GCSE – NEW

C700U10-1 S17-C700U10-1

ENGLISH LANGUAGE – Component 1

20th Century Literature Reading and Creative Prose Writing

TUESDAY, 6 JUNE 2017 – MORNING

1 hour 45 minutes

ADDITIONAL MATERIALS
Resource Material for use with Section A.
A WJEC pink 16-page answer booklet.

INSTRUCTIONS TO CANDIDATES
Use black ink or black ball-point pen. Do not use pencil or gel pen. Do not use correction fluid.
Answer all questions in Section A.
Select one title to use for your writing in Section B.
Write your answers in the separate answer booklet provided, following the instructions on the front
of the answer booklet.
Use both sides of the paper. Write only within the white areas of the booklet.
Write the question number in the two boxes in the left hand margin at the start of each answer,
e.g. 0 1 .
Leave at least two line spaces between each answer.
You are advised to spend your time as follows:
Section A - about 10 minutes reading
- about 50 minutes answering the questions
Section B - about 10 minutes planning
- about 35 minutes writing

INFORMATION FOR CANDIDATES

Section A (Reading): 40 marks
Section B (Writing): 40 marks
The number of marks is given in brackets at the end of each question or part-question.

© WJEC CBAC Ltd. JD*(S17-C700U10-1)

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SECTION A: 40 marks

Read carefully the passage in the separate Resource Material. Then answer all the questions
below.

The story in the separate Resource Material is told by Ruby Lennox, who as a young girl lived
above the pet shop run by her parents. She has an older sister called Patricia.

Read lines 1-7.

0 1
List five things you learn about Ruby Lennox in these lines. [5]

Read lines 8-23.

0 2
What impressions does the writer create of the Lennox family in these lines? [5]
You must refer to the language used in the text to support your answer, using relevant
subject terminology where appropriate.

Read lines 24-35.

0 3
How does the writer show the fire spreading and becoming very serious in these
lines? [10]
You must refer to the language used in the text to support your answer, using relevant
subject terminology where appropriate.

Read lines 36-49.

0 4
How does the writer make these lines exciting and dramatic? [10]
You should write about:
• what happens in these lines to build excitement and drama
• the writer’s use of language and structure to create excitement and drama
• the effects on the reader
You must refer to the text to support your answer, using relevant subject terminology
where appropriate.

Read lines 50 to the end.

0 5
“In the last 20 or so lines of this passage, Patricia becomes a real heroine.” How far do
you agree with this view? [10]
You should write about:

• your own thoughts and feelings about how Patricia is presented here and in the
passage as a whole
• how the writer has created these thoughts and feelings.

You must refer to the text to support your answer.

© WJEC CBAC Ltd. (C700U10-1)

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SECTION B: 40 marks

In this section you will be assessed for the quality of your creative prose writing skills.

24 marks are awarded for communication and organisation; 16 marks are awarded
for vocabulary, sentence structure, spelling and punctuation.

You should aim to write about 450-600 words.

Choose one of the following titles for your writing: [40]

Either,

1 1 a) A Memorable Weekend.

Or,

1
1 b) Write about a time when you had to make a difficult choice or decision.

Or,

1 1 c) Write a story which begins:

“You are not staying here on your own. Get in the car now,” my mum said in that
voice which did not allow any argument.

Or,

1 1 Write a story which ends:

d)

I feared the worst but the teacher could not stop herself from laughing.

The space below can be used to plan your work.

END OF PAPER

© WJEC CBAC Ltd. (C700U10-1)

GCSE – NEW

C700U10-1A S17-C700U10-1A

ENGLISH LANGUAGE – Component 1

20th Century Literature Reading and Creative Prose Writing

TUESDAY, 6 JUNE 2017 – MORNING

Resource Material for use with Section A

© WJEC CBAC Ltd. JD*(S17-C700U10-1A)

 2

SECTION A: 40 marks

Read carefully the passage below.

This story is told by Ruby Lennox, who as a young girl lived above the pet shop run by her
parents. She has an older sister called Patricia.

I’m glad to say that all the pets received a lot of attention from me on the afternoon of that fateful
day. The kittens were fluffed up, Rags the puppy was stroked and the hamsters were allowed
to run along the counter. I even attempted a conversation with the parrot. It was suddenly clear
where my destiny lay – I was going to run a pet shop, like my father before me. In a few years
5 the sign above the door would no longer read ‘G. Lennox’ but ‘R. Lennox’. Here was my future!
It would no longer matter that I was not allowed to have pets of my own because all the pets
would be mine one day.
My father struggled through the door of the shop with an enormous can of paraffin in each hand,
which he deposited with a clank and a slosh next to the barrel of sawdust in the corner. I hoped
10 his cigarette didn’t jump over there.
‘Careful,’ my mother warned as I entered the kitchen. She was making sausage, egg and chips
for tea and her entire attention was concentrated on the chip pan as the sausages and eggs
started to go black in the frying pan. ‘Tea’s ready,’ she said, giving the chip pan a cautious little
shake as if she would have been much happier with a fire extinguisher in her hand. ‘Get Patricia.’
15 ‘She’s not very well,’ I told her.
Mother raised an eyebrow ever so slightly. ‘Just get her, Ruby.’
The rest of the evening was spent quietly. Father was out as usual, Patricia was in her room
reading, also as usual. I was also in my room playing Scrabble with myself while my teddy
looked on. My mother was in the kitchen with only her piles of ironing for company. Eventually
20 she abandoned the ironing and, clutching her forehead all the way up the stairs, she swallowed
a double dose of sleeping pills and dropped into oblivion on her bed. I heard my father come
in much later, tripping and cursing his way upstairs and I drifted into the night. I was dreaming
about the end of the world and so it was in some ways.
Downstairs the abandoned, forgotten iron was demonstrating its faults. My mother wasn’t to
25 know that the thermostat wasn’t working properly and that while she was snoring in her bed,
the iron was getting hotter and hotter, scorching the cloth on the ironing board until the pad
underneath began to sizzle and burn. The flames then found the wood of the ironing-board
frame and were happy for a time but then the iron’s melting lead fell to the floor and found the
carpet and a particularly energetic flame stretched up and reached the curtains. Then there
30 was no stopping it as the flame greedily gobbled up everything in its path, including the kitchen
wallpaper.
In the end even that wasn’t enough and the fire left the kitchen, popping its head out of the door
and into the shop where there were wonderful things to play with – paraffin, sawdust and the
whispering, rustling noise of fear.
35 ‘Ruby! Ruby!’
I open my eyes quickly, yet it’s not like being awake. The air is thick and Patricia is veiled in
smoke. There is a smell like burnt sausages. ‘The end of the world,’ I murmur to Patricia.
‘Get up, Ruby,’ she says urgently. She pulls back the covers and starts tugging me out of bed
but I don’t understand until she doubles up with a fit of coughing and splutters, ‘Fire, Ruby, fire.’
40 We make our way unsteadily to the bedroom door and Patricia whispers, ‘I’m not sure we can go
out there,’ as if she didn’t want the fire to hear. But she’s not whispering. It’s the smoke rasping
her throat and making her hoarse, as I discover when I try to speak. We open the door very
cautiously as if all the fires of Hell were behind it. We immediately start to choke and have to
stagger back inside, gasping and retching, hanging on to each other. We’re human chimneys.

© WJEC CBAC Ltd. (C700U10-1A)

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45 Patricia starts pulling covers off the bed and stuffing them underneath the door. Then she
flings everything out of my chest of drawers until she finds two school blouses which she wraps
around our faces. In different circumstances this could have been fun. ‘Help me,’ she croaks as
she tries to push up the window which is hopelessly stuck. I start to get hysterical and drop to
my knees with a jab of pain and pray frantically to be saved from incineration.
50 Patricia, more practical, grabs the nightlight and smashes it against the window again and again
until she’s broken all the glass. Then she takes the bedside rug and places it over the broken
glass on the window sill (Patricia really paid attention at Girl Guides, thank goodness) and we
both hang out of the window gulping in great lungfuls of cold night air. Patricia turns to me and
says, ‘It’s all right, the fire brigade will be here soon,’ knowing that neither of us believes this.
55 There is no sound of sirens, no sound of life in the street and the rest of our family are probably
little more than glowing cinders by now. Patricia’s face is suddenly convulsed by a spasm of
pain and she wheezes, ‘Pets. Someone’s got to help the pets.’ It doesn’t cross our minds to save
the family.
‘Here,’ says Patricia, pushing something into my hands, which turns out, on closer inspection,
60 to be teddy. Patricia then swings herself off the window sill and onto the drainpipe, pausing
just long enough to say, ‘Stay there, and don’t move!’ in a manner inherited directly from our
mother. She looks truly heroic as she climbs down, wearing only her pyjamas. Halfway down
she pauses, ‘Stay there, Ruby, help will be here soon.’ I believe her. You can trust Patricia.
Within minutes a stocky fireman is outside my window and I am upside down over his shoulder
65 and we are off down the ladder. Patricia is in the yard shouting encouragement, my mother
is screaming while my father is shouting something to her (probably ‘shut up’). I realise that if
everyone is down there, then I have been alone in a burning building! What a story I’ll have to
tell in later life.
Meanwhile Patricia has been wrapped in a grey blanket and she is weeping uncontrollably and
70 making horrible noises, partly due to the smoke and partly due to the fact that she has witnessed
the ruined inside of the shop and smelt the unforgettable smell of toasted fur and feather.
But then a miracle occurs. A little black dog runs into the yard, yapping itself silly, a limp, burnt
ribbon dangling from its neck. Patricia frees herself from the blanket and runs to the dog. ‘Rags,’
74 she sobs uncontrollably and hugs his singed, smoke-blackened body to her grimy pyjamas.

Kate Atkinson

© WJEC CBAC Ltd. (C700U10-1A)