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 did Hartlepool’s Wonder’s mother take three firsts?: at Birmingham – 1 mark
• 1.2 Where was Hartlepool’s Wonder second in the cockerel class last year?: at Gloucester – 1 mark
• 1.3 According to Vera, where are the hens?: in the pantry – 1 mark
• 1.4 According to Vera, what placing did Hartlepool’s Wonder achieve last year at Gloucester?: Second place in the cockerel class – 1 mark

Question 2 - Mark Scheme

Look in detail at this extract, from lines 11 to 25 of the source:

11 undressed and got into bed with all due speed, judging that the pig would abate its inquisitorial restlessness once the light was turned out. As a substitute for a cosy, straw-bedded sty the room offered, at first inspection, few attractions, but the disconsolate animal suddenly discovered an appliance in which the most luxuriously contrived piggeries were notably deficient. The

16 sharp edge of the underneath part of the bed was pitched at exactly the right elevation to permit the pigling to scrape himself ecstatically backwards and forwards, with an artistic humping of the back at the crucial moment and an accompanying gurgle of long-drawn delight. The gamecock, who may have fancied that he was being rocked in the branches of a pine-tree, bore the motion with

21 greater fortitude than Latimer was able to command. A series of slaps directed at the pig’s body were accepted more as an additional and pleasing irritant than as a criticism of conduct or a hint to desist; evidently something more than a man’s firm hand was needed to deal with the case. Latimer slipped out of bed in search of a weapon of dissuasion. There was

How does the writer use language here to present the pigling’s behaviour and the effect on Latimer? 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 the anthropomorphic, sensuous diction (inquisitorial restlessness, scrape himself ecstatically backwards and forwards, artistic humping of the back at the crucial moment, gurgle of long-drawn delight) and the extended, undulating sentence that mirrors the pigling’s rhythmic self-gratification, while showing how ironic formality and understatement (pleasing irritant, greater fortitude than Latimer was able to command, weapon of dissuasion) comically diminish Latimer’s authority and heighten his frustration.

The writer uses elevated, mock-formal diction and metaphor to present the pigling’s misbehaviour and Latimer’s misplaced confidence: “inquisitorial restlessness” personifies the animal as a relentless interrogator that will not “abate”. The present-participial “judging that the pig would abate…” immediately exposes Latimer’s misjudgement. Hyperbolic “luxuriously contrived piggeries” and the dignified “appliance” comically dignify a squalid impulse, while “disconsolate” humanises the pig’s need for comfort.

Furthermore, sensory detail and dynamic verbs render the pig’s pleasure vivid and unstoppable. The bed’s edge is “pitched at exactly the right elevation”, a precise, almost engineering description that enables him to “scrape himself ecstatically”. The balanced pair “backwards and forwards” and the tactile “artistic humping” imply rhythmic deliberation, while the onomatopoeic “gurgle of long-drawn delight” amplifies the soundscape. By contrast, Latimer’s “series of slaps” are merely “accepted” as a “pleasing irritant”—an oxymoronic collocation that converts reprimand into reward and strips him of authority.

Moreover, hypotactic, multi-clausal syntax—signalled by the semicolon before “evidently”—mirrors ceaseless motion and Latimer’s rising helplessness. The gamecock “may have fancied” being “rocked in the branches of a pine-tree”, a whimsical image that soothes the animals even as the comparative “greater fortitude than Latimer” humiliates him. Finally, he “slipped out of bed in search of a weapon of dissuasion”—a bureaucratic periphrasis whose elevated tone satirises his impotence, presenting the pigling’s behaviour as joyfully anarchic and its effect as comic defeat that invites the reader’s amusement.

Level 3 (Clear, relevant explanation) – 5–6 marks Shows clear understanding; explains effects; relevant detail; clear and accurate terminology. Indicative Standard: Through vivid lexis and comic anthropomorphism, the pigling is shown as gleefully relentless—phrases like "inquisitorial restlessness", "scrape himself ecstatically", and the auditory "gurgle of long-drawn delight", plus the precise "exactly the right elevation", create a humorous, sensory image, while the long, multi-clause sentence mirrors his continuous motion. In contrast, Latimer’s loss of control is conveyed through comparison and irony: the gamecock shows "greater fortitude than Latimer", his "A series of slaps" becomes "an additional and pleasing irritant", so "more than a man’s firm hand" is needed and he resorts to the mock-formal "weapon of dissuasion", emphasising his frustration and impotence.

The writer uses personification and evaluative adjectives to present the pigling as comically purposeful. Its “inquisitorial restlessness” suggests nosy, almost human determination, while “disconsolate” makes it seem emotionally needy. The verb “discovered” and the formal noun “appliance” imply intention, frustrating Latimer, who has “got into bed with all due speed” expecting the behaviour to “abate”.

Furthermore, sensory imagery and dynamic verbs emphasise indulgent pleasure: the pigling “scrape himself ecstatically backwards and forwards”, with “an artistic humping” and a “gurgle of long-drawn delight”. The onomatopoeic “gurgle” and adverb “ecstatically” heighten the comic excess, while the gamecock shows “greater fortitude than Latimer”, foregrounding Latimer’s discomfort.

Moreover, ironic hyperbole and elevated diction—“the most luxuriously contrived piggeries”—mock the scene, making a bedframe seem superior to any sty. The euphemistic “weapon of dissuasion” signals Latimer’s escalating exasperation yet keeps a humorous tone.

Additionally, the long, multi-clause sentence and balanced structure (“accepted more as… than as…”) show the pig taking “slaps” as encouragement. This relentless syntax mirrors the scraping and underlines that “more than a man’s firm hand” is needed, presenting Latimer as powerless.

Level 2 (Some understanding and comment) – 3–4 marks Attempts to comment on effects; some appropriate detail; some use of terminology. Indicative Standard: The writer uses vivid words and actions like 'inquisitorial restlessness', 'scrape himself ecstatically' and the sound of 'gurgle of long-drawn delight' to show the pigling’s excited, ongoing behaviour, with the long, flowing sentence making it feel continuous. In contrast, Latimer’s 'series of slaps' and search for 'a weapon of dissuasion' show simple frustration and lack of control, as even the blows become a 'pleasing irritant'.

Firstly, the writer uses adjectives and adverbs to show the pigling’s lively behaviour. The phrase “inquisitorial restlessness” makes the pig sound nosy and relentless, and the adverb “ecstatically” in “scrape himself ecstatically backwards and forwards” shows pure pleasure. The long list of actions makes the behaviour feel continuous.

Furthermore, sound imagery like “gurgle of long-drawn delight” (onomatopoeia) emphasises the animal’s enjoyment and creates a vivid picture. Calling its movement an “artistic humping” almost personifies the pig, making the scene comic.

Additionally, the effect on Latimer is shown by contrast: the gamecock “bore the motion with greater fortitude than Latimer”, so he seems irritated and helpless. His “series of slaps” are a “pleasing irritant”, so he is powerless. The formal phrase “weapon of dissuasion” shows he is driven to stop it. Overall, this presents the pigling as delighted and restless, and leaves Latimer frustrated.

Level 1 (Simple, limited comment) – 1–2 marks Simple awareness; simple comment; simple references; simple terminology. Indicative Standard: The writer uses describing words like 'ecstatically' and the sound 'gurgle of long-drawn delight' to show the pigling is happy, while words like 'slaps' and 'weapon of dissuasion' show Latimer is annoyed and trying to stop it. The repeated action 'backwards and forwards' makes the behaviour seem ongoing and irritating for Latimer.

The writer uses adverbs and verbs to show the pigling’s behaviour. The adverb “ecstatically” and the phrase “gurgle of long-drawn delight” make the pig seem happy as it moves “backwards and forwards.” Furthermore, the verb “humping” suggests playful, restless movement. Moreover, the pig takes a “series of slaps” as “pleasing,” so it ignores Latimer. This affects Latimer. The line that the gamecock had “greater fortitude than Latimer” shows he is less patient. Additionally, “weapon of dissuasion” shows he is annoyed and wants the behaviour to stop. Therefore, the language shows the pig is joyful and Latimer is irritated.

Level 0 – No marks: Nothing to reward.

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

• Anthropomorphic, high-register diction frames the pig as relentlessly nosy and intrusive, heightening comic irritation for Latimer (inquisitorial restlessness).
• Contrast stresses the pig’s discomfort with the human room and his drive to seek relief, setting up the antics that follow (cosy, straw-bedded sty).
• Precise, technical phrasing makes the discovery feel calculated and ingenious, presenting resourceful animal behaviour (exactly the right elevation).
• Kinetic verbs and adverbs convey unstoppable, ecstatic motion that Latimer struggles to restrain (scrape himself ecstatically).
• Elevated, ironic register aestheticises crude action, sharpening the humour of self-indulgent scratching (artistic humping).
• Aural imagery intensifies the scene’s indulgence and Latimer’s frustration by prolonging the sensation (long-drawn delight).
• Whimsical natural image shows how violently the bed rocks, while another animal bears it calmly, amplifying the chaos around Latimer (rocked in the branches).
• Comparative construction undercuts Latimer’s resilience, showing him less tolerant than the animals (greater fortitude than Latimer).
• Irony in the pig’s response makes discipline counterproductive, so Latimer’s actions fuel the very behaviour he opposes (pleasing irritant).
• Sentence form: the semicolon’s wry shift to an understated conclusion, plus the formal euphemism that follows, signal escalation while keeping a dry tone (evidently something more).

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 chaos?

You could write about:

• how chaos intensifies throughout 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 how chaos escalates via time markers and shifting focus—Towards dawn the cock forthwith commenced a spirited combat, leading to the duel which followed was desperate, while intrusions like by the time that the maid appeared and the clipped Want! quicken pace and layer conflicts—before the final reversal there was not the faintest trace of any inundation recontextualises the night’s disorder as calculated misdirection. It would also note the tonal pivot from farce to cool irony, as At any rate I kept your mind from dwelling on politics all the night recasts the preceding bedlam as purposeful.

One way the writer structures the text to generate chaos is by accelerating narrative pace through cumulative sentences that pile action upon action. From Vera’s brisk exit—'having first settled the gamecock … and taken an affectionate farewell of the pigling'—the focus narrows to the pig’s 'ecstatic' scraping, the bed rocking, and Latimer’s futile 'slaps'. The hypotactic build-up mirrors the room’s mounting disorder, while short, decisive movements—he 'slipped out of bed' then 'bounded back'—jolt the syntax, producing a breathless rhythm that embodies chaos.

In addition, temporal markers and shifting centres of attention intensify the disorder. 'During the long wakeful hours' expands the disturbance, then 'Towards dawn' offers a lull instantly undercut as the cock 'clattered down' and 'forthwith commenced' a new fracas. The attempted imposition of order—'draping a bath-towel'—is immediately nullified: 'peace was local and short-lived'. Focus ricochets from mirror to bed to 'desperate and embittered' duel, while parataxis ('dashed out', 'followed') and interjected dialogue ('Lor, sir…') puncture stability, keeping the reader off-balance.

A further structural strategy is delayed revelation and a clipped denouement. The single-sentence, italicised interjection 'Want!' acts as a pivot, isolating Latimer’s incredulity. The dash in 'If Miss Vera’s dog sees that pig—!' suspends sense mid-flight, implying further havoc. Only then does the narrative step back—'A cold suspicion…'—and the blind is raised to reveal 'not the faintest trace of any inundation'. This withholding, coupled with sustained internal focalisation on Latimer, makes the chaos experiential; the final ironic coda ('kept your mind …') retrospectively reframes it as orchestrated farce.

Level 3 (Clear, relevant explanation) – 5–6 marks Explains effects; relevant examples; clear terminology. Indicative Standard: A typical Level 3 response would identify chronological escalation and shifting focus that intensify the chaos—from the pig’s 'scrape himself ecstatically' to the gamecock’s 'rousing crow' and 'spirited combat', signposted by 'Towards dawn', explaining how this speeds up the pace. It would also notice the turning point and tonal contrast when the maid arrives and the abrupt 'Want'! is followed by 'not the faintest trace of any inundation' and Vera’s ironic closure 'At any rate I kept your mind from dwelling on politics all the night', which reframes the night’s disorder.

One way the writer structures the text to create chaos is through escalating focus shifts across a tight chronology. We move from Vera’s calm departures to Latimer’s bed, where the focus narrows to the pig’s relentless rubbing “backwards and forwards.” The long, cumulative sentences track uninterrupted movement, while Latimer’s failed “slaps” and aborted search for a “weapon” mark repeated, frustrated interventions. Temporal markers like “During the long wakeful hours” show disorder sustained over time, increasing the sense that events are spiralling beyond control.

In addition, the writer engineers a structural crescendo by introducing new disturbances at key moments. “Towards dawn” the gamecock’s crow redirects focus to the mirror, then the “deflected energies” switch into a “desperate” duel with the pig. The alternating positions (bird on the bed, pig charging up) create rapid shifts in spatial focus and pace. The sustained third-person viewpoint through Latimer (“Hague Tribunal offices”) maintains a helpless perspective, which amplifies the frantic, multi-strand chaos.

A further structural feature is the abrupt turning point when the maid enters. Her direct speech and the isolated exclamation “Want!” puncture the turmoil, and the animals suddenly exit, dropping the pace. Finally, “Some half-hour later” and the reveal—no flood—create an anti-climactic resolution and tonal shift to irony, bookending the scene with Vera and reframing the chaos as a deliberate diversion.

Level 2 (Some understanding and comment) – 3–4 marks Attempts to comment; some examples; some terminology. Indicative Standard: The chaos builds through a clear sequence, with the time marker Towards dawn moving from the pig’s antics to a spirited combat and then the duel which followed was desperate, so events keep piling up. Quick interruptions and a change of focus to the maid with Lor, sir, plus the late twist there was not the faintest trace of any inundation, make the ending feel confused and hectic.

One way in which the writer has structured the text to create a sense of chaos is by building from a calm opening to a frantic middle. At the beginning, Vera settles the animals and leaves, and the focus stays on Latimer. Then the pig scrapes the bed and Latimer “slipped out” then “bounded back”, so the pace quickens.

In addition, time markers and shifts in focus add to the mess. The temporal reference “Towards dawn” shows it drags on, then the focus moves from the pig to the gamecock, and finally to their “duel”, piling events to a noisy climax.

A further structural feature is dialogue and a twist at the end. The one-word paragraph “Want!” and the maid’s question speed the pace. Then the reveal of “not the faintest trace of any inundation” changes the mood and resolves the chaos, while Vera’s last line links back to the beginning.

Level 1 (Simple, limited comment) – 1–2 marks Simple awareness; simple references; simple terminology. Indicative Standard: The writer structures the ending so chaos builds over time: after the pig’s "gurgle of long-drawn delight" it becomes dawn with a "rousing crow" and a "spirited combat," so things get worse. The time shift "Towards dawn," exclamations like "Lor, sir" and "Want!" and the final twist "not the faintest trace of any inundation" make the mood frantic then surprising.

One way the writer structures the text to create chaos is by building it up step by step: first the pig scrapes under the bed, then the gamecock crows and attacks the mirror, so the action rises.

In addition, the writer shifts focus and time with “towards dawn” and “some half-hour later,” moving quickly to new problems and making it feel busy.

A further feature is short dialogue and exclamation marks when the maid arrives (“Lor, sir…”, “Want!”), which speed the pace and show the mess, before the ending calms in the talk with Vera.

Level 0 – No marks: Nothing to reward.

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

• Opening domestic set-up displaces normal order as animals occupy human spaces, foreshadowing disorder (in the pantry)
• Escalation through sudden physical stimulus as the pig exploits the bed’s edge, driving relentless motion and noise (ecstatically backwards and forwards)
• Failed intervention increases turmoil: punishment becomes reward, undermining control and compounding disorder (pleasing irritant)
• Cause-and-effect backfires when arming himself provokes aggression, forcing a panicked retreat and ceding control (bounded back into bed)
• Temporal dilation sustains chaos; the ordeal is stretched and exhausting, heightening helplessness (long wakeful hours)
• Dawn marks a new chaotic phase: fresh conflict (cock vs mirror) and attempted arbitration merely displaces trouble (Hague Tribunal offices)
• Parallel, overlapping action in the duel extends turmoil; spatial dynamics keep the conflict ricocheting without resolution (take refuge on the bed)
• Abrupt external interruption (maid) punctures the melee; a clipped one-word paragraph jolts pace and highlights absurdity (Want!)
• Late twist recontextualises events by revealing the absent disaster, exposing misdirection and purposive confusion (not the faintest trace)
• Bookended closure as Vera’s final remark reframes the night’s disorder as deliberate distraction, giving ironic resolution (kept your mind)

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 pig and the rooster start to fight, the scene is completely chaotic and funny. The writer suggests that Latimer is now totally powerless in his own bedroom.

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

In your response, you could:

• consider your impressions of Latimer and his complete powerlessness
• comment on the methods the writer uses to present the chaotic fight
• 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 largely agree that the writer frames Latimer as comically powerless through ironic, mock-heroic narration and escalating chaos, citing how his blows become a pleasing irritant, he retreats before his conqueror, his attempted Hague Tribunal offices are futile amid a duel beyond any possibility of effective intervention, and the maid’s “do you want those animals in your room?” punctures any authority. It would also acknowledge minimal, ineffectual agency before concluding that Vera’s payoff—“kept your mind from dwelling on politics all the night”—confirms the writer’s viewpoint that Latimer’s loss of control is the joke’s point.

I largely agree that the fight scene is both chaotic and funny, and that Latimer is effectively powerless in his own bedroom—though the comedy lies in his fussy, fleeting attempts at control being repeatedly undercut. From the outset, the pigling’s “ecstatic” self-massage under the bed, complete with “artistic humping” and a “gurgle of long-drawn delight,” deploys sensory and onomatopoeic detail to create anarchic farce that ignores human propriety. The parenthetical aside that the gamecock “may have fancied that he was being rocked in the branches of a pine-tree” anthropomorphises the bird for comic effect, while the comparative “greater fortitude than Latimer was able to command” humiliates the human. Latimer’s “series of slaps” being received as a “pleasing irritant” reverses power dynamics; the arch formulation “evidently something more than a man’s firm hand was needed” pointedly emasculates him. Even his attempt to procure a “weapon of dissuasion” is couched in mock-bureaucratic diction that satirises his ineffectuality. The pig’s “vile temper” and Latimer’s reduction to “his conqueror” clinch the reversal, as the auditory “snorts and champings” swell the cacophony.

Structurally, the chaos extends through a sleepless night. The bathos of Latimer’s thoughts—pivoting from “decent sympathy” for the second housemaid to fretting “how many Boy Scouts were sharing his Melton overcoat”—shows a man unable to control even his mind or property. The allusion to “Saint Martin malgré lui” further frames him as a reluctant martyr to absurdity. At dawn, the mock-scientific “Stupor Hartlepooli” and the bird’s “spirited combat with his reflection” exploit dramatic irony. Latimer’s self-important “Hague Tribunal offices” briefly impose order via the towel, but the narrator’s cool “local and short-lived” undercuts it. A martial semantic field—“duel,” “desperate,” “embittered,” “refuge,” “eminence”—elevates the animals’ squabble into a mock-epic, with the bed recast as contested high ground; crucially, the fight is “beyond any possibility of effective intervention,” explicitly sidelining Latimer.

The arrival of the maid delivers comic deflation and a final blow to his authority. Her “Lor, sir” and the italicised “Want!” expose his lack of agency; the animals depart of their own accord, and the threat of “Miss Vera’s dog” widens the sphere of chaos. The twist—no “inundation”—and Vera’s cool riposte that she “kept your mind from dwelling on politics,” capped by the narratorial aside “Which was, of course, perfectly true,” confirm his broader social powerlessness.

Overall, through onomatopoeia, anthropomorphic asides, mock-heroic diction and ironic narration, the scene is riotously chaotic and comic, and Latimer is rendered largely powerless, save for token, transient interventions.

Level 3 (Clear, relevant evaluation) – 11–15 marks Clear ideas; clear methods; clear evaluation of impact; relevant references. Indicative Standard: A typical Level 3 response would largely agree, explaining that Latimer is powerless, shown by phrases like "his conqueror", "bounded back into bed" and that the duel is "beyond any possibility of effective intervention", while the chaos is made funny by the mock-heroic "Hague Tribunal offices" and the maid’s "do you want those animals in your room?", "Want!" exchange. It might also note his token attempt to act (draping the towel) but conclude that even Vera’s "kept your mind from dwelling on politics" confirms his lack of control.

I largely agree that this scene is both chaotic and funny, and that Latimer is, for the most part, powerless in his own bedroom. From the outset, the pig’s under‑bed “massage” is rendered in comic hyperbole: its “gurgle of long-drawn delight” and “artistic humping” turn Latimer’s room into a slapstick stage. His “series of slaps” are treated as a “pleasing irritant,” which undercuts his authority. The narrator’s mock-formal phrasing—“evidently something more than a man’s firm hand was needed”—ironically belittles him. When the pig’s “vile temper” flares and Latimer “bounded back into bed,” the personifying noun “his conqueror” confirms the power shift; the pig “resumed its massage operations with renewed zeal,” a bureaucratic phrase that makes Latimer’s defeat funnier.

As dawn breaks, the chaos escalates. The rooster, grandly named “Stupor Hartlepooli,” begins a “spirited combat with his reflection,” a deliberately absurd image. Latimer’s attempt at control is comically inflated by the allusion “Hague Tribunal offices” for merely draping a towel; the official tone of “the ensuing peace was local and short-lived” highlights his futility. Battle imagery—“feathered combatant,” “duel… desperate and embittered”—creates a mock-heroic tone, while the structural aside “beyond any possibility of effective intervention” explicitly removes his agency. Even the bed becomes an “eminence,” from which the cock retreats at will; the pig “not from want of trying” contributes to the frantic, slapstick rhythm.

Finally, the maid’s entrance produces an anticlimax. Her blunt, comic question—“do you want those animals in your room?”—and the emphatic “Want!” expose how little control Latimer has, as the animals simply exit. The final twist, that there was “not the faintest trace of any inundation,” makes Vera’s prank the ultimate source of his powerlessness; her line about keeping his mind off politics is a neat, ironic pay-off. Overall, the writer presents a completely chaotic, very funny scene in which Latimer is largely powerless, despite his brief and ineffective interventions.

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 the fight is chaotic and funny and Latimer is powerless, using simple quotes like spirited combat, a duel desperate and embittered beyond any possibility of effective intervention, the failed peace local and short-lived, and the maid’s comic Want!. It might add that he tries to help by draping a bath-towel over the mirror, but this still shows he can’t stop the chaos.

I mostly agree that this section is chaotic and funny, and that Latimer seems powerless in his own room. The writer uses comic description and battle-like language to show the animals taking over while Latimer fails to control them.

The chaos is made humorous through exaggerated verbs and a mock-heroic tone. The gamecock “commenced a spirited combat” with its reflection, and later the “duel… was desperate and embittered,” which sounds like a grand war, not a bedroom squabble. This semantic field of fighting, along with the playful allusion “Hague Tribunal offices” when Latimer drapes a towel over the mirror, creates a funny contrast between high seriousness and silly animal behaviour. The pace also feels hectic: words like “clattered,” “dashed,” and “sustained attack” make the action fast and confusing. Dialogue and punctuation add to the comedy, especially the maid’s “Lor, sir,” and Latimer’s one-word “Want!” which shows how absurd the situation looks to an outsider.

Latimer’s powerlessness is clear. His “series of slaps” are taken as a “pleasing irritant,” so his methods don’t work. He even “bounded back into bed,” and the narrator calls the pig “his conqueror,” suggesting he’s lost command. Even when he tries to help, the “peace was local and short-lived,” and he ends up sleepless, thinking about “how many Boy Scouts were sharing his Melton overcoat,” a ridiculous image that underlines his helplessness. Structurally, the trouble escalates from the mirror to the full-on fight, and only ends when the maid arrives. The final twist—there was “not the faintest trace of any inundation”—shows Vera has tricked him, so he was never in control.

Overall, I agree to a large extent: the writer presents a lively, comic chaos, and Latimer is mostly powerless throughout.

Level 1 (Simple, limited) – 1–5 marks Simple ideas; limited methods; simple evaluation; simple references. Indicative Standard: At Level 1, a response would simply agree that the fight is chaotic and funny (e.g., "spirited combat", "desperate and embittered", the maid’s "Lor, sir") and that Latimer is powerless because he "bounded back into bed" and "evidently something more than a man's firm hand was needed".

I mostly agree with the statement. The fight between the pig and the rooster is shown as very chaotic and also funny, and Latimer seems unable to control anything in his own bedroom.

The writer uses lively verbs and adjectives to create chaos, like “clattered,” “rousing crow,” and “spirited combat.” The pig “scrape[d] himself ecstatically” with a “gurgle of long-drawn delight,” which makes the scene sound silly and comic. When the gamecock attacks “his reflection,” that is humorous too because it is needless fighting. There is also personification when the pig acts “as though aware that it might have outstayed its welcome,” which adds to the comedy.

Latimer seems powerless. His “series of slaps” are just a “pleasing irritant,” so nothing he does works. He “bounded back into bed,” which shows fear, and the narrator says “something more than a man’s firm hand was needed,” so he is not in charge. Even when he tries to help by covering the mirror, the peace is “short-lived.” The duel is “beyond any possibility of effective intervention,” so he cannot stop it. The maid asks, “do you want those animals in your room?” and the animals leave by themselves.

Overall, I agree to a large extent: the fight is chaotic and funny, and Latimer is basically powerless throughout.

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:

• Comic minimising of Latimer’s force: the slaps are a pleasing irritant, so his effort to control is futile—strongly supporting powerlessness while generating humour
• Animal outwits man: the pig can detect this manœuvre, forcing Latimer back and confirming a comic reversal where he loses all authority
• Mock-heroic diction makes the pig the conqueror, reducing Latimer to the butt of the joke and heightening the farcical chaos
• High-register satire for trivial action: performing Hague Tribunal offices to drape a towel mocks Latimer’s role and shows any control is laughably token
• Escalating conflict builds chaos: the cock’s spirited combat with the mirror then the pig creates frantic, funny momentum
• Authorial judgement nails the point: the duel is “beyond any possibility of effective intervention,” so Latimer is effectively powerless
• Slapstick staging intensifies comedy: the cock can take refuge on the bed while the pig repeatedly fails, sustaining frantic disorder
• Comic intrusion and misunderstanding: the maid’s startled question and Want! deflate Latimer, showing the room’s order isn’t his to command
• Ironic reveal undercuts him further: raising the blind shows not the faintest trace of flood, making his ordeal both needless and funny
• Wry payoff confirms the joke’s aim: Vera’s claim she kept your mind off politics reframes the night as a prank, cementing his powerlessness over events

Question 5 - Mark Scheme

For your school's local history exhibition, you are writing a creative piece about working life in the past.

Choose one of the options below for your entry.

• Option A: Write a description of a railway signal box from your imagination. You may choose to use the picture provided for ideas:

• Option B: Write the opening of a story about starting a job in another era.

(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:

Perched above the tracks, the signal box stands like a lantern on stilts, its windows salted with sun and railway dust. A smell of creosote and warm oil meets you on the steps; the timbers breathe, old but resolute. Inside, light falls in slanting bands, weaving gold out of motes; everything seems touched by patient hands. Small, yet generous with echoes: a quiet that listens; a hush that knows.

Along one wall, the levers stand in a shining parade, their polished handles pearly with use and their painted numbers assertive as epaulettes. Each bears a name—Home, Distant, Points—on small brass plaques; each waits for the deliberate hand. When one moves, the box shifts with it; floorboards murmur; the far-off signal arm answers with a crisp salute. Above, the control diagram glows: porcelain-faced instruments tick in agreement, needles quivering towards Line Clear. Archaic, perhaps; purposeful.

There is everything necessary: a stove crouched in the corner, a ledger softened at the edges, a clock whose second hand steps with unflinching sincerity; there is little that is not work. The bells speak in codes—double tap, pause, then three quick notes. Up and down, up and down, up and down, the levers answer; rods tighten under the floor; somewhere along the embankment the wires sing. The sound is mechanical yet oddly humane, like a heartbeat made of metal and memory.

Meanwhile, the chair—scarred, serviceable—keeps its station by the desk, and the stub of a pencil waits, already notched by teeth. A cap hangs on a peg, rain-dark at the brim; a woollen glove has turned itself into a puppet on the back of the stove. Whoever works here is invisible, yet present in everything: in the figures in the margins, in the ashtray with its single, carefully extinguished stub, in the habit of order that arranges tools just so. The box, conductor and confidant, orchestrates movement you cannot see but somehow trust.

Beyond the glass, tracks yawn away into distance, threading past signal posts that blink and settle, blink and settle. Sunlight skates along the rails. Still the room holds itself steady—wood and wire and warm, iron-rich air—while time slides past like a train that does not stop here. It is almost grandiose to say it, but this small room is the heart of a larger body.

Later, as the sky lowers and the first lamps complicate the dusk, the signal box draws its light inward. The levers no longer gleam; they glow, coppery, with gentler intent. Bells soften, the clock does not; the final entries are underlined, an initial set down with quiet pride. Inside, the hush returns, not vacant but vigilant, as though the room, having flexed its sinews all day, has chosen—for one careful minute—to breathe.

Option B:

Dusk. The hour when London shrugged on its charcoal coat; when the river loosed its briny breath across Wapping; when chimneys exhaled and telegraph wires drew thin black staves against a bruised sky. Barrows rattled home; a costermonger’s cry petered out; carriage wheels clicked like beads. Somewhere, an early fog began to unroll, soft as muslin and just as sly. Tonight, the city waited to be kindled.

As the clock in St. Dunstan’s tolled six, Tom tightened the leather strap of his satchel and lifted the lamplighter’s pole. It was longer than he was tall—ash wood, worn smooth by hands that were not his (his father’s)—and topped with a brass hook that caught the lamplight even unlit. In the satchel nestled folded mantles, a lint-free cloth, a stub of candle for emergencies, a creased route card. He felt as tremulous as the very flame he had been hired to conjure; his stomach fluttered with small, ridiculous wings. He wondered how on earth a thousand windows might trust a novice with their evenings and, more pertinently, whether his own fingers would betray him by shaking at the first glass.

He stepped into the street and the city met him in pieces: the tarry sweetness from the brewery; the iron-tanged haze of coal; orange peel underfoot; the susurrus of the Thames shouldering past. Boots thudded along cobbles; a bicycle rang its bright brazen bell; an omnibus lumbered by with passengers hunched like punctuation marks. Above him, the lamps stood like pale, unblinking eyes, intimate and aloof.

At the corner of Cable Street he paused, squared himself, and lifted the pole. It rose with an inevitability that steadied him. The brass hook found its peg; a twist, a deft nudge, a soft, surprised hiss—then the mantle caught, flowered, and held. Light pooled in the glass like warm milk; the world, previously charcoal and caution, took on edges. He laughed under his breath, absurd and relieved, and felt a small answering light kindle beneath his ribs.

“First night, lad?” The constable’s moustache twitched; his breath made pale ghosts.

“Yes, sir.”

“Then take your time. Better to coax it than scald it. The city’s nerves are in those flames.”

Tom nodded, swallowing a pebble of dread that tasted of pride. He moved on. Lamp after lamp answered him, a meticulous corridor of gold unrolling ahead. The pole grew lighter in his hands; his gait found a rhythm; names on the route card—Pennington, Alie, Cannon—unscrolled like a litany. He missed one bracket and fumbled—only slightly—his cheeks prickling as an old woman shook her head with theatrical disapproval; yet even that small failure stitched itself into his new competence.

At Aldgate the future already murmured: a row of pale electric globes in a shopfront, humming with a clinical, moonish certainty. He looked, and looked away. For now, his job was to thread flame through fog, to make streets navigable, to draw a bright seam down the coat of night. And, walking, he felt it: the era pressing in—sooty, industrious, ineluctable—and himself, a small part of its machinery, incandescent at last.

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

Option A:

From the outside the signal box looks like a modest chapel of timber and glass, raised on stilts above the braided rails. Its windows are squared and stern, panes ribbed with old putty; light pushes through them in long lozenges, turning dust to drifting, golden plankton. The stairs talk under a boot with a soft wooden complaint; the door yields, then admits you. Even when no train is near, the line hums at the thought of movement; the box, somehow, listens.

Along the room, the levers: polished mahogany stocks with white porcelain handles, red and blue and black like flags; they stand to attention, a regiment under varnish. Numbers stamped into brass escutcheons gleam; their edges pale where a thousand hands have rubbed them smooth. To pull one is a ceremony—latch lifted, sleeve tightened, the frame’s deep, obedient sway. The ratchet protests and then concedes with a clean, persuasive click. Backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards—this deliberate dance has measured years; it looks simple, but it is not.

On the wall, the block instruments keep their counsel: poised needles, a polished bell with its code of knocks, a Bakelite telephone humming with patience. A diagram board stretches like a river map, pale tracks running to small, glass-eyed lamps that wink their permissions. The ledger lies open, spined with carbon paper; in the margin someone’s careful copperplate pins time to meaning. From the kettle on the iron stove—dented, faintly floral—rises the smell of tea; it binds with linseed oil and warm dust until the room feels almost kindly.

Beyond the glass, semaphore arms lift and lower, their red cheeks paling to white; linkages pull rods that clatter under boards, drawing decisions into the ground. When a freight goes through, the windows tremble and the air fattens with iron, the sound rolling across the floor. Rain, when it comes, ladders the panes; in winter, breath ghosts the corners and the stove ticks like an old dog settling. Every day is different; every day is the same.

To call it quaint would be easy, and a little lazy. It is more than quaint: a nerve-centre in timber, patient as a librarian, exacting as a metronome; a small room that orchestrates distance. Even when the line falls quiet, the clock persists: tick, tick—tick. It waits; it watches; it remembers.

Option B:

Morning shook itself awake over the city, lifting the fog in slow folds as if someone were airing out a long, grey curtain. Hooves struck sparks from the cobbles; a boy bawled headlines with cracked bravado; gas lamps yawned into day. Above it all, the telegraph wires—black, taut, humming—stitched the sky like neat, merciless seams. Steam dripped from a snorting engine at the distant station; ink darkened the fingers of men who counted money and men who counted time. Today, I would begin counting words.

I had polished my boots until my face stared back, distorted in miniature. My mother had laced them tight—too tight, perhaps—as if she could tether me to our small kitchen with its bread-knife and crackling fire. In my coat pocket lay the letter with my name, slightly smudged where I had touched it: Appointment to Assistant Operator, Telegraph Office, Ludgate Hill. I’d memorised the alphabet of dots and dashes by candlelight; I’d whispered it like a prayer. Still, my stomach fizzed—like soda, or nerves—at the thought of being useful to a world that moved faster than footsteps.

The door to the Telegraph Office wore its paint proudly and peeled anyway. Inside, the air was busy with a smell I would learn to recognise—hot metal, ink, and something sweet-sour like old battery acid. Clocks, all slightly out of agreement, ticked their small opinions. The instruments sat in rows: keys, sounders, coiled wires, jars; a little forest of glass and brass. Mr Reed, whose moustache seemed to point accusingly at everyone, nodded once and placed a ledger before me. “Your hand,” he said, “must be orderly.” He spoke as if my hand might have ideas of its own.

I sat. My chair creaked. A sounder chattered like rain on a roof; then another, then two together, voices overlapping in a language I nearly understood. “Listen,” Mr Reed added. “Feel the pace. Too slow and messages pile like carts at a tollgate; too fast and you wreck sense. Accuracy is charity to strangers.” His finger came down on a blot of ink. “A dot lost is a life lost—or at least a delay. Don’t be the delay.”

My first task was copying: names, places, amounts, all sharpened to exactness. The paper rasped. I wrote London to Liverpool; I wrote mother to son. It amazed me that a woman in a village—her apron dusted with flour, perhaps—could step into our wires and be carried to a ship’s deck or a mayor’s desk. Lightning caged and convinced to behave: that is what Mr Reed called it, and the phrase felt too large for my mouth but right for the age.

At noon, when the bells outside tolled and the office settled into a steady hum, he slid the key toward me. “Send this,” he said. It was only a trial: a sentence about the weather, unromantic and exact. My finger hovered, absurdly aware of itself. Dot. Dash. Dash-dot-dash. The sound went out like a pebble flung across a pond, leaving rings I could not see. I imagined the distant operator pausing, hearing me—me—transfer meaning faster than birds travel. It was a small thing, perhaps, but it felt immense. The city exhaled; the wires sang; and I, a boy with tight boots and trembling breath, began to belong.

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

Option A:

The signal box perches above the rails, a timber room with long windows that catch the pale light and hold it. Inside, the air tastes of paraffin and old tea; it smells faintly of damp wood and oiled iron. Along the centre, polished levers stand in a regimented row, enamel plates declaring their names in neat, officious letters: Up Home, Down Distant, Crossover. Their handles, worn to a soft shine, mirror oblongs of window-light. The clock on the far wall ticks.

Here everything is ordered. On the desk, a dog-eared diagram shows the line like a vein through brown fields: pins and ghosted pencil rubbings. The bell machine sits to one side—small, brass-capped—and when it speaks its staccato code, ting, ting-ting, the box seems to breathe. Beneath the floorboards, rods whisper and clatter as a lever goes back; above, the rafters answer with an old-wood complaint.

Light shifts constantly through the panes, stripe by stripe; dust floats like patient snow. A small stove sits in the corner, burnished black, a kettle that never quite boils. On the sill sits a chipped mug; footprints of tea ring the desk. On the wall, a faded calendar is pinned with a rusty pin, its picture of an engine scuffed by years. Not only a room, but a memory, it holds the fingerprints of countless hands.

When a train approaches, the first hint is a tremor, then a far-off murmur; then the rails sing. The levers answer with a click that is almost a promise. Outside, semaphore arms lift and lower like careful hands; coloured lenses catch the sun and throw red, green, amber onto the box’s varnished floor. The whole mechanism—relays, rods, the interlocking locked like stubborn logic—works together; it is complicated, yet clear.

At dusk the glass becomes mirrors, and the interior glows: brass and wood, the pale face of the clock. The box creaks a little. It is old, it is patient. Even when no one is there, it seems attentive, listening for that next code, that next arrival. Meanwhile, the rails run on into the dark, and the signal box, small as it is, keeps watch.

Option B:

Morning unpeeled itself from the city like paper from a fresh print; gas lamps thinned to pale pearls and the chimneys coughed their grey breath across the rooftops. Hooves clattered on cobbles. Newsboys were already calling headlines I couldn’t yet read because they were still being made, somewhere behind a brass-plated door on Fleet Street that had my name pencilled on a list. The air tasted of soot and something metallic. It felt busy, even before the sun had properly made up its mind.

At the washstand, I scrubbed at yesterday’s ink until my fingertips were raw and pink. Ink had a way of clinging—under nails, into cuffs, into thoughts. I buttoned my stiff collar, tugged Father’s coat over my shoulders and tucked my lunch into a pocket: bread, cheese, an apple that looked braver than I felt. I had one job today: arrive on time and not get in the way. Simple enough, except my stomach fluttered like a nervous sparrow and my hands were not quite steady.

The walk to the office was a corridor of sounds. Carters shouted; a hawker sang out strawberries in a voice that didn’t belong to winter; a tram rattled past as if it knew exactly where it was going. I passed posters pasted in unruly layers—wars, wagers, wonders—each one shouting for attention. Meanwhile, I practised the rules I’d been told on the trial day: mind the galleys; keep quiet; when in doubt, ask; never touch the forme unless you’re told. The words looked neat in my head, lined up like type, but they jostled when I thought too hard about them.

The Metropolitan Clarion stood with its bay windows blinking, as if the building was awake before any of us. Inside, the first thing was heat. Then smell: hot metal, oil, ink—thick and sweet and serious. The press room pulsed. Machines breathed and then exhaled, a slow, patient monster that ate lead and spat out sentences. Men moved in a rhythm I didn’t yet have. “New lad?” the foreman said, not unkindly. His moustache twitched. “Apron. There. Mind your fingers.”

I nodded—too much, probably—and tied on the ink-stained apron like a promise. This was work. This was noise. This was the start. For a foolish second I imagined my words printed and sold by shouting boys, but that was for later. For now, I stepped closer to the press and listened, trying to learn its language.

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

Option A:

A narrow room holds its breath above the rails. The signal box is a wooden ribcage, stained the colour of honey and smoke. Sunlight slants through tall panes, laying rectangles across the floorboards; dust hangs there, unhurried. Along one side, the levers stand in a precise row: red, blue, black, their enamel flaking at the edges yet polished where palms have lived. Brass plates glimmer; labels, small, announce names like secrets.

A faint tang of oil and metal lingers, mixed with tea steam and old paper. When a train murmurs in the distance, the whole box quivers, a hush before the work. The bell taps twice, then once; the telegraph clicks, a nervous insect in the corner. A hand—steady, scarred—wraps the cool handle. Up, over, down. The lever resists then yields, a deep mechanical sigh; outside, a signal arm lifts its pale face and watches the line.

The space feels both busy and calm, a brain above the body of the tracks. Maps spread like veins across the wall, a pencil nib tracing routes that knit towns together. Each window is a frame of constant movement: smoke, cloud, the gleam of rails curving away. Here, the smallest motion matters. A nod, a note, a pull. The rhythm builds and softens, regular and safe; it is almost musical, like an organ that breathes iron.

Yet everything is a little worn. The varnish is rubbed thin where sleeves have brushed for years. The clock’s hands tick on, uneven but faithful, and the schedule curls at the corners, pinned with a thumbtack that has bruised the paper. You could call it ordinary. When dusk leans in and the lamps blink awake, the box glows. It becomes a lighthouse for rails, guiding, repeating its patient language: stop, go; wait, pass; safe, safe, safe.

Option B:

Before the brass clock in the Telegraph Office had chimed eight, the city was already clattering awake. Cobblestones rang under hooves; carts rolled, slow and stubborn; a weak ribbon of fog pressed against the panes. Inside, everything shone with polish and purpose—brass rails, black telephones like slick beetles, rows of typewriters waiting with their mouths shut. Posters promised speed: messages delivered in minutes. A cold smell of ink and hot dust floated about like a reminder.

I stood on the threshold with my new boots pinching and my new cap slightly crooked. Mother had pressed the collar so hard it could have cut paper. In my pocket was the letter with my name, a careful loop where the manager had signed: Report Monday at eight, Junior Clerk. I read it again even though I knew it by heart. It felt like a ticket, and also like a weight.

Mr Peabody came out of his glass office and looked me over the way a tailor looks at cloth. “On time,” he said, not smiling, then held out a timetable as if it might bite. “You copy this cleanly. Carbon paper beneath, no smears.” His moustache bristled like a broom. I nodded and followed him past the clicking keys and the tap-tap that reminded me of rain, only faster.

The typewriter at my desk was heavier than I expected; my fingers sank on the round glass letters, and the ribbon smelt metallic, almost bitter. I had practised on a borrowed machine, but this one sounded different—sharper, more serious. The clock ticked, slow but loud. What if I jammed it? What if I lost my place and made a mess? I swallowed, squared the paper, and pulled the carriage. On the street a tram bell rang, a bright ping that seemed to say begin. So I did. The first letter struck; it left a neat, black mark. Then another. A small line of work in a very large city.

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

Option A:

The levers stand in a neat row, painted red, blue and black, their handles polished by a hundred hands; they wait like soldiers on parade. The wood around them is dark and varnished; it gleams where coats and elbows have rubbed it smooth. Dust spins in slanted light, tiny ships drifting past the windows, and the room hums, like it is thinking.

At the back, a faded diagram stretches across the wall: lines, numbers, little bulbs that wink. A brass bell waits; when it speaks—two clear notes—the signal box seems to wake. A hand reaches for a lever; metal meets palm; a solid clunk travels into the floorboards.

Outside, rails run in silver ribbons; semaphore arms rise and dip like cautious birds. Wind taps the panes. A train calls far off, thin and high, and the box listens. From this small room, someone guides them, not with shouting but with careful moves—back and forth, back and forth.

There is an oily smell that clings to your sleeve; it is not unpleasant. Your eyes catch the chipped paint; you read the stencilled numbers—12, 19, 27—and wonder who gave them those names? The brass levers looks serious and old, but they are loyal. Sometimes the windows rattle, sometimes the stove coughs; things here aren't fancy; they just work.

When evening slides in, lamps glow on the diagram and the bells sound softer. The signal box breathes out; the levers lean; the tracks outside wear a thin ribbon of light. Still, the room keeps watch—steady, patient—holding the railway in its hands.

Option B:

Morning. The kind that crept rather than arrived; thin light leaking around blackout curtains, soot sitting on the sill like tired snow. Posters flapped on the brick wall as the factory chimneys breathed, slow and heavy.

I tugged my utility coat tighter and hooked my gas mask box over my shoulder. First day. The word felt big in my mouth, bigger than the bread ration in my tin. Mam fussed; Dad had gone by dawn.

On the street, wet cobbles. A warden nodded; horses clopped past the halted bus. The whistle shrieked, my stomach did the same. A woman with red scarf and stern eyes ticked my name off. “You’re Line Three,” she said. “Keep your fingers, love.” Her joke fell like a spanner.

Inside, heat pressed at my cheeks. The air tasted of oil and metal; it was like swallowing pennies. Belts crawled along, carrying dull shells that were not quite gold. The machines shuddered and sighed, a choir that didn’t care if I was ready.

I tried to smile; it stayed put, stiff. I wiped my shaking hands on my skirt; a dark smear drew a new line across my morning. “Simple work,” the foreman said. “Pick, twist, pass. Rhythm is everything.” Everyone said it was simple; simple isn’t easy.

When the first casing rolled toward me, bright as a warning, I reached. The belt did not wait; the room leaned closer, listening for my mistake.

I breathed in, then I began.

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

Option A:

The signal box perches above the tracks, a square of varnished wood and tall glass. Sunlight squeezes in, turning dust into small gold flecks that drift and settle. Levers stand in a straight row—red, blue, black—handles smoothed by years of hands; little brass numbers wink. The air has a warm, oily smell; floorboards remember every step. It is quiet, almost; a faint hiss from outside. In the corner a dented kettle cools beside two chipped mugs, and a faded timetable hangs. The wooden walls are scratched with dates and little nicks, a name carved shallowly.

Meanwhile, the room feels mechanical and gentle. The big clock ticks, steady, steady. When a lever moves there is a heavy clunk, a tug under the floor, and the wires murmur. The bell on the wall taps twice—ding, ding—and the signalman listens, then nods. His hands are careful; his jacket smells of soap and smoke. At the window the rails shine into the distance, lights blinking like little eyes. Order lives here. Names on tiny labels, a map with thin lines, everything placed. Outside a train thunders by and the windows blur, but inside the box the rhythm goes on: back and forth, back and forth.

Option B:

Morning fog hugged the street like cold milk. A bell clanged from the iron gate, and a cart rattled past the cobbles.

It was my first day at the Telegraph Office, the year 1901. I had polished boots, a cap too tight, and a letter of hiring folded so many times it felt thin as skin. The town felt older than me; it breathed smoke and steam. First, I checked the address again. Then I stepped through the gate, heart thudding—stamp, stamp, stamp. What if I mixed up every message?

Inside, wires hung like black vines and machines clicked and dinged. The air tasted of oil and ink. Mr Briggs, the supervisor, watched me over small glasses. He said my name slow, and his moustache twitched. Fill the ledger, he told me, speak clear, never guess a code. I tried to stand taller but my hands were sweaty and my lunch cloth slipped from my pocket.

I wrote my signature, the ink blotted, and the paper drank it greedily. At last, he nodded. "You'll start on the desk," he said. "Crowded morning." I tied on my badge and looked at the brass key, the straight rows of switches. They looked like little doors. I was about to open one.

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

Option A:

The old signal box sits by the tracks. It is a small wooden room with a low roof and dusty windows. Light comes through the glass and makes lines on the floor. The levers stand in a row like soldiers, red, blue, green, black, shiny with oil. I can smell metal and tea. The clock goes tick tock and the air feels slow.

When a train comes the levers move. Up and down, up and down, up and down. They clank and scrape, a loud click that echo's round the box. The handles are smooth, my hand slips, it is sticky. The wood walls are creeking, or maybe it is the wind. It is quiet but busy at the same time.

Outside there is long grass. The tracks shine even when its dry. The box watches the line like an eye. The bell rings, the man nods and pulls. He dont talk.

Option B:

Morning. The time of whistles and smoke and boots on stone. The street was full of carts and the air taste like coal. I hugged my tin lunch close. Im starting my job at the mill.

It was 1890.

As the tall chimney coughed, I walked through the big door. The floor shook like a train. Belts ran and wheels turned. People looked small in the noise. I was new, new and small to.

The foreman stared at me. His cap was low. "Name?" he said. My voice stuck. Tom, I said, and he nod. He gave me a broom and a rag he pointed to the cotton that was like snow. Sweep it, he said. Dont get caught.

I went to my place by a dark machiene. My boots was heavy and my hands was shaking. I could feel the breath of steam on my face. Today was the start. Another time. My job.

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

Option A:

The signal box is small and wood and it smell like oil and dust. The levers stand in a line, red and black and shiny, like teeth, I pull one and it clanks and I feel it in my arms. The windows are big and the glass is cold, rain dots on it, my shoe is wet. There is a clock that ticks, tick tick, it is loud. A mug sits by a map, tea gone cold. I think trains will come, sometimes they dont, sometimes the birds do. The floor creaks and the room waits, the lights blink, the day goes slow.

Option B:

I start the job in the old days. The street is cobble and wet and a cart rolls by. Smoke sits in the air, it taste bitter, my nose sting. I wear a flat cap and rough boots that rub, I wish I had new ones. The mill door is big and black and loud, machines bang like drums. The boss dont smile, he says, start now, I do. It dont feel like my time, but work is work. I think of mum bread and gas lamps and a horse, anyway I go. We was told to tie threads fast. Time goes slow, clocks tick and shout.