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 When did the duckling reach the cottage?: Towards evening – 1 mark
• 1.2 Which description accurately reflects what the duckling finds at the cottage on arrival?: Late in the day; the cottage looks ready to collapse; the door is partly open because a hinge is broken. – 1 mark
• 1.3 What could the cottage not decide?: On which side to fall first – 1 mark
• 1.4 Why was the door not quite closed?: Because one of the hinges had given way – 1 mark

Question 2 - Mark Scheme

Look in detail at this extract, from lines 1 to 15 of the source:

1 Towards evening he reached a poor little cottage that seemed ready to fall, and only seemed to remain standing because it could not decide on which side to fall first. The storm continued so violent that the duckling could go no farther. He sat down by the cottage, and then he noticed that the door was not quite closed, in consequence of one of the hinges having given way. There was,

6 therefore, a narrow opening near the bottom large enough for him to slip through, which he did very quietly, and got a shelter for the night. Here, in this cottage, lived a woman, a cat, and a hen. The cat, whom his mistress called "My little son," was a great favorite; he could raise his back, and purr, and could even throw out sparks from his fur if it were stroked the

11 wrong way. The hen had very short legs, so she was called "Chickie Short- legs." She laid good eggs, and her mistress loved her as if she had been her own child. In the morning the strange visitor was discovered; the cat began to purr and the hen to cluck.

How does the writer use language here to describe the duckling’s arrival and the cottage’s inhabitants? 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: A Level 4 response perceptively analyses personification and anthropomorphism: the cottage that "could not decide" and "seemed ready to fall" creates a precarious yet comic fairy-tale mood, while the animals’ humanising labels "My little son" and "Chickie Short- legs", sensory verbs like "purr", and hyperbolic "throw out sparks" establish a domestic hierarchy in ironic contrast to the "violent" storm. It also evaluates sentence forms and structural choices, such as the temporal opener "Towards evening", the precise "narrow opening" the duckling slips through "very quietly" to build suspense, and the parallel closure "the cat began to purr and the hen to cluck", with semicolons and cumulative clauses sustaining a measured descriptive pace.

The writer opens by personifying the cottage as human: it “could not decide on which side to fall first”. This anthropomorphism, coupled with the repetition of “seemed”, creates a humorous yet precarious tone; the complex sentence itself totters, mirroring the cottage’s instability. Meanwhile, the “storm… so violent” functions as pathetic fallacy, exposing the duckling’s vulnerability as he “could go no farther”. The temporal adverbial “Towards evening” darkens the mood, so the arrival feels belated and desperate.

Furthermore, the duckling’s entry is rendered through delicate sound and movement. The prepositional detail of a “narrow opening… near the bottom” and the dynamic verb “slip” (with soft sibilance echoed in “very quietly” and “shelter”) suggest stealth and smallness. The connective “therefore” foregrounds causality, while the understated clause “got a shelter for the night” underplays relief. Moreover, the passive “the strange visitor was discovered” suppresses the agents and centres his exposed status, increasing tension.

Additionally, the inhabitants are characterised through affectionate yet comic naming. The cat is “My little son”—a diminutive term of endearment that blurs species via anthropomorphism—while the hen, “Chickie Short-legs”, is a hyphenated proper noun that caricatures her legs. The simile “as if she had been her own child” and lexical field of care (“great favorite”, “loved”) create domestic warmth. By contrast, a polysyndetic tricolon—“raise his back, and purr, and could even throw out sparks”—builds to hyperbole; the idiom “stroked the wrong way” becomes literal, hinting at danger beneath cosiness. Thus, the writer shapes a tentative arrival among humanised creatures.

Level 3 (Clear, relevant explanation) – 5–6 marks Shows clear understanding; explains effects; relevant detail; clear and accurate terminology. Indicative Standard: A Level 3 response would identify personification and precise word choices, e.g. the 'poor little cottage' that 'could not decide on which side to fall' to suggest fragility and a comic tone, and cautious movement in 'slip through' and 'very quietly' to show the duckling’s timid arrival. It would also explain how affectionate names and sound imagery—'My little son', 'Chickie Short- legs', 'purr'/'cluck'—plus the hyperbolic 'throw out sparks' and a semi-colon that extends the list of the cat’s traits, characterise the inhabitants as domesticated yet prickly and make the cottage feel lively.

The writer personifies the cottage as "ready to fall" and "could not decide on which side to fall first." This creates a humorous but fragile image of the setting, so the duckling’s arrival feels precarious. The adjectives "poor little" suggest pity, while the intensifier "so violent" shows the danger outside. The short clause "could go no farther" emphasises his exhaustion and need for shelter.

Furthermore, the complex sentence "There was, therefore, a narrow opening..." and the verb "slip through" show his smallness and caution, while the adverb "very quietly" presents him as timid seeking "shelter".

Moreover, for the inhabitants, a triadic list introduces "a woman, a cat, and a hen", creating a homely community. The cat is anthropomorphised: his mistress calls him "My little son", and the hyperbolic metaphor "throw out sparks" hints at a fiery temper. The hen’s epithet "Chickie Short- legs" and the simile "loved her as if she had been her own child" show cosy affection.

Additionally, calling him a "strange visitor" marks the duckling as an outsider, while the parallel structure "the cat began to purr and the hen to cluck" uses onomatopoeic verbs to create lively sound as they react.

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 might identify adjectives and personification like “poor little cottage” and “could not decide on which side to fall first” to show the fragile, almost alive cottage, and note how the adverb “very quietly” and “narrow opening” present the duckling’s careful arrival. It would also pick out affectionate names and sound words such as “My little son,” “Chickie Short- legs,” “purr,” and “cluck,” plus the exaggeration “throw out sparks,” explaining that the long, flowing sentences list details to create a gentle, homely mood.

The writer uses personification to present the cottage during the duckling’s arrival. It “could not decide on which side to fall first,” which makes the building seem human and fragile. The adjectives “poor little” and the storm “so violent” emphasise danger, while verbs like “slip through” and “very quietly” show the duckling’s cautious behaviour as he seeks “shelter.”

Furthermore, the inhabitants are introduced with affectionate language. The cat is called “My little son” and “a great favorite,” suggesting the woman’s love. The hyperbole that he could “throw out sparks” when stroked “the wrong way” makes the cat seem lively and temperamental.

Additionally, the hen’s nickname “Chickie Short-legs” highlights her “very short legs,” and “loved her as if she had been her own child” shows warmth. Finally, onomatopoeia in “purr” and “cluck” brings the scene to life when the “strange visitor” is discovered.

Level 1 (Simple, limited comment) – 1–2 marks Simple awareness; simple comment; simple references; simple terminology. Indicative Standard: The writer uses adjectives like "poor little" and makes the cottage seem like a person with "could not decide on which side to fall first," showing it is weak, while words like "so violent," "slip through" and "very quietly" show the duckling moving carefully to get shelter. The animals get nice names like "My little son" and "Chickie Short- legs" and sound words "purr" and "cluck" to make them seem friendly and lively.

The writer uses adjectives like ‘poor little cottage’ and the personification ‘could not decide’ to make the place seem weak and shaky. This shows the duckling arrives in a dangerous storm that is ‘so violent’. Furthermore, adverbs such as ‘very quietly’ and the phrase ‘slip through’ show he is small and careful, getting ‘shelter’ at last. Moreover, the inhabitants are shown with names: the cat is ‘My little son’ and the hen ‘Chickie Short-legs’, which sounds affectionate. Additionally, the simile ‘as if she had been her own child’ shows love, and ‘purr’ and ‘cluck’ bring them to life.

Level 0 – No marks: Nothing to reward.

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

• Personification and irony make the cottage comically precarious, highlighting the duckling’s fragile refuge (could not decide)
• Temporal marker and hyperbole build tension and vulnerability as he seeks shelter (so violent)
• Formal connective choices create a measured, explanatory tone and clear causality to the entry (in consequence of)
• Precise physical detail and a stealthy verb suggest smallness and caution as he enters (slip through)
• Triadic list and simple declarative introduce a domestic set-up with balance and order (a woman, a cat)
• Affectionate, familial naming anthropomorphises the cat and signals household hierarchy; the semicolon strings traits to build a layered portrait (My little son)
• Vivid hyperbole and idiom mix warmth with warning, implying the cat’s sparkiness if provoked (throw out sparks)
• Playful nickname and concrete feature give the hen a comic identity in a childlike register (Chickie Short- legs)
• Simile of maternal love softens the tone and contrasts with the storm’s harshness (loved her as if)
• Structural shift to morning and parallel, onomatopoeic responses show the household reacting in character to the intruder (began to purr)

Question 3 - Mark Scheme

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

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

You could write about:

• how detachment intensifies from beginning to end
• 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 a structural arc from liminal arrival to forced exile: slipping in through a "narrow opening" as a "strange visitor", the duckling is "allowed to remain on trial for three weeks" inside a closed hierarchy ("the master of the house", "the mistress", "We and the world"), while cumulative interrogatives—"Can you lay eggs?", "purr", "throw out sparks"—progressively silence him. The concluding shift to self-expulsion—"I believe I must go out into the world again"—and the zoom-out to wider rejection ("avoided by all other animals") intensify detachment from tenuous refuge to society at large.

One way the writer structures detachment is through exterior framing and a threshold motif. We begin with the precarious cottage, then a door “not quite closed” and a “narrow opening” through which he “slip[s] ... quietly.” This sequencing keeps him at the margins before the household is introduced. The declarative set-up, “Here, in this cottage, lived a woman, a cat, and a hen,” presents a micro-society; only “In the morning the strange visitor was discovered,” a temporal delay that sustains his outsider status.

In addition, the middle repositions focus onto the house’s hierarchy to intensify exclusion. “Now the cat was the master... and the hen was the mistress,” while the aphoristic “We and the world” foregrounds an in‑group. Temporal compression—“on trial for three weeks”—signals conditional belonging. A barrage of interrogatives and imperatives (“Can you lay eggs?... Then have the goodness to cease talking”) enacts verbal gatekeeping, while proxemics (“the duckling sat in a corner”) fixes him at the periphery. A shift from playful description to prescriptive dialogue quickens the pace and hardens the mood.

A further structural choice is the abrupt pivot to departure and summary closure. The tentative direct speech—“I believe I must go out into the world again”—is met with the clipped “Yes, do,” a short sentence that ejects him. The narration then widens and compresses time: “soon found water... but he was avoided by all other animals.” This scope and iterative phrasing leave a cumulative sense of detachment, escalating from thresholded outsider to universally shunned.

Level 3 (Clear, relevant explanation) – 5–6 marks Explains effects; relevant examples; clear terminology. Indicative Standard: The writer structures detachment to intensify: beginning with physical isolation as the duckling slips through a “narrow opening” into a closed unit (“a woman, a cat, and a hen”), then shifting from description to exclusionary dialogue (repeated challenges like “Can you lay eggs?” and the insular “We and the world”), using a time jump (“on trial for three weeks”) and a turning point (“I believe I must go out into the world again”) before ending in wider rejection (“avoided by all other animals”) to move him from brief shelter to complete social separation.

One way in which the writer has structured the text to create a sense of detachment is through a focus shift from setting to social hierarchy. We begin outside a “poor little cottage” in the storm, then move inside to “a woman, a cat, and a hen.” This movement shows the duckling is physically sheltered but socially excluded; named pets (“my little son”, “Chickie Short-legs”) contrast with the nameless “duckling.”

In addition, temporal references structure and intensify detachment. Chronological markers (“Towards evening”, “In the morning”) compress time, while “on trial for three weeks” slows the pace to show conditional acceptance. Dialogue then dominates, with interrogatives and imperatives (“Can you lay eggs?” “cease talking”), so the focus narrows to his silencing and to the insider mantra “We and the world,” making the reader feel his exclusion.

A further structural choice is the accelerated resolution, creating a detached ending. After the debate peaks in the duckling’s wish to “swim”, responses are curt (“Yes, do”) and the mode shifts from dialogue to summary: he “soon found water” yet was “avoided by all other animals.” This abrupt pace underlines that detachment follows him beyond the cottage.

Level 2 (Some understanding and comment) – 3–4 marks Attempts to comment; some examples; some terminology. Indicative Standard: A Level 2 response typically identifies a clear sequence showing detachment growing over time, noting time markers like "in the morning" and stages from the "poor little cottage" to being kept "on trial for three weeks", told "Yes, do", and finally "avoided by all other animals". It may also mention simple structural features like excluding dialogue—"We and the world"—and that he "sat in a corner", which makes him seem left out.

One way the writer structures detachment is at the beginning of the extract through the setting. The cottage “seemed ready to fall” and the door is “not quite closed”, so he slips in “very quietly”. This creates a lonely mood and marks the duckling as an outsider.

In addition, the focus shifts in the middle to dialogue. The repeated questions, “Can you lay eggs?” and “Can you… purr?”, and orders like “cease talking” shut him out. The phrase “We and the world” shows exclusion, while the narrator zooms in to him “feeling very low-spirited,” increasing his detachment.

A further structural feature is the ending. The pace quickens with “I believe I must go” and “Yes, do”, then a final statement: “he was avoided by all other animals.” This widens the focus from one house to everywhere, so detachment intensifies from beginning to end.

Level 1 (Simple, limited comment) – 1–2 marks Simple awareness; simple references; simple terminology. Indicative Standard: From the beginning where he is sat down by the cottage, to the middle where he is sat in a corner, to the end when he left the cottage and is avoided by all other animals, the structure moves him from outside to briefly inside then back outside, making him seem more and more detached.

One way the writer has structured detachment is by opening with the cottage and broken door. He slips in “very quietly”, so the focus is on setting first and he is outside.

In addition, time markers like “In the morning” and “three weeks” show time passing without belonging. The middle is mostly dialogue, with repeated “Can you…?” from the cat and hen, which shuts him out.

A further structural feature is the ending change: the short sentence “Yes, do” and then he leaves. This ending focus makes his separation clear.

Level 0 – No marks: Nothing to reward.

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

• Opening thresholding: entering through a narrow opening marks him as an uninvited outsider from the outset, structurally seeding detachment
• In-group naming vs outsider: being the strange visitor against the cat/hen’s affectionate titles sets an insider/outsider divide
• Conditional time frame: kept on trial for three weeks, his position remains provisional, sustaining detachment over compressed time
• Domestic hierarchy world-building: the claim We and the world centres the residents and formally marginalises the duckling
• Silencing dialogue pattern: the command cease talking after interrogations structurally suppresses his voice and isolates him
• Spatial marginalisation: he sat in a corner, placing him at the scene’s edge to mirror emotional distance
• Value clash via juxtaposition: his natural longing after “sunshine and the fresh air” is dismissed as an absurd idea, intensifying exclusion
• Escalating appeals to authority: “Ask the cat… Ask our mistress” culminates in We don't understand you?, enacting communal rejection
• Structural pivot to exit: deciding to go out into the world again turns detachment into movement away
• Compressed coda widens scope: he is avoided by all other animals, extending detachment from a household to society

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, where the hen tells the duckling to lay eggs, her advice sounds completely ridiculous. The writer suggests it is cruel to expect someone to be something they are not.

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

In your response, you could:

• consider your impressions of the hen and her ridiculous advice
• comment on the methods the writer uses to portray the hen's cruelty
• 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: A Level 4 response would argue that the writer satirises the hen’s authoritarian mindset to critique the cruelty of enforcing conformity, using controlling interrogatives and imperatives ("Can you lay eggs?"/"have the goodness to cease talking"), smug self-importance ("We and the world,") and faux-benevolent paternalism ("I speak only for your good") so that her prescription to "lay eggs and learn to purr" reads as both ridiculous and inhumane.

I strongly agree that the hen’s advice is ridiculous, and the writer uses the fable form to expose the cruelty of demanding conformity. From the outset, misrecognition breeds unreasonable expectation: the old woman’s poor sight leads her to take the duckling for a ‘fat duck’ and exclaim ‘Oh, what a prize!’ The transactional noun ‘prize’ objectifies him, while the legal metaphor ‘allowed to remain on trial for three weeks’ frames the household as a tribunal that will judge him by outcomes (eggs) rather than identity. This priming renders the later advice both absurd and punitive.

The household’s self-importance is satirised through the declarative, ‘We and the world,’ and the superlative boast that they are ‘by far the better half.’ This inclusive pronoun constructs a narrow hegemony, and the narrator’s wry aside that ‘the duckling thought that others might hold a different opinion’ creates gentle irony, aligning us with his marginalised perspective.

Within this hierarchy, the hen and cat enforce conformity through interrogatives that function like a cross-examination: ‘Can you lay eggs?… Can you raise your back, or purr, or throw out sparks?’ The staccato Q&A and tricolon escalate into the comic impossibility of ‘throw out sparks,’ so the advice is patently ridiculous. Yet the cruelty lies in the imperatives that follow—‘have the goodness to cease talking’ and ‘you have no right to express an opinion’—which silence his voice. High modality (‘always said’) and appeals to authority (‘Ask the cat… Ask our mistress… there is no one in the world more clever’) parody argument from authority, revealing a closed system that pathologises difference.

Against this, the duckling’s sensory language—‘so delightful to swim… so refreshing to feel it close over your head’—articulates an innate identity. The motif of ‘sunshine and the fresh air’ symbolically opposes the ‘warm room’, juxtaposing freedom with stifling domesticity. The hen’s dismissals—‘absurd idea,’ ‘You must be crazy!’—and the manipulative disclaimer ‘I speak only for your good… a proof of my friendship’ expose a coercive benevolence: advice that is both impossible (‘lay eggs and learn to purr’) and gaslighting. The syntactic parallelism of that final injunction yokes species-specific behaviours to underscore the demand to be what he cannot be.

Structurally, the duckling’s modal resolve—‘I must go out into the world again’—signals a necessary rejection of imposed roles. Although he ‘soon found water’ and briefly self-actualises, the closing clause—‘avoided… because of his ugly appearance’—extends the critique beyond the hen, suggesting a wider societal cruelty that polices difference.

Overall, the writer makes the hen’s counsel laughable to unveil something serious: it is not merely ridiculous but profoundly cruel to force a creature to deny its nature.

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 that the writer presents it as cruel to expect someone to be what they are not, identifying how condescending dialogue and orders like "cease talking" and the absurd "lay eggs and learn to purr" make the hen’s advice sound ridiculous. It would also comment on methods such as irony, rhetorical questions ("Do you consider yourself more clever...?"), and smug superiority ("We and the world", "I speak only for your good") to show the hen’s advice as ridiculous and unkind.

I agree to a large extent that the hen’s advice sounds ridiculous and that the writer presents it as cruel to force someone to be what they are not. Through ironic narration and sharp dialogue, the text exposes the household’s narrow-mindedness and the damaging effect it has on the duckling.

From the outset, the old woman’s “sight was not very good,” which symbolically suggests moral short-sightedness. Her decision to keep the duckling “on trial for three weeks” uses a legal metaphor to show how unfairly he is judged against an impossible standard (laying eggs). The modal verbs “must” and “shall” in “I must wait and see” and “I shall have some ducks’ eggs” reduce him to utility. Structurally, the pecking order is established—“the cat was the master… the hen was the mistress”—and the hyperbolic motto “We and the world… by far the better half” reveals an arrogant, dismissive tone that primes us to view their advice as oppressive.

The direct speech intensifies this. The hen’s imperatives, “Can you lay eggs?… Then… cease talking,” are silencing, while the cat’s triadic list “raise your back, or purr, or throw out sparks” makes their criteria absurdly cat-centred. Rhetorical questions like “Who can understand you?” further invalidate the duckling’s voice. In contrast, the duckling’s sensory language—“sunshine and the fresh air,” “delightful to swim,” “refreshing”—frames his desire as natural and life-giving. The hen’s reply—“What an absurd idea!… you must be crazy!”—uses belittling language, and her appeal to authority (“ask the cat… ask our mistress… the cleverest”) and repetition of “clever” show a closed hierarchy. Her final advice to “lay eggs and learn to purr” is impossible, and the anthropomorphism satirises social pressure to conform.

Although the hen claims it is “a proof of my friendship,” the ironic narrative voice exposes this as harmful. The duckling’s decision to leave and the bleak ending—“avoided… because of his ugly appearance”—underline the cruelty of forcing identity. Overall, I strongly agree with the statement.

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 with the writer’s viewpoint, noting the hen’s bossy, dismissive tone—e.g., “Can you lay eggs?… Then have the goodness to cease talking” and “What an absurd idea!”—to show the advice sounds ridiculous and cruel. They would give simple examples that the duckling can’t do what she demands, like “lay eggs and learn to purr”, and may also notice the arrogant “We and the world” attitude that makes her expectations unfair.

I mostly agree that the hen’s advice sounds ridiculous and that the writer shows it is cruel to force someone to be what they are not. From the start of this part, the duckling is treated conditionally, being kept “on trial for three weeks.” This makes him seem judged, not cared for.

The writer mainly uses dialogue to show the hen’s cruelty. The hen fires questions and imperatives: “Can you lay eggs? … have the goodness to cease talking.” The interrogatives and command silence him and suggest she only values him if he can be like her. The cat joins in with a list, “purr, or throw out sparks,” which is impossible for a duck; this makes the “advice” sound silly and unfair. The tone grows harsher when the hen calls his wish to swim “absurd” and says “you must be crazy!” These loaded words make his natural desires seem wrong. There is also contrast between his “delightful” picture of water and her sneering “queer sort of pleasure,” showing she refuses to understand.

The hen also uses rhetorical questions and appeals to “the cleverest” cat and the “old woman” to shame him, and boasts “We and the world… the better half,” a kind of hyperbole that shows arrogance. Even when she claims it is “a proof of my friendship,” the imperative “lay eggs and learn to purr” is ridiculous because he cannot do these things.

Overall, I agree to a large extent. The structure moves to the duckling leaving, and although he is still “avoided,” the writer suggests he is right to be himself, and that forcing him to change is unkind.

Level 1 (Simple, limited) – 1–5 marks Simple ideas; limited methods; simple evaluation; simple references. Indicative Standard: I agree because the hen seems mean and ridiculous, telling the duckling to "lay eggs" and "learn to purr" and calling his wish to swim "an absurd idea", so the writer makes it look cruel to expect him to be something he isn’t.

I mostly agree with the statement. The hen’s advice sounds ridiculous and quite cruel. She tells the duckling to “lay eggs and learn to purr,” which a duckling can’t do. This shows it is wrong to force someone to be different.

The writer uses dialogue to show this. The hen asks, “Can you lay eggs?”, and then orders, “have the goodness to cease talking.” The command and rude tone make her seem bossy. The exclamation marks in “What an absurd idea!” and “You must be crazy!” make the advice sound mocking. The cat also adds, “purr, or throw out sparks,” which is silly for a duck. Because of this, the duckling “sat in a corner, feeling very low-spirited.”

We also see their attitude when they say, “We and the world,” which makes them sound superior. The hen dismisses his natural wish “to swim,” calling it a “queer sort of pleasure.” In the end he says, “I must go out into the world again,” showing he is pushed away.

Overall, I agree the writer shows it is cruel to expect someone to be something they are not.

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:

• Satiric self-importance positions their norms as superior, making the hen’s demands sound ridiculous and high-handed — "by far the better half"
• Silencing through interrogative-then-imperative shows cruelty in denying the duckling a voice and identity — "cease talking"
• Forcing species-specific skills as benchmarks ridicules the duckling’s nature, highlighting the cruelty of expecting impossible change — "learn to purr"
• Mockery and pathologising of his desires belittle authentic longing, making the advice sound contemptuous — "you must be crazy"
• Appeal to authority replaces empathy with hierarchy, reinforcing a cruel, conformist standard — "Ask the cat"
• Wilful misunderstanding of his joy in swimming dismisses identity-affirming experience as trivial — "queer sort of pleasure"
• Hypocritical benevolence frames coercion as care, intensifying manipulative cruelty — "proof of my friendship"
• Commanding, prescriptive tone exposes an oppressive push to assimilate rather than accept — "I advise you"
• Judicial framing of his stay makes the expectations punitive and absurd — "allowed to remain on trial"
• Consequences show broader social harm of such pressures, extending beyond the cottage — "avoided by all"

Question 5 - Mark Scheme

A national radio show about modern working life is looking for creative pieces from listeners.

Choose one of the options below for your entry.

• Option A: Describe a busy logistics control room from your imagination. You may choose to use the picture provided for ideas:

• Option B: Write the opening of a story about spotting a flaw in a perfect system.

(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 room hums like a hive at midnight, edges softened by a wash of electric blue. Banks of screens weld into a single, luminous wall: a mosaic atlas, tessellated with routes that pulse and fade, arterial, insistent. Air-conditioners exhale a steady sigh; somewhere a server holds a breath, a low undersong. The scent is marine—ozone, coffee, a briny tang. Chairs whisper over the epoxy floor. Red dots blink; green paths thread their certainty across continents ironed flat and made obedient.

At the centre, a horseshoe of consoles corrals operators into quiet choreography. Headsets clamp like parentheses; wrists pivot with practised economy; eyes flick, settle. Their voices—clipped, granular—braid into a murmur almost like prayer: ETA adjusted; cross-dock confirmed; the manifest amended. Commands appear and dispatch, soft white letters marching: HOLD; RE-ROUTE; PRIORITISE. An overhead clock clicks forward by a minute that feels elastic, about to snap. Along the side wall, a whiteboard is a palimpsest of ghosted routes and taut arrows.

On the foremost screen, a storm unspools over the Atlantic, vapours smeared like thumbed chalk. A filament of red along the eastern seaboard stutters, steadies, stutters. Somewhere in that line, a pallet of medicine is briefly late; elsewhere, strawberries get old. The map inhales, exhales—ports open, airfields close, roads flood, drivers wait—and the system recalculates with a chess player's calm, twelve moves ahead. However, a flicker resists the plan: a cursor hesitates; a small square goes sepulchral grey; a pulse drops out of time.

A woman with a raven-black braid leans closer, her lanyard a thin pendulum. She does not panic. Her hand migrates to a battered notebook—edges furred—and she sketches a lattice of abbreviations: ALT HUB via DUS; SLA=today; temp hold at yard. She speaks without looking up; three chairs begin to move. A man from night shift, pale as milk, is already on the line to a depot, his voice both formal and kind. There is a generosity to the efficiency here, a brisk compassion.

Beyond the glass, the city is indifferent. Inside, the network breathes—again and again, in and out—data sluicing like rain under a door. On the far left, a miracle: the grey square returns to colour, the heartbeat resumes, the red ribbon smooths its crimp. Someone allows the smallest smile. Nevertheless, nobody pretends the day has been saved; there will be another snag at 17:42, another call just as the coffee goes cold. In truth, this place is lighthouse and engine room: beaming outward, grinding inward, sleepless and exacting. Cables braided like a cat’s cradle hem them in; post-it notes flutter like flags. It is not romantic—fluorescents buzz; the air is dry enough to parch a throat—but the choreography remains beautiful, a sea of light.

Option B:

Perfection. The city sold it in brochures of platinum skies: trains arriving to the second; pavements self-polishing; weather brushed into compliance by ranks of heliostats. Even the air felt curated—citrus and ozone, a laboratory’s breath—while screens purred the day’s metrics in cordial, incontrovertible numbers.

My badge said Apprentice Verifier, Bureau of Continuity. In truth, I counted what most people no longer noticed. I checked the curvature of the fountains’ arcs against predicted trajectories; I listened to the soft metronome of traffic lights and felt for any residual tremor of randomness. The System, as it was always capitalised, preferred its servants to be punctilious and unremarkable. I tried to be both.

At noon—precisely noon—the plaza’s shadows performed their ceremony. Benches cast identical needles of shade, all angled at seventeen degrees, as if the sun itself consulted our guidelines before moving. I stood on the porcelain tiles by Bench 43, stylus poised, ready to confirm what had been confirmed every day for years.

Then it happened: two shadows.

Not overlapping, not smudging, but cleanly doubled—the bench’s thin silhouette copied a breath to the left. Impossible. I held my breath and blinked. The second shadow remained, a pale echo with a cooler edge, as if sketched by a hesitant hand.

Perhaps my lens? I checked its calibration, ran the diagnostic that I could do blindfolded. The numbers obediently glowed green. I moved; the first shadow shifted with me, obedient to the sun’s unwavering law. The second moved too—but by a fraction sooner, anticipating my angle before I found it. It was like hearing a note played twice, the second arriving before the first had settled.

The plaza kept breathing. A drone made a courteous figure eight above the fountain; somewhere, a child’s laugh slid across the tiles and faded as if edited. I waited for a supervisor to emerge and tap my shoulder, smiling, to tell me that Bench 43 had been assigned special status or that the city was trialling a new optical filter. No one came.

“The System does not err,” we were told during training, our instructor’s smile taut as thread. “Humans misread.” I had believed her, because belief was not only encouraged—it was remunerated. Yet belief buckled, just slightly, under the weight of those doubled lines.

I crouched, fingers hovering above the shadow, as if I might feel temperature where light insisted on a lie. The second outline seemed more rendered than cast; its edges carried a faint grid if you dared to look. And there, tucked between tile and bench foot, a hairline seam in the grout: something that had been lifted and set back, not quite flush.

I could have reported it and watched the anomaly be absorbed, annotated, quarantined behind a euphemism. Or I could follow it. It sounds dramatic now, and perhaps it was; at the time it felt inexorable—curiosity as policy.

As I stood, the clock above the plaza chimed twelve again, a courteous second noon for those who’d almost missed it. The city, in its generosity, repeated itself. That, more than any doubled shadow, sent a fine crack through my certainty.

Perfection had a habit of pre-empting mistakes. Today, it had pre-empted me.

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

Option A:

The room hums with tempered urgency; a steady engine of air-conditioning and circuitry that turns the walls into an inland sea. Screens stack from desk height to ceiling, a mosaic of maps and manifests, lanes of colour scrolled across continents. Pale blues and greens glow coolly; amber routes thread like arteries; red blooms flare and fade as alerts rise then settle. It smells faintly of coffee, plastic and a clean, electric tang, as if rain had fallen indoors.

At the central bank of desks, operators sit in ergonomic rows—heads bowed, eyes lifted, voices controlled. Headsets cradle their temples; microphones hover close to their lips. They speak in clipped phrases, courteous but concise: "copy that"; "ETA twelve forty"; "hold at bay nine"; a vocabulary of distance shaped into neat, obedient lines. Keystrokes rattle; mice scud; printers sigh. The sound is rhythmic, almost a chant, almost a heartbeat.

Concurrently, the wall takes a breath. Icons blink—triangles, dots, ships, trucks—each a promise moving through weather and time. Across the top, clocks insist on order: Tokyo, Dubai, Rotterdam, São Paulo; the seconds bite forward in synchrony. On the main display, currents of data cascade: inbound and outbound, inbound and outbound, inbound and outbound. The rhythm is so constant it is mesmerising. Somewhere, a ship noses into morning; elsewhere, a lorry slides through midnight; here, a finger nudges a route and the world rearranges itself by a few quiet degrees.

Paper still intrudes, stubborn and useful: a whiteboard layered with arrows and initials; a clipboard bruised with highlighter; a pinned notice reminding everyone to hydrate. A stress ball squeaks, repeatedly; someone taps a pen, then stops, as if aware of the room listening. Cables coil beneath desks like patient snakes. A mug declares World's Best Planner—its handle cracked, its coffee cold. The technicians wear navy fleeces, the colour of early evening, and their chairs drift imperceptibly, back and forth, back and forth, as if the whole floor floated on a mild tide.

It is a hive, yes, but a disciplined one—an orchestration rather than noise. The work is intricate, occasionally monotonous, and yet the stakes are grand: pallets of medicine, winter coats, the breath of a city’s supermarket shelves. Tiny decisions ripple outward. A single keystroke can divert a convoy; a misclick might bruise a schedule, smudge a promise. For a second the radio stutters, the room holds itself quite still, and then the line clears. They exhale. They adjust. The map steadies, its veins pulsing, and the quiet choreography resumes—unseen by most, indispensable to all.

Option B:

Perfection. The word they painted on billboards; the promise in glossy speeches; the quiet chime of lights that never failed. In Harbour City, bins sighed themselves empty, pavements warmed for bare feet, and traffic flowed like a river taught to behave. Everything had its place, and every place had a sentence of code to keep it obedient.

As dawn diluted the sky to a thoughtful grey, Lina slipped her badge through the reader and stepped into Control, that glass-bright room where the city’s heartbeat was graphed and graphed again. Rows of screens tilted towards her like petals; the air smelt faintly of metal and lemon, chilled to keep the machines comfortable. The System did three things: planned, predicted, prevented. Today she would shadow Soren, senior analyst, and, in theory, learn how to keep perfection perfect.

Soren spoke in a calm, mechanical baritone, each instruction crossing the room with the neatness of a measured line. “Look for anomalies,” he said, not looking at her. “There won’t be any. But look.”

Lina sat, fingers hovering. Data cascaded, a waterfall of digits; buses ticking along their routes, energy usage drawing tidy waves, water pressure holding steady with metronomic patience. Her eyes settled into the rhythm. It was almost soothing, almost music.

Then—there. A flicker. Route 12’s timestamp hiccupped, eight seconds swallowed and then restored, as if the city had blinked a little too slowly. The graph didn’t drop; the squares stayed reassuringly green; the label still said Optimal. Yet the numbers disagreed with themselves for the smallest sliver of time (so small it made her doubt her eyes), a whisper in a choir.

She leaned closer. She scrolled back. Nothing. Forward—nothing. But on the live feed, another tiny stutter tremored through the network, not a delay anyone would feel, not a thing to panic a commuter, but enough to prick her skin. She clicked to zoom; the system refused, returning a polite banner: Access limited.

What do you do when the machine that runs your life clears its throat? Tell someone and risk sounding naïve? Pretend you didn’t see? In training they had told her the System was self-correcting, that it learned; mistakes were fossils. Fossils didn’t twitch.

Soren drifted past her chair, eyes sweeping the room, and Lina almost spoke. The word caught. It wasn’t fear exactly; it was something more complicated, like standing at the edge of a mirror and noticing the reflection breathe.

On-screen, Route 12 slid into Optimal again—smug, serene. The city breathed: bins, buses, bridges. She pictured the corridors of code, a labyrinth lit white, every pathway checked and checked again, and then, tucked into a corner, a door painted the same colour as the wall.

Her finger hovered over the help icon. She clicked anyway. A single line arrived, bland and careful: Network synchronisation underway. No user action required.

Required. The word tasted official and faintly bitter. Outside, sirens rose and flattened, not urgent, just habitual. The sky cleared to a blue you could almost trust. Perfection is a word on a billboard; the paint can peel. Lina copied the time of the hiccup into her notebook, pressing too hard so the pen left a trench.

Eight seconds. A hairline crack, or nothing at all.

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

Option A:

Light leaks from a wall of screens, cold and certain, turning faces the colour of aquarium water. Maps bloom in squares and strips, continents sliced into panels; routes ribbon across in electric threads. Zoom levels tremble—ports and junctions swell then shrink—and icons crawl as if wilful. It smells faintly of coffee that has stood too long and of warmed plastic. Overhead, strip-lights fizz; a printer coughs; a server rack hums like a hive. On the far wall a clock ticks forward, minute by minute, a metronome nobody mentions. The room doesn’t have windows. It doesn’t need them: outside is here, flattened and glowing.

Operators sit in staggered rows, shoulders hunched, headsets pressing halos around their ears. They speak low and fast, syllables clipped; acronyms sprinkle the air like grit. “ETA?” “Copy.” “Hold at Gate C.” There’s a rhythm—a percussion: click, tap, the mouse’s small sigh. A hand rises; the supervisor drifts over—creased trousers, alert eyes—and they hover over a map like a midnight city. The supervisor points, twice, decisive. A few keystrokes later a path re-colours from red to amber; tension thins.

Then a ping. A neat chime that is not neat at all. On the top-left pane a weather cell fattens over the estuary; icons hesitate. Meanwhile, on the whiteboard, someone sketches an arrow, then another, speech building like rain: numbers, postcodes, units. The radio channel hushes and sharpens. In the centre a convoy edges toward the bruise of cloud. The system suggests: Reroute. The operator hesitates for a breath; the alternative looks thin and already crowded. “Confirm reroute A27 via North Loop,” she says, and the words snap into the room.

Gradually the noise settles again, the tide going out. Monitors return to their steady crawl; lines re-knit; the conversation loosens and swells. A paper cup is crushed and tossed, a new pot gurgles; the clock blinks. Outside is still out there—rain, cranes, a thousand miles of tarmac—but in here it is held in grids and colours, in patient numbers. Imperfect, sometimes chaotic, yet it works—because that’s what this room does: gather the world and send it on.

Option B:

Morning. The hour of certainty; blinds lifting together; kettles clicking off in perfect unison; lifts clearing their throats with the same polite chime. The city moved like a disciplined choir, breath measured, steps aligned. The Grid handled the choreography—traffic, weather, meals—so seamlessly that people forgot their bodies were the ones moving. On the screens, numbers cascaded: arrival 07:31:00; parcel 07:31:10; heart rate optimum. Everything was accounted for; everything had its slot, its box, its satisfying tick. Perfection wasn’t bragged about anymore; it was the wallpaper you stopped seeing.

As the elevator counted floors in a calm, glassy voice, Mara watched her reflection ride up with her. She liked neatness—timetables, tidy graphs, lists—because they behaved. The Hub smelt of citrus and static. At the gate she pressed her wrist to the reader; it warmed her skin, then rewarded her with a neat green square and a soft chirp. She exhaled. Down the corridor, status lights glowed in complacent rows. At first she didn’t intend to look closer; after all, there was nothing to see. In this place, the unseen had been removed.

Then the clock above the concourse hesitated.

It was less than a second: a tiny flinch, the thin hand arrested mid-breath before it jerked to catch up. Around her the concourse kept flowing—shoes on polished tiles, conversations about weather, drones whispering overhead—but the pause had a gravity that tugged at her. Mara blinked. She counted under her breath, just to prove she hadn’t imagined it, and there it was again—eight, nine—and the tenth arrived late. The note in the gate’s chirp wavered too, a fraction flatter than the rest, as if the system had a sore throat.

She told herself it was nothing, a surface glitch on an otherwise flawless pane; she even took a step towards the comfort of numbers. Yet the word lodged inconveniently: flaw. It wedged itself between her ribs like a cheap splinter. The Grid did not do late or flat notes. Mara turned back, pretending to adjust her lanyard. Meanwhile, her pulse—usually obedient—miscounted. If perfection could pause, what else could slip? She raised her eyes to the clock again and, this time, she waited.

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

Option A:

A pale ocean of screens washes the room with artificial daylight. Maps float on glass, not with pins but with pixels: rivers of roads, tiny arrows crawling like ants. In the periphery, status bars creep forward, patient as snails. The glow presses on faces, carving cheekbones; it drains colour from blinking eyes.

The sound is constant, almost comforting. Keyboards chatter in quick rhythm; radios hiss; a stray alarm chirps, then falls quiet. Someone says, copy; someone else, stand by. Pens scratch, steady and quick. The air-conditioning hums—cool, dry, relentless. It smells of coffee gone cold, warm plastic, tired fabric chairs. Whiteboards wear rows of times and initials; magnets slide to new positions with soft clicks, like a very small clock.

From the central screen a warning blooms, a small amber flower in the corner. Coordinates flash—simple, urgent. A dispatcher leans in, tapping, tracing a line from warehouse to crossroads to dock. Her voice is calm, though I see the pulse in her neck; she counts trailers, calls drivers by name, switches the order with two swift edits. For a moment the room holds its breath. A mouse clicks, gentle and repetitive, like light rain. Then the flow smooths again, lanes filling and emptying: in and out, in and out.

The control room feels like a brain and a heart together: wires under desks, cables like veins, messages firing. Outside, night smears the windows; time here is kept in blinks of cursors, stacks of paper cups, the ache between shoulders. A quiet urgency threads through everything, not frantic, but taut. It is busy, yes, but contained. Little mistakes happen—a name misspelt, a key slipped—but they are quickly corrected. Still the maps move, and the people move them, and the world beyond moves because of this bright, buzzing box.

Option B:

Morning in our city didn't rise; it switched on. The white panels in the ceiling glowed at 07:00 exactly, like a promise kept. Air tasted clean; the corridor floor was so polished it held a copy of every shoe.

They called it the System. Screens kept the same blue line of time; drones drifted; doors kissed shut in rhythm. Nothing argued.

I liked it. You didn't have to guess. My route to the transit gate was mapped and measured: seventeen steps from lift to Gate C, two left turns, one long breath while the scanner read my card.

I reached the barrier. The light was amber, waiting. I lifted my card, ready for the usual chirp. The gate slid open early—half a second before plastic touched glass. A slip. Small, like a hair on a white sheet, but there.

I froze with my hand in the air, the card a useless prop. Someone behind me tutted. I stepped through anyway, and the doors whispered closed on time.

It bothered me in a quiet way. I checked the wall clock: 07:12. My watch said 07:11. The blue schedule agreed with my watch; the clock did not.

Maybe a battery was failing. I went to the next scanner and tried my card again. Again, the green wink came before contact. If a clock could be wrong here, what else could be?

I felt a prickle at the back of my neck, not fear, more the irritation you feel when a picture hangs slightly crooked and nobody else can see it.

The System was still perfect to everyone around me. It still shepherded bodies from A to B. But now I knew where the seam ran, a thin shining line. If it opened without me, it could open for something else.

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

Option A:

Light from a wall of screens bleeds into the dim room, blue and green rivers twisting over maps of countries I have not visited. Numbers crawl at the edges; tiny clocks blink, steady as a heart. Air-conditioning hums, a cold ribbon on the back of the neck. The thick plastic smell of new keyboards mixes with bitter coffee and last night’s chips. Cables drape like vines beneath desks, hiding scuffed floor and a tangle of power bars.

Dispatchers sit in rows, headsets clamped, voices clipped and quick. A printer chatters; a radio crackles. On a screen a convoy of dots shuffles along a motorway, inch by inch. “Copy. Reroute south. Hold at the depot.” Someone scribbles ETAs on a whiteboard; someone else rubs them away. Fingers tap—tap—tap, like soft rain; the screens answer with fleeting warnings, amber triangles that blink like nervous eyelids.

Meanwhile, the supervisor paces a small rectangle of carpet, a neon highlighter flashing in his hand. He points, and the room bends toward him, tugged by a magnet. Weather rolls across the coast: a slow bruise, pushing trucks inland. Choices feel heavy; they move pieces that are not pieces at all. A map zooms out; a city becomes a toy, then a dot. It is control, sort of, but also guessing, hoping the guess holds.

The room is a heart for far-off roads, pumping orders, pushing routes. It hums; it argues; it recites times. I want to step outside but the clock insists; the data spills forward, it never sleeps.

Option B:

Everything in our school ran on rails; lights blinked awake at seven-thirty, lockers opened with obedient clicks, and the corridors breathed out lemon air like a polite sigh. The Network called it precision. Posters called it Perfect. Even the plants were measured by height, clipped in neat squares like green graph paper. We lined up on blue arrows, we scanned our badges, we moved when the soft tone told us to move. I liked that, mostly—no arguing, no mess, no muddled mornings.

I didn’t look up when the gate greeted me. “Good morning, Sam.” The words were warm, the screen bright, two green ticks. Routine. Then there was a second blink, a fraction too late: “Good morning, Ivy.” I stopped. Two names, one body. It was small—almost nothing—but my stomach tipped like a tray. The screen still showed my photo, but the code beneath was different. Yesterday had ended with 02, today it flashed 03 then back to 02. Codes only move forward: the digital tutor says so every Monday (and it never jokes).

Around me, the river of students flowed, shoes hush-hushing on clean floors. No one else hesitated. The doors slid closed behind us like tidy lips. Maybe it was a glitch. Maybe the light had glared on the glass and I saw wrong. But once you see a crack you can’t unsee it. I felt air on my neck where there shouldn’t be any, like a window was open in a sealed room. The Network doesn’t get things wrong, it tells us that, it’s programed to. So why did it welcome me twice?

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

Option A:

Rows of screens glow fluorescent blue; maps sprawl like nets across a dark wall. Lines crawl in different colours, little dots blink like insects. The room hums with machines and voices and it feels like the brain of a huge, busy creature. The air-con is to cold and it smells of old coffee and warm plastic. It never sleeps.

At the front, a supervisor stands with a headset, pointing at one route then another. Meanwhile operators sit at consoles, their fingers flick from window to window, click-click, click. Voices overlap in soft commands: "ETA nine minutes," "Hold that truck," "Reroute around the closure." The words repeat, again and again. Beep, beep-beep—pause—beep.

On the wall, arrows, numbers, and tiny clocks make a mosaic of movement. The software is complicated, almost a labyrinth, but they steer through it like drivers in rain. Someone laughs, tired; someone yawns. A printer coughs out paper. Cables coil like sleeping snakes under desks. Who keeps track of all this? They do, they must. There job is to keep the flow going, to orchestrate trucks and planes so boxes don't stop, not ever. Outside it's late; inside the screens are always morning.

Option B:

They called it perfect. The city ran on the Grid, a smooth glow of screens and tiny green ticks. Buses kissed each stop on time; doors slid open and closed with a polite sigh. Street lights woke at the same second, like a choir breathing in together. It was our job to watch it keep time, to keep it precise.

I was a junior tech, so I mostly clicked through the morning checks. Boxes filled themselves: Traffic Sync, Energy Flow, Attendance. The algorithm smiled at me in green. My coffee steamed, and the monitors reflected back my face, pale under the strip lights. Everything matched. Everything agreed. Perfect, they said, and we said it too, because it was easier.

Then I saw it: a hairline crack. Gate 12 at East Dock said 120 entries. The camera showed 119 and a pause. The counter blinked; the same number stayed. 120 again. A beat had been skipped, or added. I wasn’t sure, but something slipped out of rhythm.

My finger hovered over the report button. The room hummed on, blind. Maybe it was nothing—just a glitch. But once you see a flaw you can’t unsee it, and the perfect screen suddenly looked too bright.

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

Option A:

The room is full and loud. First I see the screens. They cover the wall and glow bright, blue and red. Maps spread across them like rivers, they twist and cross. I hear fans and keys. It feels hot, the air is thick with wires and coffee.

Beep! Beep! Beep!

People sit in rows, some lean forward, some lean back. Then I hear the voices, low and quick and always moving. Headsets hug there heads and voices mumble, fast, slow, fast. One hand points at a dot on the map like a tiny ship, then to another dot, then back again. The chairs roll and squeak and bump into each other and no one looks up.

A printer coughs out paper and a man writes numbers, he writes and writes. The lines blink like stars and they never stop. The big clock on the wall ticks slow but everything else rush.

Option B:

Perfect. That is what they said. Everything had a rule. The lines, the door that blinked green when you were okay.

The morning it happen, the sky was plain. The line was straight, necks forward, no one talking. I held my pass in my sweaty hand like it could slip away.

Beep. Gate. Green. Go. It was always like that, we moved like a river, I didnt even think, my feet knew the steps, my breathing matched the tick, tick, tick.

Then it coughed. The light flicked red, then green, then red again. The screen said Welcome Mia twice but my name is Leo. For a second the clock above said 07:59 and the system said 08:01.

I stopped a bit. No one else did. Perfect means dont stop

I aint meant to speak, but I said, Why is it wrong? The guard blinked, looked at me, then at nothing.

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

Option A:

The room is full of screen's and blinking lights. People sit in chairs and tap on keys and they talk fast. Maps on the wall glow blue and green. Lines move and flash. There is a low hum and then a sharp beep, beep, beep, it keeps going. Voices talk over each other, numbers, times, trucks, ships. A man says go, go now, another says wait. Coffee smell old and strong. Cables snake on the floor like black rope. The air feels warm, the air feels busy, the air wont stop. Outside it is night. I watch the biggest screen, it dosent sleep.

Option B:

They said the system was perfect. The doors slide open each morning, lights the same, the voice says welcome like a robot. I stand in line with my card. I don't think much, just move. Today the light blink wrong, one red dot, small, like a crack in glass. No one see it, or they dont care. The man in blue smiles, says its fine. I think about the bus last night, rain dripping alot. I tap again and it beeps too high, too loud. Perfect things dont make noise like that. I look back and the screen flickers. My name is wrong. I walk.