AQA GCSE English Language 8700/1 - Explorations in creative ...

Mark Scheme

Introduction

The information provided for each question is intended to be a guide to the kind of answers anticipated and is neither exhaustive nor prescriptive. All appropriate responses should be given credit.

Level of response marking instructions

Level of response mark schemes are broken down into four levels (where appropriate). Read through the student's answer and annotate it (as instructed) to show the qualities that are being looked for. You can then award a mark.

You should refer to the standardising material throughout your marking. The Indicative Standard is not intended to be a model answer nor a complete response, and it does not exemplify required content. It is an indication of the quality of response that is typical for each level and shows progression from Level 1 to 4.

Step 1 Determine a level

Start at the lowest level of the mark scheme and use it as a ladder to see whether the answer meets the descriptors for that level. If it meets the lowest level then go to the next one and decide if it meets this level, and so on, until you have a match between the level descriptor and the answer. With practice and familiarity you will be able to quickly skip through the lower levels for better answers. The Indicative Standard column in the mark scheme will help you determine the correct level.

Step 2 Determine a mark

Once you have assigned a level you need to decide on the mark. Balance the range of skills achieved; allow strong performance in some aspects to compensate for others only partially fulfilled. Refer to the standardising scripts to compare standards and allocate a mark accordingly. Re-read as needed to assure yourself that the level and mark are appropriate. An answer which contains nothing of relevance must be awarded no marks.

Advice for Examiners

In fairness to students, all examiners must use the same marking methods.

1. Refer constantly to the mark scheme and standardising scripts throughout the marking period.
2. Always credit accurate, relevant and appropriate responses that are not necessarily covered by the mark scheme or the standardising scripts.
3. Use the full range of marks. Do not hesitate to give full marks if the response merits it.
4. Remember the key to accurate and fair marking is consistency.
5. If you have any doubt about how to allocate marks to a response, consult your Team Leader.

SECTION A: READING - Assessment Objectives

AO1

• Identify and interpret explicit and implicit information and ideas.
• Select and synthesise evidence from different texts.

AO2

• Explain, comment on and analyse how writers use language and structure to achieve effects and influence readers, using relevant subject terminology to support their views.

AO3

• Compare writers' ideas and perspectives, as well as how these are conveyed, across two or more texts.

AO4

• Evaluate texts critically and support this with appropriate textual references.

SECTION B: WRITING - Assessment Objectives

AO5 (Writing: Content and Organisation)

• Communicate clearly, effectively and imaginatively, selecting and adapting tone, style and register for different forms, purposes and audiences.
• Organise information and ideas, using structural and grammatical features to support coherence and cohesion of texts.

AO6

• Candidates must use a range of vocabulary and sentence structures for clarity, purpose and effect, with accurate spelling and punctuation. (This requirement must constitute 20% of the marks for each specification as a whole).

Answers

Question 1 - Mark Scheme

Read again the first part of the source, from lines 1 to 9. Answer all parts of this question. Choose one answer for each. [4 marks]

Assessment focus (AO1): Identify and interpret explicit and implicit information and ideas. This assesses bullet point 1 (identify and interpret explicit and implicit information and ideas).

• 1.1 Where does the man sit?: On a box – 1 mark
• 1.2 What did the adult do with the pan?: Dropped it – 1 mark
• 1.3 What was arranged?: the child – 1 mark
• 1.4 What does the child do while asking whether the cows will go to sleep?: The child catches her breath – 1 mark

Question 2 - Mark Scheme

Look in detail at this extract, from lines 11 to 20 of the source:

11 And the two sat still listening to the snuffing and breathing of cows feeding in the sheds communicating with this small barn. The lantern shed a soft, steady light from one wall. All outside was still in the rain. He looked down at the silky folds of the paisley shawl. It reminded him of his mother. She

16 used to go to church in it. He was back again in the old irresponsibility and security, a boy at home. The two sat very quiet. His mind, in a sort of trance, seemed to become more and more vague. He held the child close to him. A quivering little shudder,

How does the writer use language here to create mood and show the man's thoughts? You could include the writer's choice of:

• words and phrases
• language features and techniques
• sentence forms.

[8 marks]

Question 2 (AO2) – Language Analysis (8 marks)

Explain, comment on and analyse how writers use language and structure to achieve effects and influence readers, using relevant subject terminology to support their views. This question assesses language (words, phrases, features, techniques, sentence forms).

Level 4 (Perceptive, detailed analysis) – 7–8 marks Shows perceptive and detailed understanding of language: analyses effects of choices; selects judicious detail; sophisticated and accurate terminology. Indicative Standard: The writer crafts a hushed, cocooning mood through sensory imagery and sibilance: the auditory "snuffing and breathing" with cumulative participles "feeding" and "communicating with this small barn", and the gentle visuals/tactility of "soft, steady light" and "silky folds", while short declaratives like "All outside was still in the rain" and "The two sat very quiet" slow the rhythm like breathing. To reveal the man’s thoughts, the prose uses nostalgic regression and trance-like diction—"It reminded him of his mother", "He was back again in the old irresponsibility and security", "in a sort of trance", "more and more vague"—tempered by the intimate action "He held the child close to him", showing his mind dissolving into reverie even as protective instinct persists.

The writer crafts a hushed mood through sensory imagery and sound-patterning. The auditory detail of the cows’ “snuffing and breathing” employs onomatopoeia and sibilance, creating a soft hush that lulls both characters and reader. Even the buildings are personified: the “sheds communicating with this small barn” suggests a quiet, intimate conversation, making the place feel communal. Similarly, the lantern “shed a soft, steady light”: the paired, monosyllabic adjectives slow the pace, while “All outside was still in the rain” layers calm over movement, the rain like a muffling blanket.

Furthermore, the shawl functions as a trigger and symbol, opening the man’s interiority. The tactile phrase “silky folds of the paisley shawl” evokes care, and “It reminded him of his mother… She used to go to church in it” brings in sanctity and ritual. The abstract nouns “irresponsibility and security” pair freedom from duty with safety, revealing his thoughts sliding back into childhood: “a boy at home.”

Moreover, sentence form mirrors his drift. The paratactic simple declaratives (“The two sat very quiet”) and anaphoric “And” create a lullaby-like cadence. “His mind, in a sort of trance, seemed to become more and more vague” uses metaphor and incremental repetition to show thought dissolving. The diminutive “a quivering little shudder,” and the unfinished, minor sentence enact a half-formed feeling, while “He held the child close” grounds the mood in protective tenderness. Together, these choices generate a serene, cocooned atmosphere and reveal a mind easing from present strain into the safe blur of memory.

Level 3 (Clear, relevant explanation) – 5–6 marks Shows clear understanding; explains effects; relevant detail; clear and accurate terminology. Indicative Standard: Soft sibilant sounds and sensory imagery—“soft, steady light,” “All outside was still in the rain,” the tactile “silky folds,” and the animal “snuffing and breathing”—create a calm, cocooned mood. Short, reflective sentences (“It reminded him of his mother. She used to go to church in it.”) and nostalgic diction like “old irresponsibility and security” show his thoughts drifting inward, as “His mind, in a sort of trance, seemed to become more and more vague” and the final “A quivering little shudder,” hint at fragile emotion beneath the calm.

The writer creates a hushed, sheltered mood through sensory detail and sound. The auditory imagery of "snuffing and breathing of cows" and the present participles suggest a continuous, lulling background, while sibilance in "soft, steady light" soothes the scene. Even "All outside was still in the rain" juxtaposes motion with stillness, implying a cocoon of calm inside the barn.

Furthermore, the man's thoughts are shown through memory triggered by tactile description. The noun phrase "silky folds of the paisley shawl" carries comforting connotations and "reminded him of his mother"; the simple clause "She used to go to church in it" evokes routine and safety. The abstract nouns "irresponsibility and security" and the metaphor "a boy at home" show regression to childhood and a longing for protection, for the reader to understand his vulnerability.

Moreover, sentence forms mirror his drifting mind. The simple sentence "The two sat very quiet" slows the pace, while the phrase "in a sort of trance" and the intensifier "more and more vague" present his thoughts blurring. Additionally, "He held the child close to him" signals tenderness, and the minor sentence "A quivering little shudder," with the diminutive "little", captures fragile emotion, sustaining the intimate, reflective mood.

Level 2 (Some understanding and comment) – 3–4 marks Attempts to comment on effects; some appropriate detail; some use of terminology. Indicative Standard: A Level 2 response typically identifies calm mood through sensory imagery and adjectives like "snuffing and breathing" and "soft, steady light", with repetition of "still" to show quiet. It would also notice simple, short sentences such as "It reminded him of his mother" and phrases like "in a sort of trance" and "old irresponsibility and security" to show his thoughts drifting to childhood, while "He held the child close to him" and "A quivering little shudder" suggest emotion and comfort.

The writer uses sensory imagery to create a calm, hushed mood. The sounds of “snuffing and breathing” and the sibilance in “soft, steady light” and “still” make the scene feel quiet and gentle, so the reader senses peace.

Furthermore, descriptive words and the shawl show the man’s thoughts moving to the past. The “silky folds of the paisley shawl” give touch and sight imagery, and “It reminded him of his mother” and “used to go to church” show nostalgia. The phrase “old irresponsibility and security” suggests he feels safe, “a boy at home.”

Additionally, sentence forms reveal his drifting mind. Short, simple lines like “The two sat very quiet” and “in a sort of trance… vague” show his thoughts slowing. However, “He held the child close” and “A quivering little shudder” hint at a small worry beneath the calm mood.

Level 1 (Simple, limited comment) – 1–2 marks Simple awareness; simple comment; simple references; simple terminology. Indicative Standard: The writer uses calm adjectives and stillness words like "soft, steady light", "sat still", "still in the rain" and sound words "snuffing and breathing" to create a quiet mood. Simple sentences and memory phrases such as "It reminded him of his mother", "The two sat very quiet" and "old irresponsibility and security" show his thoughts drifting back and feeling safe.

The writer uses sensory language to make a calm mood, for example “snuffing and breathing” and “soft, steady light.” The adjectives “soft, steady” and the word “still” make it quiet and peaceful. Moreover, the shawl “reminded him of his mother” and “old irresponsibility and security” shows his thoughts go back to childhood, so he feels safe. Furthermore, the short sentence “The two sat very quiet” and “in a sort of trance” show his mind slowing down. Additionally, “He held the child close” and “A quivering little shudder” suggest tender emotion and a slight fear.

Level 0 – No marks: Nothing to reward.

AO2 content may include the effects of language features such as:

• Natural auditory imagery establishes a hushed, pastoral calm: snuffing and breathing
• Sibilance and stillness reinforce quiet concentration and poise: sat still listening
• Gentle adjectival pairing creates warmth and security: soft, steady light
• Contrast of interior calm with weather intensifies the cocooned mood: still in the rain
• Tactile-visual precision focuses his gaze and slows pace: silky folds
• Associative memory reveals tender, reflective thoughts: reminded him of his mother
• Lexis of regression suggests comfort and escape from burdens: irresponsibility and security
• Appositive image crystallises his mental return to childhood: a boy at home
• Diction of drifting consciousness shows detachment from the present: sort of trance
• Sentence fragment and physical response hint at underlying emotion: quivering little shudder

Question 3 - Mark Scheme

You now need to think about the structure of the source as a whole. This text is from the end of a story.

How has the writer structured the text to create a sense of awe?

You could write about:

• how awe intensifies by the end of the source
• how the writer uses structure to create an effect
• the writer's use of any other structural features, such as changes in mood, tone or perspective. [8 marks]

Question 3 (AO2) – Structural Analysis (8 marks)

Assesses structure (pivotal point, juxtaposition, flashback, focus shifts, mood/tone, contrast, narrative pace, etc.).

Level 4 (Perceptive, detailed analysis) – 7–8 marks Analyses effects of structural choices; judicious examples; sophisticated terminology. Indicative Standard: A Level 4 response would trace the structural arc from enclosed domestic calm to metaphysical vastness, showing how the narrative widens—through setting shifts and a developed listening motif—from barn and child to the wife’s uncanny liminality and finally out into the night. It would analyse how shifts in setting and tone, anchored by the pivoting rhetorical question (What was he listening for?), carry us from timeless stillness and from beyond life through the not human/impersonal look to the surrender of great, scalding peace, the swift, unseen threshing, and the closing infinite world, eternal, unchanging, showing how each widening step heightens awe.

One way the writer structures the text to create awe is through controlled deceleration and temporal suspension. The parataxis of “He held her closer. Gradually she relaxed” slows the narrative pace into hush, while the sensory soundscape (“snuffing and breathing,” “soft, steady light,” “all outside was still”) prepares a liminal calm. This culminates in the structural pivot, “When he came to… a timeless stillness,” where a rhetorical question—“What was he listening for?”—tilts the focus “from beyond life.” The sequence from tangible detail to metaphysical listening enlarges the frame, so awe arises as time seems to pause and the ordinary dilates into the ineffable.

In addition, the writer orchestrates escalating shifts in focus—from the intimate child to the labouring wife and finally to the night—to amplify scale. The dash in “the owls—the moaning of the woman” fuses human and elemental sound, a hinge that moves the narrative from domestic interior to the vast exterior. This outward trajectory climaxes when he lifts his face “to the rain,” before the final, aphoristic coda: “There was the infinite world, eternal, unchanging.” The strategic end-focus and balanced clause function as a universalising denouement, intensifying awe at the close.

A further structural feature is internal analepsis and motif. Memories (“the paisley shawl,” “a young man, untouched”) widen temporal breadth, while repeated images of eyes and sleep (the child’s “not quite shut,” the wife’s closing) create patterning. Sustained close focalisation tracks his movement from dread to “a great, scalding peace… into the infinite,” and the final surrender to the “swift, unseen threshing of the night” juxtaposes enclosure with vastness, leaving the reader humbled alongside him.

Level 3 (Clear, relevant explanation) – 5–6 marks Explains effects; relevant examples; clear terminology. Indicative Standard: Structurally, the writer widens the focus from intimate calm to cosmic scale: beginning with "The two sat very quiet" and "timeless stillness", moving through the impersonal, elemental encounter ("female to male", "A great, scalding peace"), and culminating in nature’s vastness ("The swift, unseen threshing of the night", "There was the infinite world"). Pauses and a reflective question ("What was he listening for?") plus shifts in setting (barn, house, bedroom, outside) and tone (domestic to transcendent) slow the pace and intensify awe by the end.

One way in which the writer has structured the text to create awe is by slowing the narrative pace into silence. Short, simple clauses—'The two sat very quiet... He held the child... Gradually she relaxed'—stretch time until he sits in 'a timeless stillness'. The rhetorical question 'What was he listening for?' marks a shift from the physical scene to something 'from beyond life', making the mood hushed and reverent.

In addition, the writer intensifies awe through shifts in focus and tone. The narrative moves from the sleeping child to the wife's labour; the domestic is juxtaposed with the 'uncanny' and 'not human'. The third-person perspective on him frames childbirth as elemental: she regards him 'female to male', and he feels 'a great, scalding peace'. This escalation from caregiving to a primal encounter makes the experience feel larger than them.

A further structural feature is the final zoom out in setting. After her pain, he steps outside; the 'swift, unseen threshing of the night' silences him before the ending widens to 'the infinite world, eternal, unchanging'. This outward shift resolves the scene and echoes the earlier 'timeless stillness', leaving a humbled, awed perspective.

Level 2 (Some understanding and comment) – 3–4 marks Attempts to comment; some examples; some terminology. Indicative Standard: The writer builds awe by moving from quiet, homely calm (“sat still listening”, “soft, steady light”) to the intense childbirth scene (“moaning”, “not human”), and finally zooming out to the vast finish with “the infinite world, eternal, unchanging”. This shift in focus (child → woman → nature) makes it feel like he goes beyond ordinary life to something “from beyond life”, so the awe intensifies by the end.

One way the writer structures the ending to create awe is by moving the focus from small, homely details at the beginning to vast ideas by the end. It starts in the barn with ‘the lantern’ and the cows breathing, which feels close and calm. Later, the focus widens to ‘timeless stillness’ and listening for a sound ‘from beyond life’, so the scene feels bigger and more awesome.

In addition, the pace slows with short sentences and questions. ‘He remained suspended.’ and ‘What was he listening for?’ break up the action in the middle and create a hush, making us pause.

A further structural feature is the change of setting and final shift outside. The text goes from barn to house to bedroom to night, and ends with ‘the infinite world, eternal, unchanging’. Ending on nature contrasts with birth and makes awe peak at the close.

Level 1 (Simple, limited comment) – 1–2 marks Simple awareness; simple references; simple terminology. Indicative Standard: The writer builds awe towards the end by moving from calm moments like The two sat very quiet and a timeless stillness to the outside where he lifted his face to the rain. The final line There was the infinite world, eternal, unchanging makes it feel big and powerful.

One way the writer structures the text is by using short paragraphs and some short sentences as the child falls asleep. This slows the pace and creates quiet, so the awe begins (“timeless stillness”).

In addition, there is a clear shift in focus and setting: from the barn, to the woman’s room, then outside. This movement makes the scene feel bigger and increases the awe.

A further feature is the ending as a final climax. Putting “the infinite world” last leaves a strong final image, so the structure ends with awe.

Level 0 – No marks: Nothing to reward.

AO2 content may include the effect of structural features such as:

• Quiet opening stillness frames a reverent baseline so later moments feel larger and numinous (sat still listening)
• Flashback via the shawl to mother and church layers tradition and reverence, deepening the sacred mood (used to go to church)
• Time dilates as his mind drifts, creating meditative space in which awe can grow (timeless stillness)
• Rhetorical questioning pushes attention beyond the immediate toward the transcendent, guiding awe (from beyond life)
• Structural pivot from child to wife raises emotional and existential stakes, intensifying awe (go back to her)
• Sound-linking across spaces fuses home and night into an eerie whole, heightening wonder (the moaning of the woman)
• Shift from personal to archetypal roles elevates the scene from private to elemental, evoking awe (an impersonal look)
• Emotional peak resolves into transcendence, releasing tension into vast, numinous peace (into the infinite)
• Final widening of scope from room to rain to cosmos ends in humbled recognition of order (the infinite world)
• Alternation of brisk movement and long pauses builds a swelling rhythm toward the sublime (He rose quickly)

Question 4 - Mark Scheme

For this question focus on the second part of the source, from line 16 to the end.

In this part of the source, the husband sees his wife in labour and thinks she looks 'not human'. The writer suggests that this powerful experience has made her seem completely different and separate from him.

To what extent do you agree and/or disagree with this statement?

In your response, you could:

• consider your impressions of the husband's perception of his wife
• comment on the methods the writer uses to suggest the distance between them
• support your response with references to the text. [20 marks]

Question 4 (AO4) – Critical Evaluation (20 marks)

Evaluate texts critically and support with appropriate textual references.

Level 4 (Perceptive, detailed evaluation) – 16–20 marks Perceptive ideas; perceptive methods; critical detail on impact; judicious detail. Indicative Standard: Level 4: A sophisticated response would largely agree that the writer foregrounds estrangement through repetition and impersonalisation—she is 'not human', 'other than himself', and 'did not know him as himself' but recognises him 'as the man', with an archetypal 'female to male' gaze. It would also analyse how paradox and cosmic imagery (his 'great, scalding peace' within an 'infinite world, eternal, unchanging') complicate that distance, suggesting awe that transcends personal alienation.

I largely agree that, in this section, the husband perceives his labouring wife as “completely different and separate,” but the writer complicates that alienation by recasting their bond as impersonal and elemental rather than personal. Structurally, the passage tracks his movement from a childlike retreat into himself to a confrontation with something “beyond life,” and this trajectory frames her as “not human” while also enlarging his sense of their connection.

Before he returns to her, the narrative interiority places him “in a sort of trance,” listening “for some sound a long way off, from beyond life.” This liminal register predisposes him to hear her moans as otherworldly. The auditory image, “There was the sound of the owls—the moaning of the woman,” operates as a stark apposition equating nature’s call with her voice. The aside “It was not human—at least to a man” uses the dash to signal subjective qualification, foregrounding that his male perspective renders her cries uncanny. This supports the statement: from his vantage, labour dehumanises, or at least de-familiarises, her.

Once inside, the description intensifies the estrangement. Her hair “loose over her temples” and a mouth “shut with suffering in a sort of grin” combine tenderness with grotesquerie; the oxymoron “grin” with “suffering” feels alien to ordinary human expression. He thinks, “She was beautiful to him—but it was not human.” The adversative conjunction crystallises his conflicted awe. The rhetorical question “What had she to do with him?” and the blunt declarative “She was other than himself” assert distance; the repetition of “she”/“himself” polarises them as separate entities.

Yet the writer then shifts from personal to archetypal recognition. Compelled, he “touch[es] her fingers,” and her “brown-grey eyes” give “an impersonal look… female to male.” The noun phrase strips them down to roles: “the man… the woman,” which de-personalises yet also binds them within a primal economy of creation. She “did not know him as himself. But she knew him as the man”—a chiasmic pivot that both confirms difference and forges a deeper, non-individual bond. The visceral paradox “a great, scalding peace” (synaesthetic, oxymoronic) and “his heart in torture… his bowels were glad” suggest a metaphysical reconciliation that transcends the personal rupture.

Finally, the pathetic fallacy outside—“rain,” “the swift, unseen threshing of the night”—and the personification of darkness culminate in the cosmic statement: “the infinite world, eternal, unchanging, as well as the world of life.” Humbled, he apprehends a scale on which her “not human” aspect is not alien but elemental. Overall, I agree to a great extent: labour renders her separate from him as a husband; however, the writer reframes that separation as a stark, impersonal, and ultimately awe-filled connection at the level of “female to male” and the “infinite” beyond the personal.

Level 3 (Clear, relevant evaluation) – 11–15 marks Clear ideas; clear methods; clear evaluation of impact; relevant references. Indicative Standard: A Level 3 response would mostly agree, explaining that the writer makes the wife seem distant through the husband’s perception of her cry as “not human—at least to a man” and her gaze as “an impersonal look, in the extreme hour, female to male”, so she is “other than himself.” It would also note a lingering bond in his reaction—“a great, scalding peace”—suggesting the separation is powerful but not absolute.

I largely agree that the writer presents the wife as “not human” to her husband, making her seem different and separate in this moment. However, the separation is not simple rejection; the scene also transforms their bond into something impersonal and elemental rather than personal.

The build-up already shifts him out of ordinary life. The trance-like narration (“timeless stillness,” “from beyond life”) creates a detached mood. Auditory imagery links nature and labour: “the owls—the moaning of the woman.” The dash fuses the two sounds, and the aside “not human—at least to a man” foregrounds the male perspective, suggesting a gendered distance.

Inside the room, the visual description is stark: “eyes shut, pale, tired,” with her mouth in “a sort of grin.” The repeated assertion “it was not human” and the conjunction “but” in “She was beautiful to him—but it was not human” intensify his alienation. Rhetorical questioning (“What had she to do with him?”) and the blunt statement “She was other than himself” convey dread and separation.

Yet the writer complicates this distance. Antithesis in “She did not know him as himself. But she knew him as the man” shifts them from personal identities to archetypal roles. The phrase “an impersonal look… female to male” implies a primal, universal connection. His reaction is rendered through oxymoronic, visceral imagery: a “great, scalding peace… burning his heart and his entrails,” while her pains are “tearing” her. Structurally, he turns aside and goes outside; the personification of nature (“darkness striking,” the “threshing of the night”) and the final contrast between the “infinite world” and the “world of life” underline his humbled separation from the immediate, including her. Still, the tender action of touching “her fingers” and fearing she was dead shows continuing care.

Overall, I agree to a large extent: the experience makes her seem other and distant to him, but the writer also suggests a profound, impersonal connection that replaces closeness rather than erasing it.

Level 2 (Some evaluation) – 6–10 marks Some understanding; some methods; some evaluative comments; some references. Indicative Standard: A Level 2 response would mostly agree, showing some understanding with simple quotes that the husband feels distance and strangeness, picking out phrases like "not human", "other than himself", "an impersonal look", "He had a dread of her", and the eerie sound of "the owls—the moaning of the woman". It might briefly add a basic counterpoint with "She was beautiful to him", but still say the writer makes her seem separate from him.

I mostly agree that the husband sees his wife as “not human” and separate from him during labour. The writer uses sound imagery and contrast to show his distance. Before he goes in, he sits in a “timeless stillness” and seems to listen for something “from beyond life,” which sets an uncanny tone. When he hears the “owls—the moaning of the woman,” he calls it “uncanny” and “not human—at least to a man.” The dash and the phrase “to a man” suggest a barrier of understanding between male and female.

Inside the room, the description makes her seem changed. He thinks she is “beautiful… but it was not human,” which is a clear juxtaposition. The rhetorical question, “What had she to do with him?” and the statement “She was other than himself” emphasise separation. The writer also shows an “impersonal look… female to male”; she “did not know him as himself… but… as the man.” This reduction to roles creates distance, as if their personal relationship is suspended in this “extreme hour.”

However, there are brief moments of connection. When he touches her fingers, he feels a “great, scalding peace,” and the visceral imagery “his bowels were glad” shows a deep, bodily link to what is happening. Yet he “turned aside, and could not look,” and the structure of him going outside into the rain and “darkness” suggests he retreats. The final image of the “infinite world, eternal, unchanging” works as symbolism for something bigger than them, keeping them apart.

Overall, I agree to a large extent: the writer presents labour as a powerful, almost inhuman experience that makes her seem different and separate, though a primal connection still remains.

Level 1 (Simple, limited) – 1–5 marks Simple ideas; limited methods; simple evaluation; simple references. Indicative Standard: A typical Level 1 response would mostly agree, simply noting that the husband says it is "not human", that "she was other than himself", and that she gives him an "impersonal look", which shows he sees her as different and separate from him.

I mostly agree with the statement. In this part, the husband sees his wife as strange and far from him. At first he goes back to his old room, “the room he had had before he married”, and remembers being “a young man, untouched”. This contrast shows he is separate from her and their present life.

When he hears her labour, the sound is “uncanny” and “not human—at least to a man”, which makes her experience seem beyond him. The writer’s word choice suggests distance. When he enters, he thinks she is “beautiful… but it was not human” and he even “had a dread of her.” The question “What had she to do with him?” and the line “She was other than himself” clearly show separation.

The writer also uses impersonal language: she “did not know him as himself… but… as the man,” and gives him an “impersonal look… female to male.” This makes them feel like opposites. He “could not look” during her pains and goes outside into the rain and the “infinite world,” which sounds like another world from hers.

Overall, I agree that the writer presents her as different and separate in this powerful moment.

Level 0 – No marks: Nothing to reward. Note: Reference to methods and explicit “I agree/I disagree” may be implicit and still credited according to quality.

AO4 content may include the evaluation of ideas and methods such as:

• Animalistic/nature sound comparison frames her labour as uncanny and beyond male understanding, stressing separation (not human)
• Juxtaposing beauty with inhumanity creates admiring yet alienated perception, supporting the idea she seems transformed and apart (beautiful to him)
• Rhetorical questioning reveals psychological estrangement and doubt about their bond, heightening perceived separation (What had she to do)
• Categorical assertion of difference makes the distance explicit, reinforcing his sense she is beyond him in this moment (other than himself)
• Impersonal gaze/role reduction strips personal intimacy to archetypes, intensifying the gulf between individuals (did not know him as himself)
• Averting his eyes shows emotional incapacity to engage fully, embodying the distance the experience has created (could not look)
• Fear and awe merge into dread, casting her as uncanny Other rather than partner (dread of her)
• Tender physical contact complicates the distance, suggesting residual care and connection despite alienation (touch her fingers)
• Primal empathetic response implies a simultaneous, bodily link to the process, moderating the claim of complete separateness (bowels were glad)
• Cosmic/infinite imagery shifts his focus from the personal to the universal, placing her ordeal in a realm apart from him (infinite world, eternal, unchanging)

Question 5 - Mark Scheme

Your local history group is publishing a booklet of creative writing about unsolved mysteries.

Choose one of the options below for your entry.

• Option A: Describe a sealed or hidden room from your imagination. You may choose to use the picture provided for ideas:

• Option B: Write the opening of a story about finding an object that does not belong.

(24 marks for content and organisation, 16 marks for technical accuracy) [40 marks]

(24 marks for content and organisation • 16 marks for technical accuracy) [40 marks]

Question 5 (AO5) – Content & Organisation (24 marks)

Communicate clearly, effectively and imaginatively; organise information and ideas to support coherence and cohesion. Levels and typical features follow AQA’s SAMs grid for descriptive/narrative writing. Use the Level 4 → Level 1 descriptors for content and organisation, distinguishing Upper/Lower bands within Levels 4–3–2.

• Level 4 (19–24 marks) Upper 22–24: Convincing and compelling; assured register; extensive and ambitious vocabulary; varied and inventive structure; compelling ideas; fluent paragraphing with seamless discourse markers.

Lower 19–21: Convincing; extensive vocabulary; varied and effective structure; highly engaging with developed complex ideas; consistently coherent paragraphs.

• Level 3 (13–18 marks) Upper 16–18: Consistently clear; register matched; increasingly sophisticated vocabulary and phrasing; effective structural features; engaging, clear connected ideas; coherent paragraphs with integrated markers.

Lower 13–15: Generally clear; vocabulary chosen for effect; usually effective structure; engaging with connected ideas; usually coherent paragraphs.

• Level 2 (7–12 marks) Upper 10–12: Some sustained success; some sustained matching of register/purpose; conscious vocabulary; some devices; some structural features; increasing variety of linked ideas; some paragraphs and markers.

Lower 7–9: Some success; attempts to match register/purpose; attempts to vary vocabulary; attempts structural features; some linked ideas; attempts at paragraphing with markers.

• Level 1 (1–6 marks) Upper 4–6: Simple communication; simple awareness of register/purpose; simple vocabulary/devices; evidence of simple structural features; one or two relevant ideas; random paragraphing.

Lower 1–3: Limited communication; occasional sense of audience/purpose; limited or no structural features; one or two unlinked ideas; no paragraphs.

Level 0: Nothing to reward. NB: If a candidate does not directly address the focus of the task, cap AO5 at 12 (top of Level 2).

Question 5 (AO6) – Technical Accuracy (16 marks)

Students must use a range of vocabulary and sentence structures for clarity, purpose and effect, with accurate spelling and punctuation.

• Level 4 (13–16): Consistently secure demarcation; wide range of punctuation with high accuracy; full range of sentence forms; secure Standard English and complex grammar; high accuracy in spelling, including ambitious vocabulary; extensive and ambitious vocabulary.

• Level 3 (9–12): Mostly secure demarcation; range of punctuation mostly successful; variety of sentence forms; mostly appropriate Standard English; generally accurate spelling including complex/irregular words; increasingly sophisticated vocabulary.

• Level 2 (5–8): Mostly secure demarcation (sometimes accurate); some control of punctuation range; attempts variety of sentence forms; some use of Standard English; some accurate spelling of more complex words; varied vocabulary.

• Level 1 (1–4): Occasional demarcation; some evidence of conscious punctuation; simple sentence forms; occasional Standard English; accurate basic spelling; simple vocabulary.

• Level 0: Spelling, punctuation, etc., are sufficiently poor to prevent understanding or meaning.

Model Answers

The following model answers demonstrate both AO5 (Content & Organisation) and AO6 (Technical Accuracy) at each level. Each response shows the expected standard for both assessment objectives.

• Level 4 Upper (22-24 marks for AO5, 13-16 marks for AO6, 35-40 marks total)

Option A:

The door hunched at the end of the corridor, a stubborn bruise of wood and iron, sullen with secrecy. Its timbers were knotted like clenched muscle; the grain rose in ridges where damp had swelled it, then retreated, leaving a landscape of scars. Bolts protruded—black, blunt, imperative—each one an iron sentence passed long ago. When my fingers brushed the cold metal, it tinged the skin with a faint scent of rust, of rain remembered.

The first bolt shifted reluctantly; the second slid with a low, grinding sigh; the third refused, then yielded, a grudging click dispersing the silence like a dropped pin in a church. Air leaked at the threshold—thin, stale, patient—carrying the faint musk of moth, old paper, and something medicinal, like lavender crushed years ago and left to sleep. The handle was heavy. It turned. The hinges complained.

Inside, the light arrived in a narrow blade, a pale sabre bisecting the darkness. Dust rose, startled, then drifted back—soft, deliberate—as if time itself were powdered. The room’s breath was cool and held. Cloth-draped shapes crouched along the walls, ghostly silhouettes rendered anonymous by sheets that had yellowed and stiffened. Wallpaper—once botanical, perhaps—had paled to a faint palimpsest: a vine, a leaf, a bloom, each pattern blanching into the next, as though it were shy of being seen. Floorboards registered my weight with a series of tight-lipped creaks.

In that sliver of light, details were precise, almost forensic. A cracked mirror leaned on a mantel, its mercury mottled, its frame chipped into little moons; it reflected a version of the room where edges bled and corners furred. The smell thickened around a closed trunk banded with verdigris, its brass buckle dull as weathered bone. On a bureau, a glass jar—clouded, stoppered—held a tumble of buttons, mother-of-pearl winking mutely. A clock on the wall had stopped at seventeen minutes past four: not broken, exactly, just paused, as if listening for permission to continue.

There were other relics: a high-backed chair with caning frayed to lace, a typewriter under a veil of gauze, a small tin soldier fallen on his side beneath the skirting. A child’s marble—sea-green, opalescent—had rolled into a shallow warp between boards and lodged there stubbornly, as though waiting for a hand that would not return. Above, the ceiling wore a delicate geography of hairline cracks; in one corner a spider’s lattice was needle-fine, beaded, an architecture more patient than mine.

The room felt expectant. Not hostile; not welcoming; simply exacting, like a witness who refuses the easy truth. Even my breath sounded unbecomingly loud. My pulse tapped in my ear; somewhere a drop fell—slow, then slower—backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards, marking not time but echo. It is sentimental to say time stood still; here it had the decency to hesitate.

I lifted the corner of a cloth. Dust unfurled. Beneath lay a piano, its keys a chequered grin, ivory crazed into hairline chandeliers. I touched one; the note emerged frail and almost aqueous, as if dredged from the bottom of a lake. Another—sharper, more obstinate—flinched into silence. Who sealed you, little room, and for whom?

When I stepped back, the light narrowed, then thinned, then withdrew. The door drew close with a measured authority, the bolts sliding home—one, two, three—with the certainty of an old habit. Beyond the wood, beyond the iron, the room resumed its composure, holding what it held, not quite asleep, not entirely awake, a careful pocket stitched into the house, keeping its secrets—because it could, because it must.

Option B:

August. The month that ferments fruit on the branch; pavements shimmer. In the new flat, paint still breathed its plasticky promise and the rooms felt taut, as if the walls had been cinched with packing tape. Our life sat in brown, ribbed skins—boxes stacked like a squat skyline. The city kept insisting—sirens threading noon, pigeons heckling the balcony—while we unscrolled ourselves across someone else’s floorboards.

I knelt by the box labelled KITCHEN—oversized capitals I’d scrawled at midnight—and worried at the brown tape until the gummed cross surrendered with a soft rip. Inside: skeins of newspaper, a stipple of bubble wrap, the familiar clatter of our metal—a sieve, spoons, the cheap peeler. The air smelled of dust and lemon cleaner; somewhere, Mum was coaxing a plug socket back to life.

Under a throat of newsprint, something too smooth to be ours glinted: a pocket watch, anachronistic, a small heavy moon of brushed silver with a hinge nicked by use and a face the colour of old milk. Cool against my fingers despite the heat. An engraving on the back caught the light—E.M.—curled in a script we don’t speak at home. The glass wasn’t cracked; the stem was crowned like a thimble.

It did not belong: incongruous, quietly insolent. Not to us (we own no heirlooms, only manuals); not to the room; not to the brazen, plastic present. Our kitchen things are bright and hollow; this had a weight you feel in the wrist. Who had put it in our box? The moving men? Or the flat itself, coughing up a secret with the dust? And yet, it felt as if it had chosen us.

I thumbed the crown. The lid snicked open and the watch offered its tiny theatre: Roman numerals stern and slender, a hairline crack, a second hand skating—no, tugging—anticlockwise. The sound, once heard, could not be unheard: tick-tock in reverse, as if it swallowed minutes instead of spending them. From the hinge came, absurdly, a breath of brine, the way seashells pretend to remember the ocean—salt, metal, rain on hot stone.

I should have called Mum. Instead, I let the lid fall and hid it, cupped in both palms as if it might bruise. The initials—E.M.—were a private echo. Me. Backwards. Too neat to ignore, too silly to say aloud. Outside, a siren climbed then vanished. The flat seemed to brace. I slipped the watch into my pocket and reached for the peeler, because dinner would not chop itself; because time, even when it runs the wrong way, insists on being filled.

I told myself I’d find its owner and hand it over. I told myself it was nothing, really—just a mistake. But the flat, listening, did not agree.

• Level 4 Lower (19-21 marks for AO5, 13-16 marks for AO6, 32-37 marks total)

Option A:

The corridor narrows as if wary of what waits at its end. The door hunkers there: a slab of oak ribbed with age, banded by iron that has swollen into orange scabs. Bolts bite into their sockets; the padlock hangs like a heavy tongue. Even before it opens, you can smell the room beyond—cold dust and old iron, a breath that has been held too long. The light here goes thin and serious; it brushes the grain and recoils.

When the bolts slide—stubborn, reluctant—the sound is a rasp across the years. The hinge does not swing; it complains, and stale air moves past in a tired exhale. Dust swirls up in a stammering dance, each mote turning like a small planet around a spill of light. What business does light have in a place that trained itself to forget it?

Inside, the room seems at once tight and vast, as if it has its own weather. The floor crunches lightly underfoot; a brittle skin of grit gives way. Against the left wall a long table lingers under a stained cloth; the cloth has grown a bloom of green in its folds. There is a country of objects here: jars clouded with their own breath; a clock with a frozen second hand; a mirror greyed into secrecy; a heap of letters tied with ribbon. A decanter stands with its ghost of amber, stronger in scent than in volume; the sweetness has curdled into something medicinal.

The walls are pale where sunlight never dared, but along the skirting a darker tide has crept upwards, slow and sure. The paint remembers fingers; the plaster remembers the weight of frames; even the nails have left deliberate commas in the skin. A map curls on a hook, continents breaking at the edges; a child’s height marks climb up the doorframe in pencil, then stop. Overhead, the webbing is fine as frost and holds the room together; threads converge at the black coin of a patient spider.

Pipes run under the windowless lintel—arteries—carrying the cold. Somewhere to the right, behind boards, water knocks; the house has a heartbeat you can only hear in this chamber. Time is not absent; it is concentrated. The room is a lung, a locked chest, a throat clear of voices; it waits. When the door closes again, the dust falls, the light retreats, and everything returns to its practised stillness; sealed, hidden, yet somehow watchful.

Option B:

Saturday mornings in the school hall felt like the inside of a clock: emptied of voices yet still ticking. Light slid in through the high windows in pale ladders, catching the motes and making them dance, as if the dust had been waiting all week for its quiet performance. Stacked chairs rose in precarious towers; masking tape lines, dulled by a hundred squeaking trainers, marked courts that no one was playing on. The scent of floor polish — sharp and almost medicinal — lingered over the faint sweetness of yesterday’s apples left in a bin. It was my job to pack everything away, to restore order; to tuck the week into cupboards and turn the key.

I moved in a rhythm I knew by heart, cones into crates, balls into nets, the portable speaker that never worked into its box as if it might behave if I treated it kindly. The caretaker shuffled somewhere beyond the double doors (Mr. Pike or Mike — no one could agree), humming while his trolley juddered. I bent to peel a crescent of black scuff from the varnish and saw it: a curl of something pale under the third row of chairs, a luminous comma against the amber floor.

It should have been a crisp packet or a lost hair slide. Instead, my fingers closed around a seashell. Not the tiny grey spiral you might use for craft, not the bleached fragments we glued to picture frames in primary school, but a proper conch — ridged, heavy, cool — the colour of old cream with a blush of pink at the lip. Grains of sand freckled its grooves; a dark thread of seaweed clung obstinately to one notch. I held it up and the hall’s silence shifted. Who would bring the sea into a gym? Who could?

I lifted it to my ear and the cliché — that childish trick — worked, or seemed to. A hush moved through it; a husk of sound that wasn’t the building settling or the heater clicking but a softer, continuous note, like breath threaded with water. The nearest coast was a blue smudge on a map and a long train ride away, yet there was a gust of salt against my face — imagined, surely — clean and stinging. The shell did not belong here; it did not belong to me. And yet it sat in my palm with the certainty of a found thing, as if I had been the one misplaced.

“Everything all right?” Mr Pike/Mike’s voice bounced under the rafters, casual, a little muffled.

I slid the conch into the pocket of my hoodie — absurdly, possessively — and nodded. The chairs watched with their metal feet, the tape lines waiting. Outside, beyond the car park and the tethered trees, the city carried on untroubled. Inside, with my ear still echoing, something had shifted, infinitesimally, like a tide turning when no one is looking.

• Level 3 Upper (16-18 marks for AO5, 9-12 marks for AO6, 25-30 marks total)

Option A:

The door crouched at the end of a narrow corridor, a slab of tired wood banded with iron that refuses to shine. Its bolts are fat and stubborn, freckled with rust; the keyhole gapes like a dry mouth. A smear of light slips under its swollen edge and paints the dust; motes rise and fall, slow as drifting ash. When I touch the grain, it is ridged and sticky with old varnish, and something under the surface seems to strain—a hinge waiting.

Inside, the air is immediately colder, and thicker, the kind that settles in your throat. My first step creaks; the second is softer. The sealed room absorbs sound like a thick curtain. It smells of wet stone and long-closed books. There is a low table under a sheet, chewed into lace by mice; a trunk with a lid that won't quite shut; glass bottles thin as eggshells capped in wax. A blind window, boarded from within, leaks a frail seam of light.

In the half-light, shapes collect meanings. The sheet hides a piano, not a table: its keys are yellowed, a smile missing teeth. On a desk lies a ledger; the pages are foxed, corners furled, the ink browned like tea. A fountain pen rests as if someone paused mid-thought. A cracked mirror leans against the wall, refusing to give back a whole face; the room stares at itself in fragments. Cobwebs rope beam to beam; each thread holds its dust. No footprints, no new fingerprints, no fresh air. And yet there is a faint throb I cannot name—perhaps the old pipes murmur, perhaps the house has a pulse.

Beyond the piano a small portrait hangs crooked, the sitter's eyes following in that old, unhelpful way. Who sealed this place, and why? The question swells, then thins with the light. I step back. Motes settle. The door, as if relieved, draws itself closed; the bolts complain softly. The handle is colder now—colder than before—and my palm tingles. Outside, the ordinary corridor resumes its neat, forgettable rhythm; behind me the hidden room persists, sealed again, preserving its quiet, and whatever waited there.

Option B:

Summer. The time of burnt shoulders; of sticky fingers; of bright buckets and naive castles. The sea slapped the pilings in a lazy rhythm while the pier threw long bars of shade across the sand. Air tasted like salt and vinegar; gulls stitched white letters into a blue, boiling sky. Radios crackled. My little brother chased the tide with a plastic spade, shrieking as foam hissed around his ankles, and Mum unmuzzled a bottle of suncream as if it were medicine for the day. Everything belonged to the ritual of August: flip-flops, sunglasses, laughter.

Then, half-hidden where the planks forked the light, I saw it. The thing was wrong, almost rude against the heat. A glass dome sat on the wet, ribbed sand like a stranded moon, and beads of condensation clung despite the heat. I crouched, cupping it with sandy fingers. It was a snow globe: a miniature house and a fir tree sealed under a cough of white. When I tilted it, the flakes lifted and drifted, slow as ash; they fell, making winter in my palms. The base was painted a chipped, dull blue; the letters on it were rubbed thin. It did not belong here.

Around me the beach chattered on, unbothered. I could smell tar and rust from the pier, the briny stink of piles of seaweed. Yet the globe hummed with its own low cold, as if it remembered snow. Who had lost it? Why leave winter on a day like this? I turned it over and brushed grit from the base; an engraving lurked there, faint but legible. Return to 17 Calder Lane. The postcode was not from our town. Mum called my name then—the way she always did when I wandered: impatient but soft. I hesitated, the globe heavy as a secret.

However, as I stood, something shifted. I had not shaken it, not really, yet a new flurry lifted behind the little house—billowing, restless, insistent. A shiver threaded my skin. The sun burned on; gulls squabbled; my brother shouted that his castle was collapsing. Still, winter swirled in the glass. It did not belong here; and suddenly, neither did I.

• Level 3 Lower (13-15 marks for AO5, 9-12 marks for AO6, 22-27 marks total)

Option A:

The door crouched at the end of a narrow passage, thick wood scarred by old scrapes and a dull, stubborn sheen. Three iron bolts ran across it like ribs; their weight looked final. The handle was cold, colder than the corridor air, and the little keyhole was a dark eye that did not blink. Dust hung there, dancing in a thin slice of light.

When the bolts slid free, they groaned in complaint, and the room opened grudgingly, inch by inch. The smell arrived first: damp plaster, old cloth, a sweet hint of something once polished and now tired. The air was thick and still; it pressed on my face. The sound of the corridor faded as if swallowed.

Inside, the room was small but somehow long, stretching into shadows. The walls were stone under flaking lime, pale as bone. A single chair leaned against a table, its leg splinted with twine. On the table lay a candle, wax frozen in soft ladders, and a dusty bottle. A mirror stood in the corner, veiled by a moth-eaten cloth; it lifted a fraction as I passed—my draught, I told myself.

Cobwebs linked beam to beam like timid bridges. The floorboards answered every step with a dry whisper. In the far wall, a crack had opened—long as a frown. Through it, a ribbon of light bled in, thin and grey. Everything seemed to wait: the handless clock, the brass-cornered trunk, the portrait whose faded eyes followed and did not.

It felt sealed in more than wood and iron; it was captured time. The room kept its secrets the way a mouth keeps breath. I stood listening, my heartbeat too modern and too loud. When I pulled the door to, the bolts slid home with a final click—quiet, but absolute. The dust went back to drifting.

Option B:

Monday morning. The bus stop wore a scarf of litter; the sky pressed low and pale; our street yawned itself awake. I stood with my rucksack digging into my shoulder, the rain not quite falling yet, just hanging in the air like static. The timetable flickered above the shelter and the puddle at my feet held a rainbow that looked tired. Everything was ordinary, almost dull—everything in its place.

Except this. On the bench beside the shelter sat a snow globe, small enough to fit in my palm, its glass clear and cold-looking. It didn’t match the scratched plastic or the flattened cartons. Inside it, a lighthouse—tiny and brave—clung to a painted rock while flakes of silver drifted around it. Our town is wedged between ring road and river; there is no coast, no cliffs, no lighthouse. It was peculiar and deliberate, like someone had placed a secret on our route to school. Who leaves a lighthouse at a bus stop?

I picked it up. The glass bit the soft of my hand with its chill; the liquid inside rocked, glitter whirling even before I shook it. On the wooden base, there was a thin line of letters burned into the varnish—For S: keep this light. I glanced at the others waiting: the man hiding behind his newspaper, the woman with a buggy, the lad from Year Eleven with his hood up. “Is this anyone’s?” I asked, my voice too loud. Heads turned, then turned away.

The bus groaned into view. I should give it to the driver; I should put it in lost property and forget it. But the globe sat in my palm like a heart I had borrowed. The doors hissed open. I stepped on with everyone else—and kept the lighthouse cupped against me; it didn’t belong here.

• Level 2 Upper (10-12 marks for AO5, 5-8 marks for AO6, 15-20 marks total)

Option A:

Bolted iron bars cross the door like stubborn arms. The wood is bruised and dark, grain raised, splinters catching skin. A slit of light creeps along the edges, not inviting, more like a warning. The handle refuses at first; it is cold, a coin held too long. Dust sits thick on everything, so you can guess what hides behind.

Inside, the air is heavy, a stale blanket thrown over your shoulders, smelling of wet stone and old pages. Dust rises like pale birds when the hinges sigh; an old man breathing. Shelves are nailed crooked to the wall, lopsided with jars and a cracked clock frozen at eleven. In the corner a trunk crouches, its padlock shut tight. The mirror is fogged and blind, but it seems to look back. Light leaks in, a thin ribbon trembling on the floorboards.

The floor mutters when you step; something under the boards clicks like a beetle. Every sound is too loud. Somewhere water drips—tap, tap, tap—counting. The room keeps history like a mouth holding a secret. Was it a hiding place, or just a forgotten store? Your fingers trail across wallpaper peeling in curls. It comes away easy, like a scab you shouldn’t touch.

Then the door remembers its job. The draft pulls; the ribbon of light thins, and dust settles back in flakes. You ease the bolts across with a scrape that scratches your teeth. Outside the corridor wakes up. Inside the hidden room, nothing moves except the smell of iron and waiting.

Option B:

Summer. The time when the air tastes dusty; metal fences sting your palm; the road shines like something poured. The estate buzzed—flies, motorbikes, Patel’s vending machine ticking. I took the shortcut to the corner shop, counting cracked slabs, thinking about iced cola and shade.

Then I saw it, sitting in the gutter like a gift: a block of ice, clear and square, with a brass key in the middle. The key was old, the kind with a heart-shaped top and teeth like a castle. It glimmered. It didn’t belong here. A cold thing in July, in our street where everything is cracked and loud. I glanced around—no one was watching; two kids skittered a football, a bus sighed at the stop. The ice had it's own light, like it was lit from inside. When I knelt, the heat rose off the pavement and the ice smoked a little, whispering.

I touched it. Pain bit my fingertips, a sour, electric sting; I snatched back and laughed because who would believe this. Water ran in thin threads toward the drain, and the key seemed to turn, just a little, as if it heard me thinking. Maybe it was meant for me, or maybe that’s ridiculous. I looked at my plastic bag, looked at the sky—big and white and pressing—and I made a small, deliberate choice. I slid my hands under the melting block, it was heavier than it looked, and I lifted the impossible object that didn’t belong to anyone, yet somehow belonged to me.

• Level 2 Lower (7-9 marks for AO5, 5-8 marks for AO6, 12-17 marks total)

Option A:

The door crouched at the end of the corridor, hunched wood and cold iron bolts that looked like scars. The light was thin here, a kind of grey light that made dust float like slow snow. I ran my hand over the grain; it felt splintery and stubborn. The air smelled of damp and old rope. At first I thought it was silent, but the quiet had a weight to it, pressing on my ears. It was locked and locked again, a chain, a bolt, a keyhole that stared.

When the door gave in, the room breathed out. Stale, cool air slid past my cheeks, like someone had been holding their breath for years. The floorboards creaked in long whispers. A thin window was boarded over; strips of light cut the dark into narrow bands. On one side stood a trunk, a cracked mirror and a narrow chair covered by a sheet—like a tired ghost waiting. The wallpaper peeled in curls, colour faded to tea-brown. Was this kept secret on purpose, or just forgotten?

Dust and damp and silence hung in layers, and my footsteps sounded too loud. I wanted to speak, I didn’t. The room was waiting, I felt it.

Option B:

Autumn. The grass was wet and stubborn; mist hugged the fence, the gate squealed as I pushed it open. I was meant to find the football and bring it back, Mum said, before it ruined the mower.

I looked under the crooked bench, behind the compost bin, and by the blackberry thorns; then I saw it - a small glass snow globe half-buried in the mud, like a little moon dropped by mistake. It was delicate, clear, bright - so strange in our messy field. Inside was a tiny street and a thin lamppost; white flakes floated, even though there was no wind. It felt cold in my hand and heavier than it looked. It did not belong here, not in September.

Who would bring something like this here? A neighbour, a child, someone else. The dog sniffed it and backed away, like it had a secret. I shook it carefully, once, twice, again. The flakes spun, a quiet tink noise, and for a second the lamp seemed to glow. I told myself I was being silly, but my heart tapped quickly. After that I noticed a tiny scratch on the base - four numbers, 1889. The rain started. I tucked the globe inside my coat and walked home, pretending it was normal.

• Level 1 Upper (4-6 marks for AO5, 1-4 marks for AO6, 5-10 marks total)

Option A:

The door is thick and old. It has iron bolts and a heavy bar. The wood is grey and splintered, it looks tired like it wants to sleep. there is a key hole. Cold air comes under it and touches my ankles.

Behind it there is a hidden room, it is squeezed between walls. No one goes in there, I dont think anyone even knows it. Dust sits on the floor like flour, and on boxes. I can smell damp and old books. The air is quiet, my breath sounds loud, back and forward.

The window is blocked with boards so the light is thin. Shadows crawl over the ceiling. A pipe drips, drip drip, and the sound walks around the room.

I touch the bolt and it shakes. I feel like there is something waiting, but maybe it is only the room. I step back. The door waits, still and shut.

Option B:

Morning. The road was wet and brown leaves stuck to my shoes. Buses breathed smoke. The shops were shut and shutters looked like teeth. It smelt like rain and bin bags and the sky was a flat lid.

Then I seen it by the bench. A snow globe, round and clear, with a little house inside, clean, shining, in a puddle. It did not belong here.

I picked it up. The globe was cold like ice and I felt a prickle, like the wind told me hush. What is it doing here. I looked round, nobody looked at me, cars hissed and a dog barked. Me and Jay was meant to be quick but I just stood. I put it in my pocket and it nearly fell through the hole, my heart going fast. Not right, not right, I thought. Maybe its someones. Maybe it’s not from here at all.

• Level 1 Lower (1-3 marks for AO5, 1-4 marks for AO6, 2-7 marks total)

Option A:

The door is old and shut tight. It has bolts and nails. The wood is rough and splinters. I press my ear and hear nothing but a drip, drip, drip. The room is sealed, hidden under the stairs, no window, a line of light. The air smells damp and like books. Boxes sit, dusty, a chair that is broke. The floor creaks, it makes my skin prickle. The walls was cold and wet. I think about my bike outside. My brother said ghosts live here but he lies, I think, maybe not. I pull it back and forth, it dont move.

Option B:

Spring. The field is wet and brown and I walk slow. There is daffodils by the gate, they look like small suns. Sheep make a noise, and I think about the bus later and chips for tea. In the grass I see a gold watch. It shines wrong in the mud. It dont belong here. Not in our field. I pick it up and my hand shakes and mud drips, like it is crying. Who left it, why here, I dont know. I look around, just birds, just wind. I want to put it in my pocket but I remember school, I am late.