step. This meant that every now and then Simon had to do a double shuffle to catch up with the others. Presently Ralph stopped and turned back to Piggy. ‘Look.’ Jack and Simon pretended to notice nothing. They walked on. ‘You can’t come.’ Piggy’s glasses were misted again — this time with humiliation. ‘You told ’em. After what I said.’ His face flushed, his mouth trembled. ‘After I said I didn’t want—’ ‘What on earth are you talking about?’ ‘About being called Piggy. I said I didn’t care as long as they didn’t call me Piggy; an’ I said not to tell and then you went an’ said straight out—’ Stillness descended on them. Ralph, looking with more understanding at Piggy, saw that he was hurt and crushed. He hovered between the two courses of apology or further insult. ‘Better Piggy than Fatty,’ he said at last, with the directness of genuine leadership, ‘and anyway, I’m sorry if you feel like that. Now go back, Piggy, and take names. That’s your job. So long.’ He turned and raced after the other two. Piggy stood and the rose of indignation faded slowly from his cheeks. He went back to the platform.

You are advised to spend about 45 minutes on this question.

You should use the extract below and your knowledge of the whole novel to answer this question.

Write about friendship and how it is presented in the novel.

In your response you should:

• refer to the extract and the novel as a whole

• show your understanding of characters and events in the novel

5 of this question’s marks are allocated for accuracy in spelling, punctuation and the use of vocabulary and sentence structures.

Our gang, which we named the Wenches Brigade, soon established a routine of sorts; we would begin with a leisurely meeting in the old pigsty, the one nearest the park, in which Anita and I would leaf through the current issue of Jackie, doing the quizzes on each other, ‘How Do You Know if He Fancies You?’, planning our wardrobes and interior decor for the flat in London we would buy together when we reached eighteen, and eating sandwiches and biscuits that the Litt’uns had been forced to nick from their mothers’ kitchens. Then we would do the rounds of our kingdom, Anita leading, me at her side, and the rest of the minions in a disorganised chattering crocodile behind us. We would walk right to the end of the main village street, down the hill past Mr Ormerod’s shop (where Anita would stop off for supplies), the church, the red brick school, the Working Men’s Club, and back up the rise to Sherrie’s farm. There Anita and I would find a space in the long grass clear of dog shit and insects, and munch on sweets and talk, whilst our lackeys amused themselves with teasing the horses with ears of corn and conducting interesting experiments such as how far a two-day-old cow pat would travel when thrown by a small snotty-nosed child. When I said that we talked, what I mean is that Anita talked and I listened with the appropriate appreciative noises. But I never had to force my admiration, it flowed from every pore because Anita made me laugh like no one else; she gave voice to all the wicked things I had often thought but kept zipped up inside my good girl’s winter coat.

You are advised to spend about 45 minutes on this question.

You should use the extract below and your knowledge of the whole novel to answer this question.

Write about Ruth and how she is presented at different points in the novel.

In your response you should:

• refer to the extract and the novel as a whole

• show your understanding of characters and events in the novel

5 of this question’s marks are allocated for accuracy in spelling, punctuation and the use of vocabulary and sentence structures.

In those first months at the Cottages, our friendship had stayed intact because, on my side at least, I’d had this notion there were two quite separate Ruths. There was one Ruth who was always trying to impress the veterans, who wouldn’t hesitate to ignore me, Tommy, any of the others, if she thought we’d cramp her style. This was the Ruth I wasn’t pleased with, the one I could see every day putting on airs and pretending – the Ruth who did the slap-on-the-elbow gesture. But the Ruth who sat beside me in my little attic room at the day’s close, legs outstretched over the edge of my mattress, her steaming mug held in both her hands, that was the Ruth from Hailsham, and whatever had been happening during the day, I could just pick up with her where we’d left off the last time we’d sat together like that. And until that afternoon in the field, there’d been a definite understanding these two Ruths wouldn’t merge; that the one I confided in before bed was one I could absolutely trust. That’s why when she said that, about my ‘not being slow making friends with at least some of the veterans’, I got so upset. That’s why I just picked up my book and walked off. But when I think about it now, I can see things more from Ruth’s viewpoint. I can see, for instance, how she might have felt I had been the one to first violate an understanding, and that her little dig had just been a retaliation. This never occurred to me at the time, but I see now it’s a possibility, and an explanation for what happened. After all, immediately before she made that remark, I’d been talking about the arm-slapping business. Now it’s a bit hard to explain this, but some sort of understanding had definitely developed between the two of us about the way Ruth behaved in front of the veterans. Okay, she often bluffed and implied all sorts of things I knew weren’t true. Sometimes, as I said, she did things to impress the veterans at our expense. But it seems to me Ruth believed, at some level, she was doing all this on behalf of us all And my role, as her closest friend, was to give her silent support, as if I was in the front row of the audience when she was performing on stage.

You are advised to spend about 45 minutes on this question.

You should use the extract below and your knowledge of the whole novel to answer this question.

Write about how Susan Hill creates fear and tension at different points in the novel.

In your response you should:

• refer to the extract and the novel as a whole

• show your understanding of characters and events in the novel

5 of this question’s marks are allocated for accuracy in spelling, punctuation and the use of vocabulary and sentence structures.

They had chided me with being a spoilsport, tried to encourage me to tell them the one ghost story I must surely, like any other man, have it in me to tell. And they were right. Yes, I had a story, a true story, a story of haunting and evil, fear and confusion, horror and tragedy. But it was not a story to be told for casual entertainment, around the fireside upon Christmas Eve. I had always known in my heart that the experience would never leave me, that it was now woven into my very fibres, an inextricable part of my past, but I had hoped never to have to recollect it, consciously, and in full, ever again. Like an old wound, it gave off a faint twinge now and again, but less and less often, less and less painfully, as the years went on and my happiness, sanity and equilibrium were assured. Of late, it had been like the outermost ripple on a pool, merely the faint memory of a memory. Now, tonight, it again filled my mind to the exclusion of all else. I knew that I should have no rest from it, that I should lie awake in a chill of sweat, going over that time, those events, those places. So it had been night after night for years. I got up and began to walk about again. Tomorrow was Christmas Day. Could I not be free of it at least for that blessed time, was there no way of keeping the memory, and the effects it had upon me, at bay, as an analgesic or a balm will stave off the pain of a wound, at least temporarily? And then, standing among the trunks of the fruit trees, silver-grey in the moonlight, I recalled that the way to banish an old ghost that continues its hauntings is to exorcise it. Well then, mine should be exorcised. I should tell my tale, not aloud, by the fireside, not as a diversion for idle listeners — it was too solemn, and too real, for that. But I should set it down on paper, with every care and in every detail. I would write my own ghost story. Then perhaps I should finally be free of it for whatever life remained for me to enjoy. I decided at once that it should be, at least during my lifetime, a story for my eyes only. I was the one who had been haunted and who had suffered — not the only one, no, but surely, I thought, the only one left alive, I was the one who, to judge by my agitation of this evening, was still affected by it deeply, it was from me alone that the ghost must be driven. I glanced up at the moon, and at the bright, bright Pole star. Christmas Eve. And then I prayed, a heart-felt, simple prayer for peace of mind, and for strength and steadfastness to endure while I completed what would be the most agonizing task, and I prayed for a blessing upon my family, and for quiet rest to us all that night. For, although I was in control of my emotions now, I dreaded the hours of darkness that lay ahead.

You are advised to spend about 45 minutes on this question.

You should use the extract below and your knowledge of the whole novel to answer this question.

Write about Jeanette’s mother, Mrs Winterson, and how she is presented at different points in the novel.

In your response you should:

• refer to the extract and the novel as a whole

• show your understanding of characters and events in the novel

5 of this question’s marks are allocated for accuracy in spelling, punctuation and the use of vocabulary and sentence structures.

We were hoping to make enough converts to start a new church in Exeter. ‘I remember when we built the gospel hall here,’ said my mother wistfully. ‘All of us pulling together, and we only used born-again workmen.’ It had been a bright, difficult time; saving up for a piano and hymn books; fending off the temptations of the Devil to go on holiday instead. ‘Of course, your father was a card player in those days.’ Eventually they had got a grant from head office to finish the roof, and pay for a flag to fly from the top. It was a proud day when they hoisted the flag, with SEEK YE THE LORD embroidered in red letters. All the churches had flags, made by disabled missionaries. It was a way of helping out their pension and giving them spiritual satisfaction. During the first year my mother had gone into all the pubs and clubs urging the drunkards to join her at church. She used to sit at the piano and sing Have You Any Room for Jesus? It was very moving, she said. The men cried into their tankards and stopped playing snooker while she sang. She was plump and pretty and they called her the Jesus Belle. ‘Oh, I had my offers,’ she confided, ‘and they weren’t all Godly.’ Whatever they were, the church grew, and many a man will stop in the street when my mother goes past and raise his hat to the Jesus Belle. Sometimes I think she married in haste. After her awful time with Pierre she wanted no more upsets. When I sat by her looking through the photograph album at ancestors with stern faces, she always stopped at the two pages called ‘Old Flames’ in the index. Pierre was there, and others including my father. ‘Why didn’t you marry that one, or that one?’ I asked, curious. ‘They were all wayward men,’ she sighed. ‘I had a bad time enough finding one that was only a gambler.’ ‘Why isn’t he a gambler now?’ I wanted to know, trying to imagine my meek father looking like the men I’d seen on films. ‘He married me and he found the Lord.’ Then she sighed and told me the story of each one of the Old Flames; Mad Percy, who drove an open-topped car and asked her to live with him in Brighton; Eddy with the tortoiseshell glasses who kept bees … right at the bottom of the page was a yellowy picture of a pretty woman holding a cat. ‘Who’s that?’ I pointed. ‘That? Oh just Eddy’s sister, I don’t know why I put it there,’ and she turned the page. Next time we looked, it had gone. So she married my father and reformed him and he built the church and never got angry. I thought he was nice, though he didn’t say much. Of course, her own father was furious. He told her she’d married down, that she should have stayed in Paris, and promptly ended all communication. So she never had enough money and after a while she managed to forget that she’d ever had any at all. ‘The church is my family,’ she always said whenever I asked about the people in the photograph album. And the church was my family too.

You are advised to spend about 45 minutes on this question.

You should use the extract below and your knowledge of the whole novel to answer this question.

Write about how Dickens presents the ghosts. How are they important to the novel as a whole?

In your response you should:

• refer to the extract and the novel as a whole

• show your understanding of characters and events in the novel

• refer to the contexts of the novel

Scrooge had often heard it said that Marley had no bowels, but he had never believed it until now. No, nor did he believe it even now. Though he looked the phantom through and through, and saw it standing before him; though he felt the chilling influence of its death-cold eyes; and marked the very texture of the folded kerchief bound about its head and chin, which wrapper he had not observed before: he was still incredulous, and fought against his senses. ‘How now!’ said Scrooge, caustic and cold as ever. ‘What do you want with me?’ ‘Much!’ — Marley’s voice, no doubt about it. ‘Who are you?’ ‘Ask me who I was.’ ‘Who were you then?’ said Scrooge, raising his voice. ‘You’re particular — for a shade.’ He was going to say ‘ to a shade’, but substituted this, as more appropriate. ‘In life I was your partner, Jacob Marley.’ ‘Can you — can you sit down?’ asked Scrooge, looking doubtfully at him. ‘I can.’ ‘Do it then.’ Scrooge asked the question, because he didn’t know whether a ghost so transparent might find himself in a condition to take a chair; and felt that in the event of its being impossible, it might involve the necessity of an embarrassing explanation. But the Ghost sat down on the opposite side of the fireplace, as if he were quite used to it. ‘You don’t believe in me,’ observed the Ghost. ‘I don’t,’ said Scrooge. ‘What evidence would you have of my reality, beyond that of your senses?’ ‘I don’t know,’ said Scrooge. ‘Why do you doubt your senses?’ ‘Because,’ said Scrooge, ‘a little thing affects them. A slight disorder of the stomach makes them cheats. You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato. There’s more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!’ Scrooge was not much in the habit of cracking jokes, nor did he feel, in his heart, by any means waggish then. The truth is, that he tried to be smart, as a means of distracting his own attention, and keeping down his terror; for the spectre’s voice disturbed the very marrow in his bones.

You are advised to spend about 45 minutes on this question.

You should use the extract below and your knowledge of the whole novel to answer this question.

Write about Eppie and how she is presented in the novel.

In your response you should:

• refer to the extract and the novel as a whole

• show your understanding of characters and events in the novel

• refer to the contexts of the novel

Unlike the gold which needed nothing, and must be worshipped in close-locked solitude — which was hidden away from the daylight, was deaf to the song of birds, and started to no human tones — Eppie was a creature of endless claims and ever-growing desires, seeking and loving sunshine, and living sounds, and living movements; making trial of everything, with trust in new joy, and stirring the human kindness in all eyes that looked on her. The gold had kept his thoughts in an ever-repeated circle, leading to nothing beyond itself; but Eppie was an object compacted of changes and hopes that forced his thoughts onward, and carried them far away from their old eager pacing towards the same blank limit — carried them away to the new things that would come with the coming years, when Eppie would have learned to understand how her father Silas cared for her; and made him look for images of that time in the ties and charities that bound together the families of his neighbours. The gold had asked that he should sit weaving longer and longer, deafened and blinded more and more to all things except the monotony of his loom and the repetition of his web; but Eppie called him away from his weaving, and made him think all its pauses a holiday, reawakening his senses with her fresh life, even to the old winter-flies that came crawling forth in the early spring sunshine, and warming him into joy because she had joy. And when the sunshine grew strong and lasting, so that the butter-cups were thick in the meadows, Silas might be seen in the sunny mid-day, or in the late afternoon when the shadows were lengthening under the hedgerows, strolling out with uncovered head to carry Eppie beyond the Stone-pits to where the flowers grew, till they reached some favourite bank where he could sit down, while Eppie toddled to pluck the flowers, and make remarks to the winged things that murmured happily above the bright petals, calling ‘Dad-dad’s’ attention continually by bringing him the flowers. Then she would turn her ear to some sudden bird-note, and Silas learned to please her by making signs of hushed stillness, that they might listen for the note to come again: so that when it came she set up her small back and laughed with gurgling triumph.

You are advised to spend about 45 minutes on this question.

You should use the extract below and your knowledge of the whole novel to answer this question.

Write about how Wells presents the Martians. How are they important to the novel as a whole?

In your response you should:

• refer to the extract and the novel as a whole

• show your understanding of characters and events in the novel

• refer to the contexts of the novel

And this thing I saw! How can I describe it? A monstrous tripod, higher than many houses, striding over the young pine trees, and smashing them aside in its career; a walking engine of glittering metal, striding now across the heather; articulate ropes of steel dangling from it, and the clattering tumult of its passage mingling with the riot of the thunder. A flash, and it came out vividly, heeling over one way with two feet in the air, to vanish and reappear almost instantly as it seemed with the next flash, a hundred yards nearer. Can you imagine a milking-stool tilted and bowled violently along the ground? That was the impression those instant flashes gave. But instead of a milking-stool imagine it a great body of machinery on a tripod stand. Then suddenly the trees in the pine-wood ahead of me were parted, as brittle reeds are parted by a man thrusting through them; they were snapped off and driven headlong, and a second, huge tripod appeared, rushing, as it seemed, headlong towards me. And I was galloping hard to meet it! At the sight of the second monster my nerve went altogether. Not stopping to look again, I wrenched the horse’s head hard round to the right, and in another moment the dog-cart had heeled over upon the horse; the shafts smashed noisily, and I was flung sideways and fell heavily into a shallow pool of water. I crawled out almost immediately, and crouched, my feet still in the water, under a clump of furze. The horse lay motionless (his neck was broken, poor brute!), and by the lightning flashes I saw the black bulk of the overturned dog-cart, and the silhouette of the wheel still spinning slowly. In another moment the colossal mechanism went striding by me, and passed uphill towards Pyrford. Seen nearer, the thing was incredibly strange, for it was no mere insensate machine driving on its way. Machine it was, with a ringing metallic pace, and long flexible glittering tentacles (one of which gripped a young pine tree) swinging and rattling about its strange body. It picked its road as it went striding along, and the brazen hood that surmounted it moved to and fro with the inevitable suggestion of a head looking about it. Behind the main body was a huge thing of white metal like a gigantic fisherman’s basket, and puffs of green smoke squirted out from the joints of the limbs as the monster swept by me. And in an instant it was gone. So much I saw then, all vaguely for the flickering of the lightning, in blinding high lights and dense black shadows.

You are advised to spend about 45 minutes on this question.

You should use the extract below and your knowledge of the whole novel to answer this question.

Write about how prejudice is presented in the novel.

In your response you should:

• refer to the extract and the novel as a whole

• show your understanding of characters and events in the novel

• refer to the contexts of the novel

Miss Bingley was engrossed by Mr. Darcy, her sister scarcely less so; and as for Mr. Hurst, by whom Elizabeth sat, he was an indolent man, who lived only to eat, drink, and play at cards, who when he found her prefer a plain dish to a ragout, had nothing to say to her. When dinner was over, she returned directly to Jane, and Miss Bingley began abusing her as soon as she was out of the room. Her manners were pronounced to be very bad indeed, a mixture of pride and impertinence; she had no conversation, no stile, no taste, no beauty. Mrs. Hurst thought the same, and added, “She has nothing, in short, to recommend her, but being an excellent walker. I shall never forget her appearance this morning. She really looked almost wild.” “She did indeed, Louisa. I could hardly keep my countenance. Very nonsensical to come at all! Why must she be scampering about the country, because her sister had a cold? Her hair so untidy, so blowsy!” “Yes, and her petticoat; I hope you saw her petticoat, six inches deep in mud, I am absolutely certain; and the gown which had been let down to hide it, not doing its office.” “Your picture may be very exact, Louisa,” said Bingley; “but this was all lost upon me. I thought Miss Elizabeth Bennet looked remarkably well, when she came into the room this morning. Her dirty petticoat quite escaped my notice.” “ You observed it, Mr. Darcy, I am sure,” said Miss Bingley; “and I am inclined to think that you would not wish to see your sister make such an exhibition.” “Certainly not.” “To walk three miles, or four miles, or five miles, or whatever it is, above her ancles in dirt, and alone, quite alone! what could she mean by it? It seems to me to shew an abominable sort of conceited independence, a most country town indifference to decorum.” “It shews an affection for her sister that is very pleasing,” said Bingley. “I am afraid, Mr. Darcy,” observed Miss Bingley, in a half whisper, “that this adventure has rather affected your admiration of her fine eyes.” “Not at all,” he replied; “they were brightened by the exercise.”—A short pause followed this speech, and Mrs. Hurst began again. “I have an excessive regard for Jane Bennet, she is really a very sweet girl, and I wish with all my heart she were well settled. But with such a father and mother, and such low connections, I am afraid there is no chance of it.”

You are advised to spend about 45 minutes on this question.

You should use the extract below and your knowledge of the whole novel to answer this question.

Write about turning points in Jane Eyre’s life and how they are presented in the novel.

In your response you should:

• refer to the extract and the novel as a whole

• show your understanding of characters and events in the novel

• refer to the contexts of the novel

Mrs. Reed looked up from her work; her eye settled on mine, her fingers at the same time suspended their nimble movements. “Go out of the room; return to the nursery,” was her mandate. My look or something else must have struck her as offensive, for she spoke with extreme, though suppressed irritation. I got up, I went to the door; I came back again; I walked to the window, across the room, then close up to her. Speak I must: I had been trodden on severely, and must turn: but how? What strength had I to dart retaliation at my antagonist? I gathered my energies and launched them in this blunt sentence:— “I am not deceitful: if I were, I should say I loved you; but I declare I do not love you: I dislike you the worst of anybody in the world except John Reed; and this book about the liar, you may give to your girl, Georgiana, for it is she who tells lies, and not I.” Mrs. Reed’s hands still lay on her work inactive: her eye of ice continued to dwell freezingly on mine. “What more have you to say?” she asked, rather in the tone in which a person might address an opponent of adult age than such as is ordinarily used to a child. That eye of hers, that voice stirred every antipathy I had. Shaking from head to foot, thrilled with ungovernable excitement, I continued:— “I am glad you are no relation of mine: I will never call you aunt again as long as I live. I will never come to see you when I am grown up; and if any one asks me how I liked you, and how you treated me, I will say the very thought of you makes me sick, and that you treated me with miserable cruelty.” “How dare you affirm that, Jane Eyre?” “How dare I, Mrs. Reed? How dare I? Because it is the truth. You think I have no feelings, and that I can do without one bit of love or kindness; but I cannot live so: and you have no pity. I shall remember how you thrust me back—roughly and violently thrust me back—into the red-room, and locked me up there, to my dying day; though I was in agony; though I cried out, while suffocating with distress, ‘Have mercy! Have mercy, aunt Reed!’ And that punishment you made me suffer because your wicked boy struck me—knocked me down for nothing. I will tell anybody who asks me questions, this exact tale. People think you a good woman, but you are bad; hard-hearted. You are deceitful!” Ere I had finished this reply, my soul began to expand, to exult, with the strangest sense of freedom, of triumph, I ever felt. It seemed as if an invisible bond had burst, and that I had struggled out into unhoped-for liberty.

You are advised to spend about 45 minutes on this question.

You should use the extract below and your knowledge of the whole novel to answer this question.

Write about Mr Hyde and how he is presented in the novel.

In your response you should:

• refer to the extract and the novel as a whole

• show your understanding of characters and events in the novel

• refer to the contexts of the novel

‘We have common friends,’ said Mr Utterson. ‘Common friends?’ echoed Mr Hyde, a little hoarsely. ‘Who are they?’ ‘Jekyll, for instance,’ said the lawyer. ‘He never told you,’ cried Mr Hyde, with a flush of anger. ‘I did not think you would have lied.’ ‘Come,’ said Mr Utterson, ‘that is not fitting language.’ The other snarled aloud into a savage laugh; and the next moment, with extra-ordinary quickness, he had unlocked the door and disappeared into the house. The lawyer stood awhile when Mr Hyde had left him, the picture of disquietude. Then he began slowly to mount the street, pausing every step or two and putting his hand to his brow like a man in mental perplexity. The problem he was thus debating as he walked, was one of a class that is rarely solved. Mr Hyde was pale and dwarfish, he gave an impression of deformity without any nameable malformation, he had a displeasing smile, he had borne himself to the lawyer with a sort of murderous mixture of timidity and boldness, and he spoke with a husky, whispering and somewhat broken voice; all these were points against him, but not all of these together could explain the hitherto unknown disgust, loathing and fear with which Mr Utterson regarded him. ‘There must be something else,’ said the perplexed gentleman. ‘There is something more, if I could find a name for it. God bless me, the man seems hardly human! Something troglodytic, shall we say? or can it be the old story of Dr Fell? or is it the mere radiance of a foul soul that thus transpires through, and transfigures, its clay continent? The last, I think; for O my poor old Harry Jekyll, if ever I read Satan’s signature upon a face, it is on that of your new friend.’