Insert
The source that follows is:
- Source A: 20th-century prose fiction
- Nineteen Eighty Four by George Orwell
An extract from a work first published in 1949.
This extract is from George Orwell’s dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949). It opens on a cold April day as Winston Smith enters Victory Mansions amid Big Brother posters and a telescreen, establishing the bleak, controlled world of Airstrip One and his wary, weary routine.
Source A
1 It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. Winston Smith, his chin nuzzled into his breast in an effort to escape the vile wind, slipped quickly through the glass doors of Victory Mansions, though not quickly enough to prevent a swirl of gritty dust from entering
6 along with him. The hallway smelt of boiled cabbage and old rag mats. At one end of it a coloured poster, too large for indoor display, had been tacked to the wall.
11 It depicted simply an enormous face, more than a metre wide: the face of a man of about forty-five, with a heavy black moustache and ruggedly handsome features.
16 Winston made for the stairs. It was no use trying the lift. Even at the best of times it was seldom working, and at present the electric current was cut off during daylight hours. It was part of the economy drive
21 in preparation for Hate Week. The flat was seven flights up, and Winston, who was thirty-nine and had a varicose ulcer above his right ankle, went slowly, resting several times
26 on the way. On each landing, opposite the lift-shaft, the poster with the enormous face gazed from the wall. It was one of those pictures which are so contrived that the eyes follow you about
31 when you move. BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU, the caption beneath it ran. Inside the flat a fruity voice was reading out a list of figures which had something to do with the production of pig-iron. The voice came from an
36 oblong metal plaque like a dulled mirror which formed part of the surface of the right-hand wall. Winston turned a switch and the voice sank somewhat, though
41 the words were still distinguishable. The instrument (the telescreen, it was called) could be dimmed, but there was no way of shutting it off completely. He moved over to the window: a smallish, frail
46 figure, the meagreness of his body merely emphasized by the blue overalls which were the uniform of the party. His hair was very fair, his face naturally sanguine, his skin roughened
51 by coarse soap and blunt razor blades and the cold of the winter that had just ended. Outside, even through the shut window-pane, the world looked cold. Down in
56 the street little eddies of wind were whirling dust and torn paper into spirals, and though the sun was shining and the sky a harsh blue, there seemed to be no
61 colour in anything, except the posters that were plastered everywhere. The black-moustachio'd face gazed down from every commanding corner. There was one on the house-front immediately opposite. BIG BROTHER
66 IS WATCHING YOU, the caption said, while the dark eyes looked deep into Winston's own. Down at street level another poster, torn at one corner, flapped fitfully in the wind,
71 alternately covering and uncovering the single word INGSOC. In the far distance a helicopter skimmed down between the roofs, hovered for an instant like a bluebottle, and darted away again
76 with a curving flight. It was the police patrol, snooping into people's windows. The patrols did not matter, however. Only the Thought Police mattered.
81 Behind Winston's back the voice from the telescreen was still babbling away about pig-iron and the overfulfilment of the Ninth Three-Year Plan. The telescreen received and transmitted simultaneously. Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it,
86 moreover, so long as he remained within the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as heard. There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often,
91 or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted
96 to. You had to live--did live, from habit that became instinct--in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement
101 scrutinized. Winston kept his back turned to the telescreen. It was safer; though, as he well knew, even a back can be revealing. A kilometre away the Ministry of Truth, his place of work, towered vast and white above the grimy landscape.
106 This, he thought with a sort of vague distaste--this was London, chief city of Airstrip One, itself the third most populous of the provinces of Oceania. He tried to squeeze out some childhood memory that should tell him
111 whether London had always been quite like this. Were there always these vistas of rotting nineteenth-century houses, their sides shored up with baulks of timber, their
116 windows patched with cardboard and their roofs with corrugated iron, their crazy garden walls sagging in all directions? And the bombed sites where the plaster dust swirled in the air and the
121 willow-herb straggled over the heaps of rubble; and the places where the bombs had cleared a larger patch and there had sprung up sordid colonies of wooden dwellings like chicken-houses? But it
126 was no use, he could not remember: nothing remained of his childhood except a series of bright-lit tableaux occurring against no background and mostly unintelligible.
Questions
Instructions
- Answer all questions.
- Use black ink or black ball point pen.
- Fill in the boxes on this page.
- You must answer the questions in the spaces provided.
- Do not write outside the box around each page or on blank pages.
- Do all rough work in this book. Cross through any work you do not want to be marked.
- You must refer to the insert booklet provided.
- You must not use a dictionary.
Information
- The marks for questions are shown in brackets.
- Time allowed: 1 hour 45 minutes
- The maximum mark for this paper is 80.
- There are 40 marks for Section A and 40 marks for Section B.
- You are reminded of the need for good English and clear presentation in your answers.
- You will be assessed on the quality of your reading in Section A.
- You will be assessed on the quality of your writing in Section B.
Advice
- You are advised to spend about 15 minutes reading through the source and all five questions you have to answer.
- You should make sure you leave sufficient time to check your answers.
Section A: Reading
Answer all questions in this section. You are advised to spend about 45 minutes on this section.
Question 1
Read again the first part of the source, from lines 1 to 5.
Answer all parts of this question.
Choose one answer for each question.
1.1 What month was it?
- March
- April
- August
[1 mark]
1.2 What were the clocks doing?
- striking thirteen
- striking twelve
- striking eleven
[1 mark]
1.3 What did Winston Smith slip through?
- the glass doors of Victory Mansions
- the iron gates of Victory Mansions
- the wooden doors of Victory Mansions
[1 mark]
1.4 What entered along with Winston Smith?
- a swirl of gritty dust
- a flurry of wet leaves
- a gust of fine rain
[1 mark]
Question 2
Look in detail at this extract, from lines 51 to 130 of the source:
51 by coarse soap and blunt razor blades and the cold of the winter that had just ended. Outside, even through the shut window-pane, the world looked cold. Down in
56 the street little eddies of wind were whirling dust and torn paper into spirals, and though the sun was shining and the sky a harsh blue, there seemed to be no
61 colour in anything, except the posters that were plastered everywhere. The black-moustachio'd face gazed down from every commanding corner. There was one on the house-front immediately opposite. BIG BROTHER
66 IS WATCHING YOU, the caption said, while the dark eyes looked deep into Winston's own. Down at street level another poster, torn at one corner, flapped fitfully in the wind,
71 alternately covering and uncovering the single word INGSOC. In the far distance a helicopter skimmed down between the roofs, hovered for an instant like a bluebottle, and darted away again
76 with a curving flight. It was the police patrol, snooping into people's windows. The patrols did not matter, however. Only the Thought Police mattered.
81 Behind Winston's back the voice from the telescreen was still babbling away about pig-iron and the overfulfilment of the Ninth Three-Year Plan. The telescreen received and transmitted simultaneously. Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it,
86 moreover, so long as he remained within the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as heard. There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often,
91 or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted
96 to. You had to live--did live, from habit that became instinct--in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement
101 scrutinized. Winston kept his back turned to the telescreen. It was safer; though, as he well knew, even a back can be revealing. A kilometre away the Ministry of Truth, his place of work, towered vast and white above the grimy landscape.
106 This, he thought with a sort of vague distaste--this was London, chief city of Airstrip One, itself the third most populous of the provinces of Oceania. He tried to squeeze out some childhood memory that should tell him
111 whether London had always been quite like this. Were there always these vistas of rotting nineteenth-century houses, their sides shored up with baulks of timber, their
116 windows patched with cardboard and their roofs with corrugated iron, their crazy garden walls sagging in all directions? And the bombed sites where the plaster dust swirled in the air and the
121 willow-herb straggled over the heaps of rubble; and the places where the bombs had cleared a larger patch and there had sprung up sordid colonies of wooden dwellings like chicken-houses? But it
126 was no use, he could not remember: nothing remained of his childhood except a series of bright-lit tableaux occurring against no background and mostly unintelligible.
How does the writer use language here to present the outside world and the sense of being watched? You could include the writer's choice of:
- words and phrases
- language features and techniques
- sentence forms.
[8 marks]
Question 3
You now need to think about the structure of the source as a whole. This text is from the start of a novel.
How has the writer structured the text to create a sense of unease?
You could write about:
- how unease 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 4
For this question focus on the second part of the source, from line 81 to the end.
In this part of the source, the Big Brother poster is described as being everywhere, with eyes that seem to follow Winston. The writer suggests that this constant watching is a way to control people by making them feel scared.
To what extent do you agree and/or disagree with this statement?
In your response, you could:
- consider your impressions of the Big Brother poster
- comment on the methods the writer uses to convey its oppressive power
- support your response with references to the text.
[20 marks]
Question 5
A local radio station is inviting listeners to send in short creative pieces for a new Sunday evening show.
Choose one of the options below for your entry.
-
Option A: Describe a stall at an antique fair from your imagination. You may choose to use the picture provided for ideas:
-
Option B: Write the opening of a story about an object that has a hidden history.
(24 marks for content and organisation, 16 marks for technical accuracy)
[40 marks]