blogs. Web viewAnd his characters, from Lord Snooty to Desperate Dan, ... The Coatbridge judokas exchange steely looks, each silently wiling the other to speak first

Ink blotsBody art is growing more popular, though few employers are keen

1 IN THE North Star tattoo parlour in downtown Manhattan, Brittany shows off her ink: a Banksy-inspired tableau covering both feet. Now a student at New York University, she hopes to be a lawyer one day. “That’s why I got the tattoo on my feet,” she says. “It’s easy to hide.”

2 Once the preserve of prisoners, sailors and circus freaks, tattoos have become a benign rite of passage for many Americans. One in five adults has one, and two in five thirty-somethings. These days women with tattoos outnumber men. But what happens when these people look for work? Alas, not everyone is as savvy as Brittany.

3 Though increasingly mainstream, tattoos still signal a certain rebelliousness that works against jobseekers, says Andrew Timming of the University of St Andrews in Scotland. In a forthcoming study, Mr Timming and colleagues asked participants to assess job candidates based on their pictures, some of which were altered to add a neck tattoo. Inked candidates consistently ranked lower, despite being equally qualified. In a separate study Mr Timming found that many service-sector managers were squeamish about conspicuous ink, particularly when filling jobs that involve dealing with customers.

4 Designs of flowers or butterflies were deemed comparatively acceptable. And some workplaces are more open-minded: a prison-services manager explained that having tattoos made it easier to bond with inmates. Firms with a younger clientele are also more tattoo-friendly. But by and large the more visible the tattoo, the more “unsavoury” a candidate seemed—even if the boss had one.

5 Such prejudice may seem anachronistic, but it is not unfounded. Empirical studies have long linked tattoos with deviant behaviour. People with inked skin are more likely to carry weapons, use illegal drugs and get arrested. The association is stronger for bigger tattoos, or when there are several, says Jerome Koch, a sociologist at Texas Tech University.

6 This may help explain the army’s recent decision to reinstate old grooming standards. These restrict the size and number of tattoos, ban ink from the neck, head and hands, and bar body art that might be seen as racist, sexist or otherwise inappropriate. The change is intended to promote discipline and professionalism. But it is making it harder to recruit to the army, says Major Tyler Stewart, who handles recruitment in Arizona. His battalion is turning away 50 tattooed people a week.

7 Some aspiring soldiers and other jobseekers are solving the problem by getting their ink removed. Tattoo-removal has surged 440% in the past decade, according to IBISWorld, a market-research firm. At the North Star, where Brittany’s friend is getting a question-mark inked on her wrist, the prospect of such buyer’s remorse seems remote. “I don’t think it will help her job prospects,” observes Brittany, “but hopefully it won’t hurt, either.”

1. What is the purpose of this article? Why do you think this?2. Who is its intended audience? Why do you think this?3. What does the list of people with tattoos in par 2 suggest about the people who used to

get them?4. What does the word ‘benign’ in par 2 means? How did the context help you gain this

meaning?5. Why is ‘squemish’ used to describe how employers felt about tattooed candidates?6. What does the word ‘anachronistic’ in par 5 means? How did the context help you gain

this meaning?7. How does the final sentence have a double meaning?

#TheTriggering: Safe-Space Cry-Babies Bombarded With Politically Incorrect Truths

Backlash against the new face of authoritarianism

1 Cry-baby social justice warriors had no ‘safe space’ to retreat to after #TheTriggering began trending on Twitter and millions of leftists were exposed to some politically incorrect home truths.

2 The echo chamber of social media and the use of mass block lists normally ensures that precious snowflake SJWs rarely have their stupid ideas challenged – which is probably a good thing for them since they have now started demanding counseling whenever someone disagrees with their opinion.

3 However, a growing army of libertarians, conservatives and actual liberals who believe in free speech are becoming increasingly strident in their opposition to how a growing culture of censorship is beginning to pollute academia and public discourse.

4 From trigger warnings, to safe spaces, to the effort to re-define criticism, satire and merely disagreeing with someone’s opinion as “harassment” and “abuse,” the cultural backlash against the new face of authoritarianism is accelerating.

5 #TheTriggering – first devised by libertarian activist Lauren Southern – is the latest manifestation of that backlash.

6 Only one news outlet covered #TheTriggering in advance of its Twitter debut, a website called ‘We Hunted the Mammoth’

7 The story claims that the entire thing is merely an excuse for “Internet jerks” to be “extra jerky,” a description that suggests the person who wrote it was triggered by #TheTriggering before it even began

8 In reality, #TheTriggering is a hilarious way to re-assert the right to broadcast controversial truths in the face of perpetually offended mobs who up until this point have exploited Twitter as a means of publicly shaming and ruining people’s lives simply to make themselves look good in front of their virtue-signaling peers.

9 Twitter itself has responded in kind, shadow-banning and outright censoring conservatives for having the wrong political opinions.

10 No surprise then that Twitter is already trying to censor the hashtag itself.

1. What is the purpose of this article? Why do you think this?2. Who is its intended audience? Why do you think this?3. How is the writer’s use of ‘cry-baby’ effective in par 1?4. Explain how ‘echo chamber’ is an effective metaphor in par 2?5. How is the writer’s use of precious snowflake effective in par 2?6. What is the purpose of the dash in par 2?7. Why is the word ‘merely’ used in par 7?8. What is the author’s stance to #TheTrriggering. Support your answer with two pieces of

evidence from the text.

Integration panicAn incoherent batch of proposals to soothe anxiety about terrorism

1 EVEN by their own exacting standards, Germans are experiencing a lot of Angst this summer. They are still jittery after a series of terrorist attacks in July, including two by Muslim refugees. They are also newly nervous about the 3m German citizens and residents of Turkish descent, many of whom have staged demonstrations since last month’s coup attempt in Turkey in support of its president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Most Germans are wary of Mr Erdogan, who has been cracking down on opponents real and imagined at home and has requested the extradition of several suspects from Germany. Between the attacks and the demonstrations, many Germans feel civilisations are clashing on their own streets.

2 In response to the anxiety, politicians have come out with a burst of proposals claiming to get tough on terrorists, tough on security, tough on integrating refugees—in short, tough on the whole confused range of identity-politics issues that are making Germans nervous. On August 18th the eight interior ministers of German federal states who belong to the Christian Democratic Union, the centre-right party of Chancellor Angela Merkel, met in Berlin to issue a declaration summing up the proposals. Some of these, such as adding more police, are uncontroversial. Others that are politically explosive include restricting dual citizenship and banning the public wearing of burqas (veils covering both body and face).

3 Germany has already tightened asylum rules in the past year—making it easier, for example, to deport refugees who commit crimes. On August 11th Thomas de Maizière, the federal interior minister, offered his own ideas to get even tougher. These range from increasing video surveillance to easing confidentiality requirements between doctors and patients, so that psychiatrists, say, can tell on people they deem dangerous (though doctors are already obliged to report such cases).

4 A few worry that the new measures represent panic, not sound policy. Even Mr de Maizière, a Christian Democrat himself, rejects some of his party colleagues’ more extreme ideas. He sees the burqa as a symbol of failed integration and the subordination of women, he says, but “you can’t prohibit everything you reject”.

5 Centre-left politicians, meanwhile, worry that the debate is veering off course. It was a government of Social Democrats and Greens that in 2000 liberalised citizenship laws, mainly so that the children of Turkish guest-workers no longer had to choose between their native and inherited nationalities. The premise was that they could then integrate better into society. (At the latest count, in 2011, 4.3m Germans had another citizenship, 530,000 of them Turkish.) If Germany now forces its Turkish citizens to choose one loyalty, says Sigmar Gabriel, the Social Democrats’ boss, that “would only help Mr Erdogan. He’s happy when we split people again, into Turks and Germans”.

6 Nonetheless, the debate will stay hot for the coming year, ahead of the federal election in the autumn of 2017. The campaign has, in effect, started already: two of Germany’s 16 regions, Mecklenburg-West Pomerania and Berlin, will elect new assemblies next month. In both contests a populist anti-immigrant party, the Alternative for Germany (AfD), is likely to enter state parliaments. In north-eastern Mecklenburg—the only state legislature where the NPD, a party considered to be neo-Nazi, is currently represented—the AfD is even polling at 19%, not far behind the Social Democrats and Christian Democrats, who govern the state jointly. But the AfD puts most pressure on the Christian Democrats, who view security as part of their brand. This is why the interior ministers of Mecklenburg and Berlin, Lorenz Caffier and Frank Henkel, are the driving force behind the “Berlin declaration”.

7 Fears that migrants may commit terror are justified. The domestic intelligence service knows of 340 cases in which Islamic extremists have entered refugee centres in search of recruits. But banning burqas and dual citizenship will not assist security or integration. It would be disastrous, warns Wolfgang Kubicki of the Free Democrats, a liberal party, if politicians eager to translate Angst into votes jeopardised “all that makes us different from Turkey under Erdogan and Russia under Putin”.

1. What is the purpose of this article? Why do you think this?2. Who is its intended audience? Why do you think this?3. How is the writer’s use of ‘cry-baby’ effective in par 1?4. Explain how ‘echo chamber’ is an effective metaphor in par 2?5. How is the writer’s use of ‘precious snowflake’ effective in par 2?6. Why is the word ‘merely’ used in par 7?7. What is the author’s stance to #TheTRriggering? Support answer with two pieces of evidence.

A policeman has shopped his 13 year old son for fraud after he ran up £3700 bill playing iPad games.

1 PC Doug Crossan, 48, was horrified when his credit card company informed him that son Cameron had blown a small fortune in the App Store. He claims the teenager, who now faces the possibility of being arrested and questioned by his father’s colleagues, was unaware he was being charged for the in-game purchase and wants Apple to scrap the charge.

2 But the technology company has refused and his only way of recouping the money is to report the purchases as being fraudulent. So Mr Crossan, of Clevedon, North Somerset, has reported Cameron to the Action Fraud helpline – meaning it is now up to the police to decide if a crime has been committed.

3 He said: ‘I am sure Cameron had no intention to do it, but I had to have a crime reference number if there was any chance of getting any credit card payments refunded. In theory the local police station could contact me and ask for Cameron to come in to be interviewed. I could make it difficult of course and refuse to bring him in and they would have to come and arrest him

4 ‘Really I just want to embarrass Apple as much as possible. Morally, I just don’t understand how Apple get off with charging for a child’s game.’

5 Cameron has only owned the Apple tablet computer since December after he and other students at Clevedon School were bought them as study aids.

6 Mr Crossan logged the details of his MBNA Virgin credit card with Apple when he used the device to download a music album.

7 Cameron then racked up more than 300 purchases on games such as Plants vs Zombies, Hungry Shark, Gun Builder and Nova 3. Many of them are free to download but users can buy in-game-extras – in one game Cameron had purchased a virtual chest of gold coins costing £77.98.

8 When his father confronted him Cameron quickly confessed, claiming he did not know he was incurring charges as the games were initially free.

9 Mr Crossan said he had recently seen similar stories where the families had been refunded under similar circumstances and given this he thought he had a reasonable chance of receiving a refund.He said: ‘ we have asked Apple to consider our case in the same light, as the case is mirrored by him playing exactly the same free games, but Apple have refused.

10 Apple iTunes is now refusing to speak to me or give me an idea of why it will not refund. It sent me a copy of the terms and conditions stating that all purchases are final and further contact should be by way of a solicitor.’

11 Apple has refused to cancel the charges, citing parental responsibility and pointing out that iPads contain passwords locks to prevent accidental or unwanted purchases.

12 Apple declined to comment on the case.

1. Who would be likely to read this article? Explain why you think this, referring to the text.2. What is the purpose of the article? Explain why you think this, refering to the text.3. What has Cameron done? What has been his father’s reaction? What’s Apple’s reaction?4. Identify one example of informal language in par 1 & 2. Why has it been used this here?5. Identify one example of formal language in par 3 & 4. Why has the writer used this here?6. Read par 6-9. Explain, with reference to the text, two ways Cameron seems innocent.7. What impression of Apple is created by the final paragraph? How is this created?

1. Britain’s most haunted houses (sample 1 from Frith and Ralston)

Nigel Jones describes some of the properties visited by presenter Michaela Strachan while researching a television series about Britain’s most haunted houses.

1 They came for the women at dawn. Knowing they would die on the scaffold, the innocents condemned as witches spent a miserable last night in the tiny cottage lock-up called The Cage, chained or strapped to the wall of their cell in utter darkness. But do their restless spirits still horrify those who come to The Cage today?

2 For her new television series, Michaela Strachan visited the property and others like it to find Britain’s most haunted house. It was an experience she approached with a healthy dose of scepticism: ‘We weren’t doing an actual ghost hunt ourselves, but finding out about the ghosts and the history of the places we visited.’

3 The Cage’s current owner, Vanessa Mitchell, has no doubt that her property is shared with unseen guests. ‘It’s the most frightening house in Britain,’ she says. ‘It’s extremely haunted and I can’t live there any more – nor can anyone else.’ Vanessa and her four-month-old son Jesse were forced out of The Cage by a campaign of spooky phenomena: footsteps, the sound of women and children weeping, cushions thrown through the air and mysterious bloodstains appearing on the floor. ‘there have been deaths, suicides, depression and divorce,’ she says of those who have tried – and failed – to live in the tiny 16th century former jail house in the village of St Osyth near Clacton in Essex. ‘No one can live there for any length of time, and it regularly goes on sale.’

4 John Chapman, a former tenant, agrees. ‘I don’t believe in ghosts, but one night I was alone in the house and I heard footsteps climbing the stairs to my bedroom,’ he admits. ‘Then I saw the door handle actually turning – yet I know there was no one there. After that, I left.’

5 Chris Palmer, a psychic investigator, suffered a more physical ghostly experience – he was pushed down The Cage’s stairs by a spook. Chris say, ‘We were setting up cameras to take photographs when I felt a violent shove in my back – but there was no one there. Luckily I landed on a colleague and didn’t hurt myself.’ Now Vanessa only rent The Cage to psychic investigators and short-stay guests. She says ‘They say the dead can’t hurt you, but I know they can.’

6 Another Essex place of judgement and punishment is the Old Courthouse Inn in Great Bromley. As its name implies, the former courthouse, which is now a B&B and pub, was where criminals were tried – and often taken straight to the gallows. It is haunted by a woman in a maid’s uniform, and guests have complained of a feeling of being watched. The pub’s ghosts have been caught on camera by spirit snapper Ron Bowers he’s taken scores of photographs there, which have shown shapes witnesses claim were not visible to them.

7 Justice meted out at the Old Courthouse may have been rough but at least it was swift. However, debtors banged up in Derby Gaol languished there for months or years, sometimes driven to suicide by despair, the prison,

now a museum run by local historian Richard Felix, also claims to be Britain’s most haunted building. Richard says the ‘torment and terror of its past lingers in the very fabric’ of the building. Visitors to the museum have seen the oak cell doors close on their own, have smelt the scent of roses, felt sick and been pushed and shoved by unseen hands. At a séance held in the gaol, a heavy table pushed a visitor close to a burning fire, and Richard has seen a host gliding along the corridor. Richard believes the man in black 19th century clothes was the unquiet spirit of George Batty, a rapist hanged in 1825 when the jail closed down, or perhaps the spirit of the jail’s last warden, Blyth Simpson, who objects to his successor’s presence. Richard says, ‘He still thinks he runs the place – he resents me terribly.’

8 A genuine victim of injustice – burned alive in 1555 under the Catholic Queen ‘Bloody’ Mary for preaching his Protestant faith – was George Marsh. The scene of Marsh’s trial, 15th century Smithills Hall in Bolton, Greater Manchester, is haunted by his ghost. Joan Shepherd, a museum tour guide, thinks she’s seen him – and felt his rage. Joan says, ‘I was in the Green Room where Marsh was questioned, the hall’s most haunted chamber, when I saw a man in the mirror. He had white hair and was looking at me. Then something grabbed my wrist and held it so tightly it bruised.’ Since then, Joan has been too scared to enter the room alone.

9 Not all haunted houses are the sites of sin and suffering, however. Another Bolton museum, the half-timbered Tudor house curiously name ‘Hall I’ th’ Wood’, seems to be inhabited by its former owners, the wealthy Brownlow family. But, she says ghost hunter Jason Karl, they are fading away with time. ‘where once you could see a whole human form, nowadays all we see is a pair of disembodied legs climbing the stairs or sitting on a bed, accompanied by a sense of oppression of dread.

10

And did Michaela encounter anything that made her a believer? Well, while filming in the Hall her camera crew heard the sound of children playing outside. They went to the window…but there was no one and nothing to be seen. Spooky, eh?

Questions (TOTAL: 20 marks)1. Look again at paragraph 1. Think about how the author has chosen to

begin this piece of writing. How does the first paragraph relate to the rest of the passage? How does the author create a link between the first paragraph and those that follow? Explain the ways in which paragraph 1 is different in both ideas and style from the rest of the passage. (4)

2. Look at all the claims in paragraphs 3-5 that The Cage is haunted. Using your own words as far as possible, sum up how far the evidence seems convincing or unconvincing. (Focus solely on the evidence, do not allow your own beliefs to influence your answer.) (4)

3. Look again at paragraph 6-8. There are claims that The Old Courthouse Inn, Derby Gaol and Smithhills Hall are haunted. Say whether each of the following statements is TRUE or FALSE: (3)

A: Ron Bower’s photographs at the Old Courthouse Inn failed to show anything people had not seen.

B: Visitors to Derby Gaol museum seem to have been put in real danger at ties.

C: the museum tour guide at Smithhills Hall claims she is not scared of the ‘ghost’ there although it grabbed her wrist.

4. Look again at paragraph 6-8. Explain how word choice is used to make any one example of ghosts scary. (2)

5. Read paragraph 9 again. Compare the way in which ‘Hall I’ th’ Wood’ seems to be haunted with the other places mentioned. (Mention any similarities as well as differences.) (3)

6. Pick the answer that you think best sums up Michaela Strachan’s response to the question in paragraph 10:

A: Michaela didn’t believe in any of the ghosts at all. B: Michaela felt the houses were definitely haunted. C: Michaela had had one slightly strange experience that she thought might be supernatural. (1)

7. ‘Spooky, eh?’ Describe the tone and word choice used in this sentence. How far do they suggest the writer is convinced by Michaela’s story? (3)

2. A Night in a Haunted House (sample 2 from Firth and Ralston)The second extract is adapted from the opening of The Haunters

and The Haunted by Edward Bulwer-Lytton, a nineteenth century writer. The narrator is preparing to spend the night in a house in London, after a friend has aroused his curiosity by telling him it is haunted.

1 About half-past nine, I strolled towards the haunted house. Earlier in the day I had given my servant the keys, instructing him to light fires and air the beds. I took with me a favourite dog – an exceedingly sharp, bold and vigilant bull-terrier – a dog fond of prowling about strange passages at night in search of rats – a dog of dogs for a ghost.

2 I reached the house, knocked, and my servant opened the door with a cheerful smile. ‘All right, sir. Very comfortable.’

3 Oh,’ I said, rather disappointed; ‘have you not seen or heard anything remarkable?’

4 ‘Well, sir, I have heard something – the sound of feet pattering behind me; and once or twice small noises like whispers close at my ear – nothing more.’

5 ‘You were not frightened?’6 ‘Not a bit, sir’; and the man’s bold look reassured me that whatever might

happen he would not desert me.7 We were in the hall, the street door closed, and my attention was now

drawn to my dog. He had at first run in eagerly enough, but had sneaked back to the door, and was scratching and whining to get out. After patting him on the head and encouraging him gently, the dog seemed to reconcile himself to the situation and followed me through the house, but keeping close at my heels instead of hurrying inquisitively in advance, which was his usual habit in all strange places.

8 After looking all around the house with my servant, I went to my bedroom. The room he had selected for me was a large one with two windows

fronting the street. The bed was opposite to the fire, which he had lit; a door in the wall to the left, between the bed and the window, led into the room which the man had chosen for himself. This was a small rom which had no exit onto the landing, and no other door but the one which connected it to the bedroom I was to occupy.

9 I read quietly enough till about half-past eleven. I then threw myself dressed on the bed and told my man he could go to his own room, but must keep himself awake. I told him to leave open the door between the two rooms. Thus alone, I kept two candles burning on the table by my bed-head. I placed my watch beside them and calmly resumed my book.

10

Opposite to me the fire burned bright and clear, and on the heath-rug seemingly asleep, lay the dog. In about twenty minutes I felt an exceedingly cold air pass by my cheek, like a sudden draught. I thought the door to my right onto the landing must have got open; but no, it was close. I then turned my glance to my left and saw the flame of the candles violently swayed as if by a wind. At the same moment the watch slid from the table – softly, softly – no visible hand – it was gone. I sprang up and looked round the floor – no sign of the watch. Three slow, loud, distinct knocks were now heard at the bed-head; my servant called out, ‘Is that you, sir?’

11

‘No, be on your guard.’

12

The dog now roused himself and sat on his haunches, his ears moving quickly backwards and forwards. He kept his eyes fixed on me with a look so strange that he concentrated all my attention on himself. Slowly he rose up, all his hair bristling, and stood perfectly rigid, and with the same wild stare. I had no time, however, to examine the dog. My servant emerged from his room; and if ever I saw horror in the human face, it was then. I should not have recognised him had we met in the street, so altered was every feature. He passed by me quickly, saying in a whisper that seemed scarcely to come from his lips, ‘Run – run! It is after me.’ He reached the door to the landing, but, without heeding me, he bounded down the stairs, clinging to the bannisters and taking several steps at a time. I heard, where I stood, the street door open – heard it again clasp shut, I was left alone in the haunted house.

13

It was but for a moment that I remained undecided whether or not to follow my servant; pride and curiosity alike forbade so cowardly a flight. I re-entered my room, closing the door after me, and proceeded cautiously to the inner room. I found nothing to justify my servant’s terror. I carefully examined the walls to see if there was any concealed door. I could find no trace of one – not even a seam in the dull brown paper with which the room was hung. How, then, had the Thing, whatever it was, which had so scared him, obtained access except through my own room?

14

I returned to my room, shut and locked the door that opened upon the interior one, and stood on the hearth, expectant and prepared. I now perceived that the dog had slunk into an angle of the wall, and was pressing himself close against it, as if literally trying to force his way into it. I approached the animal and spoke to it; the poor brute was evidently beside itself with terror. It showed all its teeth, the slaver dropping from its

jaws, and would certainly have bitten me if I had touched it. It did not seem to recognise me. Whoever has seen at the zoo a rabbit fascinated by a snake, and cowering in a corner, may form some idea of the anguish which the dog exhibited.

15

I am unwilling to believe in the supernatural, and was still sure that all I had witnessed was caused by someone as mortal as myself. In order to calm my imagination, I turned again to my book, and riveted eye and thought to its pages. I now became aware that something interposed between the page and the light – the page was overshadowed; I looked up, and was what I shall find it very difficult, perhaps impossible to describe. It was a Darkness shaping itself out of the air in very undefined outline. I cannot say it was of a human form, and yet it had more resemblance to a human form, or rather shadow, than anything else. While I gazed, a feeling of intense cold seized me. And now, to add to my horror, the light began slowly to wane from the candles; it was the same with the fire – the light was extracted from the fuel; in a few minutes the room was in utter darkness.

Questions (TOTAL: 20 marks)1. In paragraph 1, the writer describes the dog in detail. What is the value

of this later in the story? How does the focus on the dog throughout the extract help build suspense? (4)

2. In paragraph 2, the character of the servant is made clear through the dialogue. What impression do we get of the servant here, and how does the servant’s role in the rest of the story build suspense? (4)

3. Comment on how sentence structure and word choice are used to make the room and the events seem eerie in paragraph 6 (4)

4. The narrator contrasts with the servant and the dog by remaining calm. Show how the writer achieves this impression in his presentation of the narrator, and explain if you think this increases or decreases suspense. (4)

5. How is a sense of dread built into the final paragraph. Comment on word choice and/or sentence structure in your answer. (2)

6. Ghost stories have been a popular genre for hundreds of years. However, in recent years, readers have tended to find them ridiculous. Say how far you think this example, written over 100 years ago, would or would not manage to grip a modern reader. (2 marks)

3. A Proposal of Marriage (sample 3 from Firth and Ralston)Jane Austen wrote novels in which love and marriage were major

themes, but she herself never married. It is fairly certain that she fell in love at the age of 19 with a young Irishman of her own age, Tom Lefroy, but his family prevented him marrying Jane as she had no fortune. Seven years later, she did receive a proposal of marriage, from a man 5 years younger than herself.

1 In November 1802, Jane and her sister Cassandra were invited by the Bigg sisters, Alethea and Catherine, to their home, Manydown, where the Austens had so often enjoyed themselves.

2 The young women had much to talk about and were planning long cosy winter evenings together; the Bigg sisters may have had something else in mind as well. Their father was at home, a hale sixty-year-old; so was their younger brother, Harris, who had had his twenty-first birthday in May. He had been away finishing his education at Worcester College, Oxford, so Jane and Cassandra had not seen him for some time; the shy, stammering boy, although still awkward in manner, had turned into a broad-shouldered, tall and much more confident young man. He was after all the heir to considerable estates.

3 On the evening of 2nd December; Harris asked Jane to become his wife. It seems likely that his sisters conspired with Cassandra for the couple to be left alone together, in the library perhaps, or one of the small drawing rooms. It may also be that they encouraged Harris to make his proposal; he was their little brother; and they may have felt he needed some help. Because of his stammer he had been privately educated at home until he went to Oxford, and the stammer still remained, which meant that social life could be something of an ordeal, and made him occasionally aggressive. So perhaps his loving and powerful elder sisters persuaded him that a wife he had known and like all his life would solve his problems and make him a happy man. Whether Harris fancied himself in love with Jane or not, he decided she would make a good wife, and duly proposed.

4 Jane, no doubt very fond of her friends’ brother, whom she would have danced with when he was a child, accepted his proposal. The discrepancy in their ages was only five years… The entire Manydown household was delighted. The evening was passed in congratulations, and everyone went to bed rejoicing. Jane would now become the future mistress of a large Hampshire house and estate, only a few miles from her birthplace, and close to her brother James… She would be able to ensure the comfort of her parents to the end of their days, and give a home to Cassandra. She would probably be in a position to help her brothers in their careers. She would be surrounded by dear sisters-in-law and friends. She would be a kindly mistress to the estate workers. She would have children of her own. All these thoughts must have rushed through her head, each one like a miracle, offerings of happiness she had given up expecting.

5 And she would have a perfectly decent husband. There she paused. Seven years before, she had danced here at Manydonw with… Tom Lefroy… She had only to compare the emotions of that night with this one to realize what a gulf lay between real happiness and delusive dreams. The night went by, and Jane stayed awake, like a heroine in a novel who cannot sleep because too many emotions are pressing on on her… She thought and thought; and in the morning she packed her bag, dressed herself grimly, and sought someone – Alethea perhaps – who would find Harris. Again they were closeted alone in the library, or the small drawing room, and this time Jane explained, with all the delicacy in her power; that she had made a mistake and could not after all marry him…

6 After this, she and Cassandra could not stay on at Manydown as planned. Alethea and Catherine ordered the carriage and drove them home, where they all embraced tearfully by way of farewell…

7 To continue the story from Harris’ point of view, he did not pine for long. Two years later he found a young woman from the Isle of Wight who could and did love him. They were married and she bore him ten children… on the face of it, the effects of the whole episode were no worse for Jane than for Harris. The friendship between the Austens and the Biggs sisters was undamaged. Harris moved away into a house of his own, and Jane was able to continue to visit Manydown as before. In fact, it marked a painful epoch in her life, because this was her last serious thought of marriage and the possibility of having children.

Questions (TOTAL: 20 marks)1. Look at paragraphs 1 and 2. Pick out four definite facts that the

author has researched and whose sources could be checked. (4 marks)

2. From paragraph 2, pick out one piece of information that seems like guesswork or opinion on the part of the writer. (1 mark)

3. In paragraph 2, the writer suggests that Harris’s sisters ‘may’ have had ‘something else in mind’ when they invited Jane to their house. From paragraph 3 pick out four more expressions that make clear that she is guessing at the role of the sisters in encouraging Harris to propose. (4 marks)

4. How convincing do you find the writer’s suggestions for the role of sisters? Explain your reason from the rest of the evidence in the first two paragraphs. (2 mark)

5. In paragraph 4, the writer thinks about Jane Austens’ thoughts and feelings on the evening of the proposal. Pick out two expressions that make it clear that the author is having to imagine what these thoughts and feelings were. (2 marks)

6. Look again at paragraph 5 and 6. It is a recorded fact that Jane Austen’s accepted Harris Bigg’s proposal on 2 December, but changed her mind the next day. Pick out any three details given in these paragraphs that also seem to be definite facts. (3 marks)

7. Look at the facts given in paragraph 7 about how the lives of Harris Big and Jane Austen developed after this incident. How do these facts suggest clues to the feelings of Harris and Jane about the proposal and its later rejection? (4 marks)

4. Scotland needs to clean up its tourism act (Paper 1 from Firth & Ralston)

Journalist Alan Taylor suggests that the Scottish tourist industry needs to improve in several respects.

1 One cold and wintry night not so long ago I disembarked from a bus in Ullapool. It was more than an hour late which meant that I’d missed the last connection to Lochinvar. When I pointed this out to the driver, he was sympathetic as a traffic warden. Then only balm he could offer was the “there are worse places to be stranded than Ullapool”.

2 Happily for me, this turned out to be true. As the heavens darkened and a Wagnerian growl announced the imminence of rain, I made my way to the Ceilidh Place where a room was soon found and a cheerful glass put in front of me.

3 When I relayed my experience of public transport to the locals none reacted with surprise. Rather I got the impression that I would have had a better chance of reaching my destination had I travelled on a sledge pulled by huskies.

4 Therein lies the polar points of Scottish tourism. On the one hand, there is the attitude of those who couldn’t care less who regard themselves as a synonym for servility, who treat customers as if they are something smelly stuck to their shoe. Meanwhile, there are those who take satisfaction from other peoples pleasure, who embrace the ‘Welcome to Scotland’ slogan, who are enthusiastic ambassadors for their country and will attempt to kill you with kindness.

5 I was reminded of my Ullapool sojourn by the fact that we are in the midst of Scottish Tourism Week, which has apparently been going since 2006. Where have I been all these years?

6 Its theme is ‘competing for growth’, a catchphrase as meaningless as it is fatuous. In order to achieve this there will be pow-wows in smart hotels, an ‘industry dinner’ and a soiree at Holyrood, at all of which the importance of tourism to the Scottish economy, which is put at £11 billion, will doubtless be incanted and applauded. Please take my excuse as read.

7 As a constant tourist in my own country I have my own thoughts on how we may compete for growth, none of which, I hasten to say, is concerned with that Visit Scotland and the numerous other ‘agencies’ involved in the industry do or don’t do.

8 First, and perhaps foremost, it is worth saying that standards have generally improved over the last few years. Bad service and bad manners, which used to be the norm, are today so unusual they are remarkable.

9 Gone, hopefully are the days when one – that is , yours truly – could turn

up thirsty, ravenous and exhausted at an inn in the Borders after a twenty mile hike only to be told it was your own fault for walking so far. Oh, and by the way, don’t even think about ordering food. The kitchen closed months ago when the chef ran away with the chambermaid.

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Having said that, I was recently in a swanky hotel in Pitlochry where the barman seemed to think he was dispensing drinks from his personal cellar, so reluctant was he to serve guests.

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If that anecdote is illustrative of anything it is that we are more likely to pass on instances of bad practice than we are to make recommendations. Hence the popularity of Trip Advisor and other websites devoted to detailing the good, the bad and the ugly in the tourist trade.

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But while there will always be places that make Fawlty Towers seem like Gleneagles there is undoubtedly room for improvement which ought to be highlighted during Scottish Tourism Week.

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Among the biggest beefs of the complainers is cleanliness. Is it too much to ask that showers are fuzz-free, carpets swept and furniture dusted? In many establishments it would appear it is.

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The same goes for the countryside, parts of which make a landfill site look tidy. Thsu attractive hedgerows and rural byways are rendered hideous by deposits of rubbish. It is the same with trees, in many of which you can’t spot nesting birds for rotting plastic bags.

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This is not attractive to me or to tourists, many of whom are drawn to Scotland for it hitherto glorious scenery. Have if you must your tourism week. But what’s urgently needed to keep the foreign legions coming is a national spring clean.

Questions TOTAL: (30 marks)1. Look at paragraph 4. In your own words, summarise the two opposite

attitudes that are shown towards tourists visiting Scotland. (4 marks)2. Look at paragraph 1 and 2. Explain in your own words how the writer

has himself experienced the two attitudes referred to in question 1 (4 marks)

3. Comment on how the image ‘he was as sympathetic as a traffic warden’ is effective in illustrating the point the writer is making about attitudes to tourists in Scotland (3 marks)

4. Basing your answer on paragraph 5 and 6, show how the writer’s use of language makes clear his thoughts and feelings about Scottish Tourism Week. (4 marks)

5. Explain how paragraph 7 performs a linking function in the development of the argument of the passage. (4 marks)

6. In your own words, explain the ways in which the writer thinks attitudes

to visitors have improved in recent years. Base your answers on paragraph 8. (2 marks)

7. Referring to the last four paragraphs of the article, summarise the ways in which the writer believes Scotland needs to improve if it is to succeed as a tourist destination. (4 marks)

8. One language feature that Alan Taylor uses in this article is hyperbole (exaggeration). From anywhere in the passage, quote one example of this technique and explain how it relates to the writer’s purpose. (3 marks)

9. Suggest two ways in which the title ‘Scotland needs to clean up its tourism act’ is an effective one in view of the content of the whole passage. (2 marks)

5. School’s out: How Britain Embraced the Junior Prom (Paper 2 from Firth and Ralston)

Sally Williams examines the phenomenon of the school prom and discusses why it has become such an important event in young people’s lives.

1 It is 11am on a Thursday in mid-July and Lucy Holloway, 16, has an appointment at CC’s Hair Salon in Rainham, Essex. Lucy has agonised for several weeks about her hair. Preceding her arrival at the salon’s door were at least twenty phone calls with her best friend.

2 Lucy is getting ready for a special occasion that so far has cost about £500 (hair, evening dress, shoes, clutch bag, nails, jewellery, spray-tan, limousine hire).

3 In effort and cost you might presume Lucy is getting married. In fact, it’s more important than that. ‘You can have as many wedding as you want, but you only get one prom,’ she says.

4 Ten years ago we did not have school proms to mark the milestones of GCSEs and A-Levels. We had end-of-term discos. Now elaborate ‘passing out’ celebrations have become a cultural phenomenon, stoking passions and rivalries, and refashioning our sense of what a school party should be. More than 85% of schools in Britain hold school proms, which range from no-frills dinners in school halls to tailor made extravaganzas in five-star hotels.

5 Dr Caroline Schuster, a chartered psychologist, believes the appeal and the distinctive red-carpet look – long frocks and limousines – come not only from US sitcoms and soaps but also from a world where schoolgirls measure themselves against the film stars and supermodels. Proms, she says, are an incitement to celebrity fantasy. ‘it gives you the change to

become as near a celebrity as you can’.

6 The prom season is short: only four weeks from mid-June to mid-July. Yet the prom business was estimated to be worth about £80 million last year. The average cost was £244 per person, with one in ten spending more than £500 and 2% splashing out more than £1,500, according to a survey by Holiday Inn.

7 The industry includes ‘prom management’ companies, websites providing a database and venues and the Prom Show, a promotional fair. The prom has also helped to transform the fortunes of Moss Bros. Two years ago, the company had losses of £2.8 million. Last year, the menswear chain was back in profit, thanks, in part, to its prom hire business.

8 By 6 pm, several 16 year olds are standing in the magisterial surroundings of the Pavilion Suite at Orsett Hall. The unceasing rain hasn’t dampened the excitement as the teenagers flood in to inspect the formally laid tables, helium balloons and glittery fairy lights. The prevailing smell is of hairspray and scent. Friends who normally wear shapeless uniforms and dirty trainers are transformed into exotic peacocks in huge-skirted ball gowns, teetering heels and heavy make-up.

9 I’m taken aback with the effort. This year’s prom has involved weekly meetings since September of the prom committee, made up of students and teachers, who voted on the theme. Fairy tales, princes and princesses, the Diamond Jubilee and the Olympics were rejected in favour of Viva Las Vegas with its opportunities for casino glamour, although there is no question of gambling: only a magician, chocolate playing cards and helium balloons in the shape of hearts, clubs, diamonds and spades.

10 Every detail has been overseen by the head of year. She is a believer in the prom as a rite of passage, centring on fun, dressing up and shared history. ‘This is a celebration of their time with us’. The principal of the school sees the prom more as a social opportunity, a chance to open up the mystical world of formal dining. ‘There will be children who will never go to a formal function like this, so it is a lifetime experience for them. And for those who do not find themselves moving in such circles, this will mean they will have learnt how to cope with it.’

11 By 10 pm the dancing has started. ‘it’s coming to an end,’ Lucy says of the prom and also of five years with five close friends. Only two will be at the same college as her next year. ‘I love how you accepted me and didn’t laugh over my obsessions,’ writes one in Lucy’s end-of-year book. ‘How we shared books; how we managed to have endless conversations about random stuff’.

12 I leave six girls swaying on vertiginous heels, teetering on the edge of adulthood.

Questions (TOTAL: 30 marks)1. The passage begins by concentrating in detail on one particular girl.

Why do you think the writer decided to do this? (2 marks)2. Comment on one aspect of the sentence structure of paragraph 2,

which helps to convey the importance of the event to Lucy (2 marks)3. Explain how the writer uses the metaphor ‘milestones’ (paragraph 4) to

support her point about the significance of GCSE and A-level exams. (3 marks)

4. In your own words, summarise the reasons why school proms appeal to young people, according to paragraph 5. (3 marks)

5. Referring to paragraph 7, explain three ways in which the rise of the school prom has had economic benefits. (3 marks)

6. Look at paragraph 8. Explain how the author uses contrasting word choice to emphasise how special the event is for the teenagers attending. (4 marks)

7. Read paragraph 9. Identify the author’s attitude to the planning of the event and give evidence to support your answer. (3 marks)

8. With reference to paragraph 10, summarise in your own words the various ways in which the school staff consider the event to be of benefit to those involved. (6 marks)

9. Comment on the image used in the final sentence and explain how it is an effective way of bringing the passage to a conclusion (4 marks)

6. The Price of Bacon (Paper 3 from Firth and Ralston)As food production becomes ever more technically advanced,

concerns are being raised about the safety of some methods. In this article, David Derbyshire takes a closer look at one of Britain’s favourite foods.

1 There is something irresistible about the smell of fried bacon. It’s one of the delights of being a meat-eater and possibly the single most common reason why weak-willed vegetarians throw in the towel. For some, the joy of bacon lies in rashers squeezed between factory-sliced white bread and smeared with tomato ketchup. For others, it’s the crisp slice of streaky bacon on the British breakfast plate, ready to be dipped into a runny yellow yolk or a dollop of baked beans. And our love affair shows no sign of fading. A recent poll of Britain’s best-loved 100 foods saw bacon at number one, beating chicken into second place and knocking chocolate into third, but while one in ten Britons claim bacon as their favourite, are those rashers that sizzle so seductively in the pan what they seem?

2 One problem may lie in a form of iron called haem that is found naturally

in red meats such as beef, lamb and pork. It can trigger the formation of substances called N-nitroso compounds (NOCs) in the body which can damage the lining of the bowel. Some types of NOCs have been linked to bowel cancer.

3 Another health risk comes from salt, sodium nitrate and potassium nitrate which are added to bacon. These last two chemicals stop bacteria and keep the meat bright red so it looks fresh. However, nitrites and nitrates have also been shown to increase the risk of cancer in animals. Amid such health fears, the British pig industry says it has cut down the level of potentially harmful additives. But there is a limit to how much can be reduced. ‘If you go too far, it stops becoming a cured meat,’ said a spokesman for the British Pig Association. ‘Instead it’s fresh meat and it doesn’t keep so long.’

4 However, preservatives aren’t the only dangerous additives in bacon. Traditional smoky bacon gets its distinctive taste by being hung over smouldering wood chips. You’d be forgiven for assuming that smoked food – which has been eaten for thousands of years – is harmless. But some studies have shown that smoked food contain cancer-causing compounds which are formed when wood burns, although the evidence linking smoked meats and cancer is not very strong.

5 Another problem is that cheap cuts are not treated with real smoke but are often sprayed with a ‘natural liquid extract’ (made by condensing real smoke into a powder or liquid and mixing it with water). When the European Food Safety Authority investigated 11 of these smoke extracts in 2010, it found that one could be harmful to people, while several were dangerously close to levels which may cause harm.

6 Perhaps the most surprising additive to bacon is water which is used to make rashers look bigger. The water is the reason why cheap rashers ooze so much white fluid in the frying pan – and then shrink. Revealingly, a survey by the consumer magazine Which? Found that rashers sold by leading supermarkets had more than 10% added water.

7 Which? Also found out that the labels which signal the bacon’s country of origin are very misleading. Until supermarkets signed up to a new voluntary code, the practice was widespread to label as ‘British’ meat that had been raised in Holland or Germany because it had been cured in the UK. And this issue raises another problem with your morning rashers. British pigs are among the best looked after in the world. But less than 40% of the pork we eat is British. The rest comes from countries where welfare standards are often appalling.

8 Meanwhile, the British Pig Association says shoppers should not be worry about pig welfare in the UK and that 94% of our farms are part of an assurance scheme that guarantees high standards of welfare – from the size of pens to the amount of food and play material for pigs. Farms are inspected each year and get a vet visit at least four times a year.

9 But despite such attempts to reassure consumers, Compassion in World Farming says British intensively-reared pigs still suffer because most are housed indoors and do not get enough mental stimulation. With a lack of bedding or material to snuffle around in, pigs can often turn aggressively on each other. Although farmers are no longer meant to dock piglets’

tails routinely, many continue to do so in order to prevent bit damage. And many piglets have their teeth ground down to stop biting – a procedure that can be painful. In the UK, new mothers are routinely confined in farrowing crates. The crates are designed to stop sows crushing their young. But unable to build a nest or mover around the sows become frustrated and stressed, according to the RSPCA.

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Amid all these welfare concerns, the best route for shoppers is to hunt down specialist bacon – the pricier dry cured rashers from organic or free range pigs. Of course these are more expensive. So when it comes to enjoying Britain’s favourite food there’s a cost to your pocket if you want it guilt-free – and a cost to your health if you don’t.

Questions: TOTAL: 30 marks)1. Show how the writer engages the reader’s attention in the opening

paragraph by appealing to a number of the senses. Comment on the writer’s word choice and support your answer with quotations. (4 marks)

2. Choose one of the following images ‘weak-willed vegetarians throw in the towel’‘our love affair shows no sign of fading’‘bacon at number one, beating chicken into second place and

knocking chocolate into third’Explain fully why the image you have chosen is effective in expressing the writer’s meaning (3 marks)

3. With close reference to the text, explain clearly how the last sentence in paragraph 1 (‘But while one in ten…while they seem?’) acts as a link in the structure of the writer’s argument. (3 marks)

4. Look at paragraph 2. With close reference to the text, explain how far the writer has convinced you that ‘haem’ is dangerous. (4 marks)

5. In the next four paragraphs (3-6) the writer looks at things that are sometimes added to produce bacon. Using your own words as far as possible, summarise these and their dangers. (6 marks)

6. In the next section of this article, paragraph 7, 8 and 9, the writer considers how pigs are reared and how humane their treatment is. He summarises the views of the British Pig Association and the Compassion in World Farming organisation. Which side of the argument do you feel the writer most favours? Clearly state your reason, looking at

a) The structure of the writer’s argument, (6 marks)b) The writer’s language and word choice (6 marks)

7. The title of the article is ‘The price of bacon’. Think of the possible meanings implied by the title. Explain in some detail how it is appropriate for the passage as a whole. (4 marks)

7. Scotland's Greatest Cartoonist (Paper 4 from Firth & Ralston)Here John MacLeod pays tribute to Dudley D Watkins, The Dandy’s

illustrator,.

1 It is worth remembering the man for whose extraordinary talents the company

expressly launched The Dandy in 1937 after the sensational impact of his new cartoon strips in the Sunday Post. Even as the clouds of war loomed. The Broons and Oor Wullie were already national institutions. Such was the brilliance of Dudley D Watkins that, of all the publisher's artists, eh was one of the only two in its empire allowed to sign their strips.

2 And his characters, from Lord Snooty to Desperate Dan, and the varied worlds – touching or hilarious or bonkers – they inhabit delight us still. He is universally accepted as Scotland's greatest cartoonist. Thanks to his great range and astonishing draughtsmanship he is, even decades after his death, still remembered by the public. ('Aye, the guy who did the Broons.')

3 Yet he was Scottish neither by birth nor upbringing. Dudley D Watkins was born in Manchester in 1907 and he was 18 when his family moved to Scotland. After a year at Glasgow School of Art, its principal personally recommended Watkins to the management at DC Thomson. Initially on a six-month contract, he was soon in Dundee, dashing off earnest illustrations for the publisher's papers for romps and plucky young heroes aplenty. But so scant was his pay that Watkins in these early years had a side-line in teaching at the Dundee Art School. In 1933, though he was set, for the first time, to comic-strips, where bosses soon noticed his considerable flair.

4 Then, in March 1936, in chortling collaboration with editor R D Low, they cooked up characters for a new Fun Section in the Sunday Post; a wee lad with a bucket and a vast family in a tenement flat. The rest is history. Watkins had soon created Desperate Dan for the new Dandy, one of the most enduring characters in an endearingly ridiculous milieu. This lantern-jawed cow ie-loving cowboy lives in Cactusville, a town with very British telephone boxes and irrefutably Dundonian (from Dundee) bobbies. The comics sister paper, The Beano, was launched the following year and later still, new post-war titles – The Beezer and The Topper – which would last till the 1990s, added still more to his workload.

5 It was a burden he bore lightly. In fact, Watkins even drew strips for free. He was an earnest Christian – a pillar of the Church of Christ in Dundee – and over many years, drew for mission calendars without a charge. He also penned comic strips in the Young Warrior, an evangelical publication for children, for which he took no payment either. Even at work, Watkins always had a huge Bible to hand, propped open on a sort of easel. He planned, one day, to draw a great illustrated Bible, no doubt in final happy retirement. (He had blissfully married and built himself a fine big house in Broughty Ferry.)

6 The prevalent attitudes of his age, rather than his faith, were to blame for those aspects of his work that have not aged well, especially in is adventure-strips; too much of it now seems like racial caricature. But it should be stressed that he so detested the Nazis – and so frequently, and with brilliance, caricatured them – that the Germans had Watkins listed, come conquest and occupation, for early arrest.

7 On the larger, British stage, Watkins' formal adventure stories are naturally big on duty, courage and unassuming heroism. But two things leap out about his art itself. One is its enormous range. His formal illustrations for popular editions of such classics as Robinson Crusoe and Treasure Island are of such immediacy and gravitas that used copies sell today for large sums. But then you have the jaunty, ridiculous exploits of Desperate Dan, drawn in evidently

more chucklesome hand, or the square-jawed teens of his adventure tales. Watkins had just one endearing blind spot, he could never quite draw a convincing cat (though his dogs are perfect in form and mischief).

8 The exploits of The Broons, though, must be his greatest achievement. That is partly because, deliberately, each storyline had fewer panels than Oor Wullie, allowing him to play with perspective and tableau. He loved to get as many of the family into a single frame as possible. But apart from his perfect realisation of each of them, even incidental characters are wonderfully drawn, so much so that you can still recall a given battle-axe or auld grump, from a single story, decades later. And then there is the simple detail of scene – wifies windae-hangin' joyously the length of Glebe Street; the interior of local shops; the cosiness of a kitchen. The Broons, in particular, exemplifies the second truth of Watkins' brilliance, a very deep tenderness. You laugh with the family, not at them. Their moments of genuine warmth – and there are many – are moving, not treacly.

9 When Watkins died so suddenly on August 20 1969 - his wife found him slumped over the latest artwork – The Broons, really died with him. Much was soon successfully carried on by the new, keen hands. But the Desperate Dan story lines were recycled in The Dandy for fully fourteen years before Thomson dared to set anther artist about Cactusville. And the Sunday Post strips, likewise, were for years churned out from the archives. When new hands, of varied skill, assumed the stories, they were never that same again; the drawings flatter, the detail scantier, the characters somehow diminished, even colder.

Questions (TOTAL: 30 marks)1. In your own words, briefly summarise three points made by the writer

in the first paragraph which illustrate that Watkins' talent was already recognised as exceptional in 1937. (3 marks)

2. In your own words, sum up the reason given by the author in paragraph 2 for the enduring appeal of Watkins work. (3 marks)

3. ('Aye the guy who did the Broons.') (end of par 2)a) Suggest a reason why the writer includes this comment.b) Comment on the writer's word choice of language in this phrase and why it is effective. (3 marks)

4. Explain the part played by the first sentence of par. 3 'Yet he was Scottish neither by birth nor upbringing' in the structure of the writer's argument. (2 marks)

5. Referring closely to the text, show what the writer's language in paragraph 4 reveals about Watkins' relationship with R D Low, the editor of the Sunday Post. (4 marks)

6. The writer admits that the racial strips found in Watkins work are not acceptable today.

a) Identify the reason why, according to the writer, Watkins drew such cartoons. (1 mark)

b) Explain how the comments about Watkins and the Nazis in par. 6 develop our understanding of Watkins' true attitudes. (2 marks)

7. “... two things leap out about his art itself” (par. 7). Explain fully in your own words the 'two things' discussed by the writer in the rest of the paragraph. (4 marks)

8. Explain in your own words the evidence in the last paragraph which shows that the publisher D C Thomson found it almost impossible to replace Watkins after his death. (4 marks)

9. Considering the article as a whole, sum up the main points the writer makes about the achievements of Dudley D Watkins. Use your own words as far as possible. (4 marks)

8. The End of the Line (Paper 5 from Firth & Ralston)So many people now own mobile phones that landlines are being

used less and less. In this article, Ray Connolly reflects on the change.

1 There are four contraptions of plastic and metal gathering dust around our house. There's one on my desk, another in the kitchen, a third in the sitting room and a fourth by our bed. We used to call them telephones, but now they are better known as landlines – and they are remarkable only in that they hardly ever ring.

2 Actually, that's not quite true. Young men and women, who introduce themselves to us as Sally or Craig, call four or five times a week. Now, whenever I hear the familiar satellite hum and am asked If I am Mr Connelly, I simply reply, 'No, I'm afraid Mr Connelly is in jail,' which puts paid to any further conversation.

3 Of course, I’m not in jail. I'm in hiding from cold-calling (uninvited telephone calls offering goods or services for sale) nuisances, and sitting here reminiscing about the great days of the landline, that window of time before the whole developed world embraced the mobile and its successor the smartphone, and before email and texting replaced the spoken word.

4 I'm not saying this development is bad. Far from it, as I do my work almost entirely through email. And if it means that more people are now using the written word to communicate, thus confounding the Jeremiahs who told us that children wouldn't learn to write if they all had phones in their pockets, it certainly has a plus side. But not many technological advances come without the odd regret. And with the continuing decline in the use of landline with over 85 per cent of the adult population now owning a mobile, an era has almost gone for good.

5 Today, a mobile is considered an absolute necessity for every adult, and a vast majority of secondary school children have one. But I'm old enough to remember the days when relatively few people even had a phone in their family home, when it was something big and black that sat in the doctor's surgery telling you how important a man he was. We didn't have a phone in our house until 1961, when I was 20, so if any calls had to be made it meant either cycling more than a mile to my mother's dress shop or taking four old pennies to the red telephone box near the bus stop. It would seem an awful chore now, especially on a wet November night.

6 But making those first teenage calls, with the ritual of pennies being pushed into the slot, tremulous fingers carefully dialling the number, then the clanging of copper alloy on steel with the pressing of button A when the receiver at the other end was picked up, was almost always exciting. You didn't make a phone call lightly in those days. Later, as a student, being able to speak to the object of your affection long distance, imagining her sitting in the chill of her parents' hall – because phones always seemed to be kept in the coldest place in the house – was supreme. And oh, the pain when the pips began and there was no more change to put in the box.

7 Not that romance governed everyone's early telephone experiences. Richard Branson has often told how, when he was starting out as a teenage record entrepreneur and living in an unconnected Notting Hill flat, he would take up residence in the phone box outside his window and use it as his office., requesting the customers call him there. These days, if it were possible to find such a thing as a handy phone box, anyone monopolising it – or even waiting outside for a call at a pre-arranged time as some of us once did – would probably be arrested on suspicion of being either a drug dealer or a terrorist.

8 Now that our smart phones come with cameras, radio, music and TV, as well as apps for novel reading, games, shopping and news, it’s possible to forget those simpler times when the phone had but one function. Gone, too, is the relationship between the caller and telephone operator. Telephone companies still employ operators in call centres. They're usually functional and polite. But back then there was a mystery and romance about the person in the job – the faceless Samaritan who would make the connection for you.

9 Chuck Berry even gave the directory inquiries operator a main role in one of his most famous songs – Memphis Tennessee. 'Long distance information , give me Memphis Tennessee, help me find the party trying to get in touch with me,' he sang, taking the voice of the father desperate to contact his six-year-old daughter. But could the same poignant song be written in today in a world of increasingly disposable mobiles and easy, almost universal communication? It's difficult to imagine.

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Nor are songs the only part of popular culture to have changed with the digital revolution. The good old landline used to play an important role in movies with love stories being built around missed calls. Remember? The heroine has just walked out of the door when the hero phones her – heartbreak ensues. Then there were the thrillers. Late at night the terrified heroine, alone in the house in a semi-diaphanous nightie, picks up the phone to call the police and realises that the line is dead. It's been cut. The killer is already inside. And he's coming for her.

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Wireless technology has wrecked all that. People communicate with each other all the time, if only by text. Now, I rarely use my landline. Knowing that I'm saving time for everyone when I email or text. I've begun to feel as though I'm intruding when I occasionally consider making an old-fashioned phone-call just for the fun of it.

Questions (TOTAL: 30 marks)1. Look at the first paragraph. With reference to the text, explain fully how

the writer captures the interest of the reader (4 marks)2. Look at paragraphs 1 and 2. Explain clearly, with reference to the text,

how the writer reveals his attitude to cold callers. (4 marks)3. Look again at the fourth paragraph. In your own words, sum up the

writer's feelings about the recent changes in wireless technology. (3 marks)

4. Look again at paragraph 5 and 6. With reference to the text, and using your own words, show in detail how the writer helps us understand the importance of the telephone in years gone by. (6 marks)

5. Explain what the anecdote about Richard Branson in paragraph 7 contributes to the passage. Refer to both the information it contains and how it adds to the reader’s enjoyment. (3 marks)

6. In paragraph 8 the writer talks about the 'mystery and romance' of using the telephone in days gone by. In your own words, explain the evidence in paragraph 9 and 10 that the telephone helped provide 'mystery and romance' in popular culture such as songs and films. (3 marks)

7. How does the writer use sentence structure effectively to convey the meaning of the last four sentences in paragraph 10? ('late at night...coming for her”) (3 marks)

8. Look again at the title of the passage, and at the last two paragraphs. With reference to the text, explain fully the feelings expressed by the writer about the changes in wireless technology. (4 marks)

9. Help! I’ve got incurable hoarder disorder (Paper 6 from Firth and Ralston)

Possessions are gems so, asks Christopher Middleton, why would anyone throw away their treasured memories?

1 It may have come 40 years too late, but at last I’ve got a good reason to give my mother as to why I can’t possibly tidy up my bedroom. I’ve got hoarder disorder.

2 Yes, not only does this newly identified condition have a neat, rhyming ring to it, but it demonstrates why my inability to throw out my football programmes, school exercise jotters, back issues of The Beano and boxes of old Scalextric track is due not to laziness or messiness, but to bona fide medical affliction.

3 Apparently, when I, and millions like me, am asked to undertake a clear-out of old possessions, it triggers what researches describe as ‘abnormal activity in the anterior cingulate cortex’.

4 This can be a very nasty thing, let me tell you. I well remember lying on my bed and rolling around in a rage of hot tears, having been told to throw away my Subbuteo team of Coventry City players (because I had accidently knelt on them, and snapped them all off at the legs).

5 There I was, being woundingly called a cry-baby by my brother, when all the time I was in the grip of what scientists at the Institute of Living, in Hartford, Conneticut, have discovered to be an inbuilt disability when it comes to ‘decision-making and categorisation issues’. Vindication at last.

6 I am quite sure, however, that we hoarders will continue to be misunderstood and victimised, partly because of the throwaway society in which we now live. Hold on to a TV set that doesn’t work, or rescue a slightly snagged sweater from the dustbin, and you are seen as the sort of person who might live in a burrow made of back issues of The Spectator.

7 Look back just a few hundred years, though, and you’ll find that in Middle English and Old Norse, the word ‘hord’ meant treasure. And to those of us who value our past, that’s exactly what our old possessions are: gems, jewels and doubloons made not of crude, base metal, but of gossamer-winged memories.

8 This is what I constantly tell my wife, who has taken over the de-cluttering mantle from my mother. Time and again, I find myself having to rescue my prep school cricket cap from her unsympathetic grip, or ferret around in the waste paper basket to retrieve the programme from our daughter’s nativity play, circa 1996.

9 ‘Why do you keep these things?’ she demands.

10 ‘So that I can remember them.’

11 This is true, of course, and would be the one weak point of my argument, except that I have recently remover my stacked-up treasures to the shed. She still resents their presence. ‘I know they’re out there,’ she complains, casting a nasty look towards the end of the garden.

12 Ah well, that’s prejudice for you. But I can’t understand why the hoarding indulged in by innocent citizens attracts so much more hatred than other similar, but less-discriminated against activities.

13 Keep a scrapbook when you’re little, for example, and your parents and teachers applaud your diligent documentation of daily life. Write a diary, and if your Samuel Pepys, you bring enlightenment to generations not yet born. As for archivists, they make an entire living out of keeping things that people might want some day. Indeed, the nation pays millions of pounds each year to the professional hoarders who work at the British Library.

14 But when an individual like me simply wants to keep a harmless, if comprehensive, record of their life, domestic war breaks out.

15 At least we can now brandish this scientific report, proving that our

inability to throw things away is a disorder in its own right. Even if a cure could be found, though, I wouldn’t want it. No thanks; after all these years, I’m determined to hang on to my hoarding habit.

Questions (TOTAL: 30 marks)1. Look at paragraphs 1 and 2. In your own words explain the reasons

why the writer likes the term ‘hoarder disorder’. (4 marks)2. Show how the writer’s use of language in paragraph 4 and 5

conveys his attitude to the idea that untidiness can be explained as a medical condition. (3 marks)

3. Choose one example of the author’s use of jargon from anywhere in the first five paragraphs and discuss it effect. (2 marks)

4. Look at paragraph 7. Show how any two examples of the writer’s use of language help the reader understand why hoarders place so much value on things they owned in the past. (4 marks)

5. Read paragraph 9 to 13. In your own words, summarise the main points made by the writer and his wife during their argument. (4 marks)

6. In paragraphs 14, 15 and 16 the writer refers to three ways in which people keep written records of the past; childhood scrapbooks, diaries and archival material. Choose two of these and explain why they are considered to be worthwhile. (4 marks)

7. Read the last paragraph. In your own words, state the two main points the author is making here. (2 marks)

8. Comment on the ideas and/or techniques used in the final sentence and show how these provide an effective conclusion to the passage. (3 marks)

9. In several places throughout the passage, the writer refers to incidents, memories or possessions form his childhood. Choose any two examples and explain how these illustrate any aspect of his argument. (4 marks)

10. Will the Paralympics stop you staring at me? (Paper 1 from Valentine)

1 I’ve been waiting seven long years for the Paralymipics. I’m a wheelchair sports fan (it’s the same as being an armchair sports fan except I’m more portable). I’ve spent an entire career as a journalist and TV producer gearing up to cover a home Paralympics, and the moment is finally here.

2 I should probably declare a vested interest. I very nearly made it to a Paralympic Games as a competitor. But I didn’t. I’m a Nearlyympian, if you

like. But for a small technical error with my finish, I’d have gone to the Atlanta Paralympics in 1996 as a swimmer.

3 Before my addiction to supermarket ready-meals and cheap lager, I used ot be a bit of an athlete. Sadly, at the end of my race in the national junior championships I touched the wall with one arm rather than two. That may seem trivial, especially as I don’t have hands, but in the world of swimming, finishing incorrectly is treated with as much contempt as kicking sacks of kittens into a canal. Therefore I do have a natural bitterness towards competitive sport.

4 The Paralympics have come at a very interesting time though, and have revealed a real dichotomy in public and media attitudes towards disabled people and disability in general. We may be currently surfing a way of Games-inspired media goodwill. For the last year or two, however, coverage of us disabled types has been increasingly hostile and negative; fuelled, or at least gently encouraged, by a government keen to push its thorny agenda of welfare reform. Reported hate crimes against disabled people is increasing.

5 The word ‘scroungers’ has become a tabloid staple, attached to tales of disabled people living in 18-bedroom mansions and water-skiing. While there are obviously people who fiddle the system, the number is infinitesimally small compared with the column inches it generates, and many disabled people, myself included, have felt tarred by the same very uncomfortable brush. Benefit has become a dirty word again, and these stories have highlighted a darker, ugly side to some sections of society that hasn’t been seen in 30 years.

6 What’s going to be interesting is watching how press coverage adapts to the guaranteed success that our Paralympians will bring over the next fortnight or so. One suspects that they will be covered without any sense of irony. After all, they’re different aren’t they? They’re superhuman. They’re athletes. They’re not like me, the no arms, no legs bloke who goes down the pub for five pints on a Friday.

7 Don’t get me wrong. I’m not banishing the Paralympics, quite the opposite. I love them and everything they stand for. I think we’re on the cusp of achieving a real change in the British public’s attitude towards disabled people for the better. However, I’m not superhuman. I’m normal. In the non-pejorative sense of the word.

8 How the Paralympics affects ordinary disabled people like me is going to be fascinating. What I hope is that disability will be normalised – that people will stop straing in the street and that we’ll all be accepted much more for who we are. The worst thing that could happen is that we’re all suddenly treated as being amazing and wonderful and brave (I obviously am, but not everyone is).

9 I want our Paralympians to be lauded for their talent and achievements

just as much as our Olympians were – but because of those things, not in spite of their disability. Maybe, just maybe, the Paralympics will glad to a world where I can walk (OK, shuffle) down the street without people thinking I’m the next David bloody Wier when I’m sneaking out for a cheeky pint and a kebab. Here’s hoping.

Questions (TOTAL: 30 marks)

1. Look at paragraph 1. How does the writer feel about the start of the Paralympics? Show how the writer’s word choice and use of structure in these lines suggest this feeling. (3 marks)

2. What can you infer about the writer’s swimming ability and his opinion of those who make the rules for competitive swimming from what you are told in the third paragraph? Support your answer with appropriate evidence. (2 marks)

3. How does the rest of the fourth paragraph help you understand the meaning of ‘dichotomy’? (2 marks)

4. ‘… a government keen to push its thorny agenda of welfare reform.’ Identify the technique the writer is using in this expression and comment on its effectiveness. (3 marks)

5. Give a brief summary of the main points the writer makes in paragraph 5. Use your own words as much as possible. (3 marks)

6. Comment on the writer’s use of language (including word choice and sentence structure) in paragraphs 7 and 8 and go on to say what effect this achieves. ( 5 marks)

7. What does the writer hope will be one way that the Paralympics will affect ‘ordinary disabled people’? (1 mark)

8. Why might the reader be surprised by the final sentence in paragraph 9? (2 marks)

9. Comment on the writer’s use of punctuation in paragraph 9. (2 marks)

10. How effective do you find the final paragraph as a conclusion to the article as a whole? You should refer to ideas and specific language features in your answer. (3 marks)

11. What do you think the writer’s purpose was in writing this article? (2 marks)

12. Who do you think the intended audience is for this article? Support your answer with evidence from the passage. (2 marks)

11. Friday’s Local Heroes: Renicks eager to take sister act to Glasgow (Paper 2 from Valentine)

1 For the first time in an hour, silence falls upon the gym.2 The conversation, until then unrelenting and candid, is curtailed as

Kimberley and Louise Renicks repudiate the request to describe one another. The Coatbridge judokas exchange steely looks, each silently wiling the other to speak first. ‘Right, I’ll go,’ says Kimberley, reluctantly. ‘Louise is caring, mothering and bossy…’ The older sister bristles ever so slightly, then deliberately delivers her verdict. ‘Kimberley fights like a lion but she’s so laid back, she’s horizontal.’

3 The warm assessments harbour gentle chastisements and are indicative of the maternal relationship between the pair. Only five years separate the sisters but 30-year-old Louise instinctively assumes authority, be it a consequence of her initial dominance in their contest on the mat or, more mundanely, because she collects learner driver Kimberley from the family home each day on the way from her Glasgow flat to training. ‘My brother and myself always want to protect her,’ says Louise, referencing their middle sibling, 29-year-old Thomas. ‘You don’t want her to experience any bad things you may have and, anyway, the youngest always gets spoiled…’

4 Kimberley who won’t introduce boyfriends to ‘scary’ Louise, conceded her sister is the first person she texts whenever she gets off a plane. That bond, forged amid childhood play fights, has continued through hours of hard work, long-distance travel, fraught competition and personal turmoil and will continue to be a source of comfort as the duo attempt to confirm their participation in the Glasgow Commonwealth Games.

5 As it stands, both are expected to earn the solitary places in their respective divisions, Kimberley having moved down from the under-52kg weight category that she shared with Louise to ensure both had the opportunity to qualify. ‘I could have moved up but Kimberley had a lot of puppy fat,’ says Louise, grinning. ‘She’s always been a wee ball…’

6 ‘When I went to college I learned more about nutrition and training,’ explains Kimberley, who started competing at the age of six and was fighting at senior level by the age of fourteen. ‘when I was younger, I would sneak a bar of chocolate or a packet of crisps but I started to listen and the weight dropped. Then I took a medal in my first event at under-48kg and, in the second, I beat the Olympic champion and that helped convince me.’

7 It was, perhaps, just a swell. The sisters had fought six times in competition by then, Louise having dominated the first few fights before Kimberley began to wrest the initiative, but it was becoming too much of a strain. Both girls found their emotions became wrought, albeit after the fights, as the stakes increased and the repercussions of defeat grew more serious.

8 Louise being older, felt it more but Kimberley admits her competitive instincts were becoming compromised, too, even if it rarely showed on the mat. ‘I got beat in a semi by a Cuban who nearly snapped my ankle.’ Louise recalls. ‘Then I had to fight Kimberley for the bronze and she kept battering

the same ankle because she knew it was hurting. Once were on the mat together, we really go at it.’

9 Judo then, offers a release from the maternal relationship but also from the difficulties surrounding the sisters. Two years ago their mother, Agnes, was diagnosed with a brain disease that has affected her motor skills and, while she is mercifully pain-free, she requires intensive care and physiotherapy. Having managed to establish a routine, the girls can now plan their training around such responsibilities but Louise initially opted to step back from the sport for six months, reckoning Kimberley had a better chance of making the Olympics, and lost her funding as a consequence.

10

Ultimately, neither made the London Games, both missing out on a place by just a few points and having to settle for reserve spots, but neither girl has room for regret. ‘I needed to be there for my mum,’ Louise says. ‘I’m here because of her and our dad Thomas, who got us into judo and still runs a club. Now I am so determined to make the Commonwealths so she can be there and remember it before dementia kicks in.’

11

The qualification window for Glasgow 2014 begins on May 1, just a week after the European Championship, at which the girls are expected to make an impact given they both hold world rankings in the mid-30s. Despite that, though, neither can afford to slack: Kimberley because she wants a high seeding; Louise because she has been warned a bad year will result in a younger fighter being selected for development purposes instead.

12

A critical 18 months lie ahead a period in which the sisters must become even more professional, more disciplined and more wary. ‘Our coaches have told us we are classed as medal contenders,’ says Louise. ‘inside you want that but, when you hear it, it’s pressure. Sometimes I just want to shut myself away.

13

‘When I do go out, though, I don’t accept a drink from anyone because you don’t know who might hae spiked it and we get tested every week. If I put a drink down to dance, I don’t finish it and it’s even taken me two-and-a–half years to let my partner get me one.’

14

Then there are the chancers and the bams; guys with a drink in them who want to challenge the judokas to a fight. Kimberley often uses her diminutive figure to deny her status but Louise, ever the protector, is less circumspect. ‘sometimes people look at you as a trophy,’ she explains. ‘I’ve had drunken men think they are funny and tried to choke me from behind. Big guys. And I’m thinking ‘whit are ye daen?’ and the rage comes. I’ve seen me throw people over tables…’

15

‘Aye, flip guys over in front of their friends, even though we’re only eight stone,’ adds Kimbereley grinning, before Louise continues. ‘we went to a school to do a talk last week and there were a few neddy boys saying to Kimberley ‘Ah’ll take ye on’ and I was thinking ‘aye, okay then, I dare ye’.’

16

The anecdote is delivered deadpan, the maternal instinct kicking in again. ‘told you,’ Kimberley says, smiling.

Questions (TOTAL: 30 marks)1. From par 1 describe the change that takes place in the conversation

between the writer and the Renicks sisters. (2)2. Look at par 2. In your own words, explain why Louise ‘instinctively

assumes authority’ over her younger sister. (3)3. Look at par 4 to 8. In your own words, explain the difficulties

Kimberley has had to overcome in her judo career. (4)4. Explain how the writer’s use of sentence structure helps to clarify the

information conveyed to the reader in par 10 to 11. Refer to at least two examples. (4)

5. Look at par 12. In your own words, explain what Louise tells the writer about in this paragraph. (3)

6. Look at par 13. In your own words, explain the different ways the sisters respond when challenged by ‘guys with a drink in them.’. (4)

7. What does the use of Scots words adds to this article? refer to specific examples. (4)

8. Choose one of the following images: ‘exchange steely looks’, ‘bristles ever so slightly’, ‘Look at you as a trophy’. Explain what the image means and analyse its effect. (3)

9. Identify the writer’s attitude to the Renicks sisters in this article and give two pieces of evidence to support your answer. (3)

12. (Specimen book 1)The following article is about JK Rowling (the creator of Harry Potter)

and the nature of fame.

1 Fame conveys the illusion of intimacy. We assume we know everything there is to know about the person concerned, from David Beckham’s wardrobe to Prince William’s childhood nicknames. The story of JK Rowling writing in a café with a prolonged cup of coffee to avoid a cold flat is almost as familiar as she is.

2 So it comes as a shock when an individual tone of voice penetrates those layers of gossip and assumption. The voices may not be quite what we imagined. Beckham, mythologised for his looks and skill, sounds insufficiently heroic when he speaks. A rare television interview with JK Rowling, broadcast this week, to mark the publication of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, revealed a thoroughly modern woman who speaks, not in the modulated tones that might be expected of a children’s classic author, but just like the rest of us.

3 Even the sound of Prince William chatting with his father and brother in a 21st birthday video is a surprise, after years when, like his mother, his image was familiar but his voice was rarely heard.

4 Rowling is loved for her stories, but also for her story. A contemporary Cinderella, she endured the cold flat and life on single-parent benefit. Then Harry happened and she went to the ball. Neil Murray, her husband, might be abashed to find himself cast as Prince Charming, but her life has changed as much as any scullery-maid turned princess.

5 The missing part of the Cinderella story is what happens when she puts on the glass slipper and disappears into the palace. Rowling filled in the blanks, describing to Jeremy Paxman how she has to cope with begging letters, journalists rifling through her bins, photographers lurking on the beach, and strangers accosting her in the supermarket.

6 The writer was honest enough to admit that the massive success of Harry Potter had given her a sense of validation. “I don’t feel like quite such a

waste of space anymore.” Like David Beckham, taking care to thank Manchester United fans as his transfer to Real Madrid was announced, she is keenly aware of the true source of her popularity, guarding plots and characters in the interests of children who would be sad to have the story spoilt.

7 But Rowling was also frank about unexpected aspects of her fame. She feels guilty about her wealth—denying she is worth the rumoured 280 million—and fears life after Harry, citing AA Milne, who could never get a book reviewed without Pooh and Tigger being mentioned.

8 Fame, as she implied, freezes you in one frame. Prince William will be lucky ever to take refuge in a proper job. David Beckham will always mean football, and Rowling, who disclosed that she has tried her hand at a novel for adults, will have to write very brilliantly to discard the label of a children’s writer.

9 Beckham exploits to his advantage the way in which the famous are transformed into products often with scant relation to their actual lives or personalities. He treats himself as a logo. In the week that his transfer was announced, he was touring Japan with his wife, endorsing products.

10

This is a facet of celebrity that Rowling detests, describing the task of agreeing Potter merchandise as “horrible”. But writers, unlike footballers, need not fear an early sell-by date for their skills.

11

William, of course, has nothing to sell—or has he? His face, youth and ease are guarantees that the monarchy can adapt and move into the 21st century. The palace both protects and carefully markets him, controlling access and exposure. Is he willing to surrender the chance of a relatively normal life to be the modern face of monarchy? For him, as for Rowling, the debate about a possible privacy law, kick-started this week by a committee of MPs, has intense personal relevance.

12

William at least has the consolation that his fame derives from his parentage, not from himself. Unless Britain turns republic, he will always be royal. But for those whose fame is built on personality, one rack brings the edifice crashing down.

13

JK Rowling is fortunate in that the reason for her fame exists at one remove from her. Harry is nothing to do with who her parents were, or how good she looks on television. He is the product of her imagination, interacting with the imagination of millions of others. Just as the books, with their literary allusions and cultural quirks, borrow from other traditions, so the wizard world is held in common. Internet sites discuss the plot, translators try to render “Hogwarts” in other languages. Harry is public property in a way that his creator, despite the dustbins and long lenses, is not.

14

In an age of appearances, her story should reassure us. JK Rowling found success and made millions through trusting her own invention. We will never know her, but we know Harry, and his magic is likely to last.

Questions (TOTAL: 30 marks)1. “Fame conveys the illusion of intimacy.” In your own words,

explain how examples the writer gives in the first paragraph illustrate this idea. (3 marks)

2. Look at paragraph 4. In your own words, explain what comparisons the writer draws between JK Rowling and Cinderella. (4 marks)

3. Explain how the writer’s word choice in paragraph 5 helps to show the negative effects of fame. (4 marks)

4. For JK Rowling, what are the advantages and disadvantages of fame? Refer to paragraph 6 in your answer, using your own words. (4 marks)

5. Choose one of the two rhetorical questions in paragraph 11 and discuss its effect. (2 marks)

6. In your own words, explain fully in what ways JK Rowling feels she is “fortunate” (in paragraph 13). Give evidence from the final two paragraphs to support your answer. (4 marks)

7. Read the last paragraph. Identify the writer’s attitude to JK Rowling in this paragraph and give evidence to support your answer. (2 marks)

8. Choose one of the following images:i. “Fame, as she implied, freezes you in one frame.”

(paragraph 8)ii. “He treats himself as a logo.” (paragraph 9)iii. “But for those whose fame is built on personality, one

crack brings the edifice crashing down.” (paragraph 12)9. Explain what your chosen image means and analyse its effect. (3

marks)10. Referring to the whole article, in your own words list the key

points the writer makes about the nature of fame. (4 marks)

13. Superstition (Specimen book 2)In this passage, the writer explores how superstition can both help

and hinder us.

1 Tennis players are a funny bunch. Have you noticed how they always ask for three balls instead of two; how they bounce the ball the same number of times before serving, as if any deviation from their routine might bring the world collapsing on their heads?

2 But the superstitions and rituals so beloved by the world’s top players are not confined to the court. They take even more bizarre twists when the poor dears get home after their matches. Goran Ivanisevic got it into his head that if he won a match he had to repeat everything he did the previous day, such as eating the same food at the same restaurant, talking to the same people and watching the same TV programmes. One year this meant that he had to watch Teletubbies every morning during his Wimbledon campaign. “Sometimes it got very boring,” he said.

3 Could it be that these multifarious superstitions tell us something of deeper

importance not only about humanity but about other species on the planet? The answer, I think, is to be found in the world of pigeons. Yes, really. These feathered fellows, you see, are the tennis players of the bird world. Don’t take my word for it: that was the opinion of B. F. Skinner, the man widely regarded as the father of modern psychology.

4 Skinner’s view was based on a groundbreaking experiment that he carried out in 1947 in which he placed some hungry pigeons in a cage attached to an automatic mechanism that delivered food “at regular intervals with no reference whatsoever to the bird’s behaviour”. He discovered that the pigeons associated the delivery of the food with whatever chance actions they happened to be performing at the moment it was first delivered. So what did the pigeons do? They kept performing the same actions, even though they had no effect whatsoever on the release of food.

5 I know, I know. This is nothing compared with the weird behaviour that goes on at Wimbledon, but do you see the connection? The pigeons were acting as if they could influence the mechanism delivering the Trill in just the same way that Ivanisevic thought that he could influence the outcome of his next match by watching Teletubbies. To put it a tad formally, they both witnessed a random connection between a particular kind of behaviour and a desired outcome, and then (wrongly) inferred that one caused the other.

6 But did Ivanisevic really believe that his superstitions were effective or was he just having us on? Well, let’s hear from the man himself – this is what he said when asked if he had ever abandoned a ritual when it stopped working: “I didn’t. They do work. I won Wimbledon.” So, he really did believe. And what of the pigeons? They were, unfortunately, unavailable for interview.

7 Superstitious behaviour emerged quite early in evolutionary history. What is certain is that it is widespread, particularly within homo sapiens. More than half of Americans admitted to being superstitious in a recent poll, and it is not just silly and gullible types either. At Harvard University, students frequently rub the foot of the statue of John Harvard for good luck.

8 Even cricketers, perhaps the brightest and most sensible sportsmen of all (well, that’s what they tell us), are not immune to superstition. Jack Russell, the former England wicketkeeper, was among the most notorious, refusing to change his hat or wicket keeping pads throughout his career, even though they became threadbare and smelly, something that really got up the noses of his team-mates.

9 But this raises another, deeper question: why do so many of us maintain rituals of various kinds when they have no real connection with the desired outcome? Or, to put it another way, why is superstitious behaviour so widespread, not just within our species but beyond, when it seems to confer no tangible benefits? It’s here that things get really interesting (and just a little complex). And, as with most interesting things, the answer is to be found in deep evolutionary history.

10

Imagine a caveman going to pick some berries from some bushes near his rocky abode. He hears some rustling in the bushes and wrongly infers that there is a lion lurking in there and scarpers. He even gets a little superstitious about those bushes and gives them a wide berth in future. Is this superstition a problem to our caveman? Well, not if there are plenty of other berry-bearing bushes from which to get his five-a-day.

11

But suppose that there really is a lion living in those bushes. The caveman’s behaviour now looks not only sensible but life-saving. So, a tendency to perceive connections that do not actually exist can confer huge evolutionary benefits, providing a cocoon of safety in a turbulent and dangerous world. The only proviso (according to some devilishly complicated mathematics known as game theory) is this: your superstitions must not impose too much of a burden on those occasions when they are without foundation.

12

And this is almost precisely what superstitions look like in the modern world. Some believe in horoscopes, but few allow them to dictate their behaviour; some like to wear the same lucky shoes to every job interview, but it is not as if wearing a different pair would improve their chances of success; some like to bounce the ball precisely seven times before serving at tennis, but although they are wrong to suppose that this ball bouncing is implicated in their success, it does not harm their prospects (even if it irritates those of us watching).

13

It is only when a superstition begins to compromise our deeper goals and aspirations that we have moved along the spectrum of irrationality far enough to risk a diagnosis of obsessive compulsive disorder. Take Kolo Touré, the former Arsenal defender, who insists on being the last player to leave the dressing room after the half-time break. No real problem, you might think, except that when William Gallas, his team-mate, was injured and needed treatment at half-time during a match, Touré stayed in the dressing room until Gallas had been treated, forcing Arsenal to start the second half with only nine players.

14

When a superstition that is supposed to help you actually hinders you, it is probably time to kick the ritual into touch. With a rabbit’s foot, obviously.

Questions (TOTAL: 30 marks)1. In par 4 the writer says that pigeons “are the tennis players of the bird

word”. Referring to key ideas in par 1-6, explain what he means by this. (4)

2. Read par 7 and 8. What impression does the writer create of Goran Ivanisevic in these lines? How does the writer convey surprise at the behaviour of Jack Russell? (4)

3. Explain in your own words what key points the writer is illustrating by referring to the caveman in par 10 and 11. (4)

4. How is sentence structure used in par 12 and how does it convey the main point. (4)

5. Read the first two sentences in paragraph 13.a) Explain how effective you find the word “spectrum” as an image

or metaphor to illustrate people’s “irrationality”. (2 marks)b) Why does the writer include the anecdote about the footballer

Kolo Toure? (2 marks)c) How effective do you find the tone of the last paragraph as a

conclusion to the passage? (2 marks)6. A common feature of the writer’s style in this passage is to use words

or expressions which are unexpected in order to create a light-hearted tone. Find two examples of this from paragraphs 1 to 10 ad explain what is unexpected about each. (4 marks)

7. Referring to the whole article, list in your own words the key points the writer makes about superstitions. (4 marks)

14. The gr8 db8 (Specimen book 3) Some people say that text messaging is destroying the English language. David Crystal, an eminent professor of language, argues that it is not.

1 Recently, a newspaper article headed “I h8 txt msgs: how texting is wrecking our language” argued that texters are “vandals who are doing to our language what Genghis Khan did to his neighbours 800 years ago. They are destroying it: pillaging our punctuation; savaging our sentences.”

2 As a new variety of language, texting has been condemned as “textese”, “slanguage”, a “digital virus”, “bleak, bald, sad shorthand”, “drab shrinktalk which masks dyslexia, poor spelling and mental laziness”.

3 Ever since the arrival of printing—thought to be the invention of the devil because it would put false opinions into people’s minds—people have been arguing that new technology would have disastrous consequences for language. Scares accompanied the introduction of the telegraph, the telephone, and broadcasting. But has there ever been a linguistic phenomenon that has aroused such curiosity, suspicion, fear, confusion, antagonism, fascination, excitement and enthusiasm all at once as texting? And in such a short space of time. Less than a decade ago, hardly anyone had heard of it.

4 People think that the written language seen on mobile phone screens is new and alien, but all the popular beliefs about texting are wrong. Its distinctiveness is not a new phenomenon, nor is its use restricted to the young. There is increasing evidence that it helps rather than hinders literacy. Texting has added a new dimension to language use, but its long-term impact is negligible. It is not a disaster.

5 Research has made it clear that the early media hysteria about the novelty (and thus the dangers) of text messaging was misplaced. People seem to have swallowed whole the stories that youngsters use nothing else but abbreviations when they text, such as the reports that a teenager had written an essay so full of textspeak that her teacher was unable to understand it. An extract was posted online, and quoted incessantly, but, as no one was ever able to track down the entire essay, it was probably a hoax.

6 There are several distinctive features of the way texts are written that combine to give the impression of novelty, but people have been initialising common phrases for ages. IOU is known from 1618. There is no real difference between a modern kid’s “lol” (“laughing out loud”) and an earlier generation’s “SWALK” (“sealed with a loving kiss”).

7 English has had abbreviated words ever since it began to be written down. Words such as exam, vet, fridge and bus are so familiar that they have effectively become new words. When some of these abbreviated forms first came into use, they also attracted criticism. In 1711, for example, Joseph Addison complained about the way words were being “miserably curtailed”—he mentioned pos (itive) and incog (nito). Texters use deviant spellings—and they know they are deviant. But they are by

no means the first to use such nonstandard forms as “cos” for “because” or “wot” for “what”. Several of these are so much part of English literary tradition that they have been given entries in the Oxford English Dictionary. “Cos” is there from 1828 and “wot” from 1829. Many can be found in the way dialect is written by such writers as Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, Walter Scott and D.H. Lawrence.

8 Sending a message on a mobile phone is not the most natural of ways to communicate. The keypad isn’t linguistically sensible. No one took letter-frequency considerations into account when designing it. For example, key 7 on my mobile contains four symbols, pqrs. It takes four key-presses to access the letter s, and yet s is one of the most frequently occurring letters in English. It is twice as easy to input q, which is one of the least frequently occurring letters. It should be the other way round. So any strategy that reduces the time and awkwardness of inputting graphic symbols is bound to be attractive.

9 Abbreviations were used as a natural, intuitive response to a technological problem. And they appeared in next to no time. Texters simply transferred (and then embellished) what they had encountered in other settings. We have all left notes in which we have replaced “and” with “&”, “three” with “3”, and so on.

10 But the need to save time and energy is by no means the whole story of texting. When we look at some texts, they are linguistically quite complex. There are an extraordinary number of ways in which people play with language—creating riddles, solving crosswords, playing Scrabble, inventing new words. Professional writers do the same—providing catchy copy for advertising slogans, thinking up puns in newspaper headlines, and writing poems, novels and plays. Children quickly learn that one of the most enjoyable things you can do with language is to play with its sounds, words, grammar—and spelling.

11 An extraordinary number of doom-laden prophecies have been made about the supposed linguistic evils unleashed by texting. Sadly, its creative potential has been virtually ignored. But children could not be good at texting if they had not already developed considerable literacy awareness. Before you can write and play with abbreviated forms, you need to have a sense of how the sounds of your language relate to the letters. You need to know that there are such things as alternative spellings. If you are aware that your texting behaviour is different, you must have already realised that there is such a thing as a standard.

12 Some people dislike texting. Some are bemused by it. But it is merely the latest manifestation of the human ability to be linguistically creative and to adapt language to suit the demands of diverse settings. There is no disaster pending. We will not see a new generation of adults growing up unable to write proper English. The language as a whole will not decline. In texting what we are seeing, in a small way, is language in evolution.

Questions (TOTAL: 30 marks)1. Choose any two examples of the language used to criticise texting

in paragraphs 1 and 2 and explain why each is effective in conveying disapproval. (4 marks)

2. Read paragraph 3. a) What difference does the writer identify between the reaction

to texting and the reaction to other new technologies? (2 marks)

b) Explain one way in which the writer’s use of language in these lines conveys his surprise at the reaction to texting. (2 marks)

3. In paragraph 4 the writer says “… all the popular beliefs about texting are wrong”. Explain in your own words the evidence he provides for this in the rest of the paragraph. (3 marks)

4. Show how any two examples of the writer’s word choice in paragraph 5 make clear his belief that the critics of texting are in the wrong. (4 marks)

5. Explain briefly how, in paragraphs 6, 7 and 8 the writer makes texting appear respectable. (3 marks)

6. Explain the function of each of the three dashes used in paragraph 11. (3 marks)

7. Show how any two examples of the writer’s use of language in the last paragraph creates a reassuring tone. (4 marks)

8. Referring to paragraph 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 summarise in your own words the key reasons not to worry about texting. (5 marks)

15. Why Dickens was the hero of Soweto (Specimen book 4)In this passage the writer informs us about the effect that books by

Charles Dickens , a 19th century English writer, had on black South African children during the time of racial segregation (“apartheid”) in South Africa. “Afrikaans” is the language which was spoken in South Africa by the white rulers before the arrival of democracy in that country.

1 Hector Pieterson was 12 when he died. Today a museum bearing his name commemorates his death – and hundreds of others – which occurred some 30 years ago at a place whose name has come to symbolise uprising against oppression: Soweto.

2 Hector was one of thousands of black children who took to the streets on June 16, 1976, in protest about schooling under the apartheid regime in South Africa. When police opened fire on the march it brought the word Soweto to the attention of the world. But less well known is the role that Charles Dickens played in events.

3 The march was in protest at a government edict making Afrikaans compulsory in schools. From January 1976, half of all subjects were to be taught in it, including ones in which difficulties of translation were often an issue.

4 To pupils accustomed to being educated in English, the Afrikaans policy was the last of a line of insults delivered in the name of “Bantu” or “negative education”. They thought being taught in Afrikaans, the language of a regime that had tried to “unpeople” them, would cost them their last remaining freedom – that of thinking for themselves, using their minds.

5 That is where Dickens came in. Many books were banned under apartheid but not the classics of English literature. Pupils arriving hungry at school every day were captivated by the story of a frail but courageous boy

named Oliver Twist.6 The book was a revelation. Systemised oppression of children happened in

England too! They were not alone. Slave labour, thin rations and cruel taunts were part of a child’s life in the world outside as well.

7 One former pupil, now in his forties, says of Dickens: “four or five of us would be together and discuss the stories. And to think he wasn’t banned! The authorities didn’t know what was in these books, how they helped us to be strong, to think that we were not forgotten.”

8 Not being forgotten was particularly crucial. The apartheid regime had tried to “vanish” black people. Feeling abandoned and isolated, people turned to Dickens as someone who understood their plight.

9 But there were not enough books to go round. Few of the crate loads of Shakespeare, Hardy and Dickens shipped from Britain reached the townships. Instead, they came to Soweto in parcels from charities. They were read by candlelight, often out loud, shared in a circle, or passed from hand to hand.

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At Morris Isaacson School, one of the moving forces behind the Soweto protest, which produced two of its leaders, Murphy Morobe, “Shakespeare’s best friend in Africa”, and Tsietsi Mashinini, there were 1, 500 pupils and three copies of Oliver Twist in 1976. The former pupils recall waiting months for their turn, with a similar wait for Nicholas Nickleby.

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But it was Oliver that they took to heart: students at one of the country’s leading black colleges, Lovedale, formed a committee to ask for more.

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Calling it the Board, after Dicken’s Board of Guardians, they asked for more lessons, more food – and more and better books. Their reward was to be charged with public violence. All 152 “board” members were expelled from the college and some were jailed.

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They felt that Dickens was obviously on their side. Descriptions of Gamfield’s “ugly leer” and Bumble’s “repulsive countenance” and Oliver being beaten by Mrs Soerberry and shoved “but nothing daunted” into the dust cellar were evidence that this English author understood the plight of black South Africans.

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Dickens’s compassion for the poor linked the people fo Soweto to a worldwide literature fo tremendous importance.

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The veteran South African trumpeter Hugh Masekela later chose Nicholas Nickleby as his favourite book on a popular radio programme, Desert Island Discs, telling the presenter what its author did for people in the townships: “He taught us suffering is the same everywhere.”

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The love of books that enabled an author dead for more than 100 years to inspire thousands of schoolchildren came mainly from grandmothers who had educated their families orally, then urged them to read widely and learn all that they could.

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It also came from people such as the activist Steve Biko. Whose own mentor, the Brazilian educator Paulo Freire, spent a lifetime working with forest people who had no formal education, teaching them to “name the world their own way”.

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That is what the youth of Soweto wanted – a future in their own words. And they got it. By the following year, Afrikaans had been withdrawn from

classrooms as unworkable. And so, thanks to the influence of a long-dead British author, the sacrifices of Hector Pieterson and many other Africans have proved to be not entirely in vain – which Dickens himself would surely applaud.

Questions (TOTAL: 30 marks)1. Explain fully any two ways in which the writer makes the opening

paragraph dramatic. (4 marks)2. Referring to paragraphs 1, 2, 3, and 4 explain in your own words

why Sowetans were protesting. (3 marks)3. Why, according to the writer in paragraphs 6, 7 and 8, was the story

of Oliver Twist so popular among young Sowetans? (4 marks)4. Show how any two examples of the writer’s word choice in

paragraph 5 and 6 create sympathy for the character Oliver Twist. (4 marks)

5. Explain the function of the colon in paragraph 11. (2 marks)6. Referring to 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 and 15, summarise in your own

words the key evidence the writer uses to show Dickens’ popularity among the South Africans. (4 marks)

7. What does paragraph 12 suggest about the government in South Africa at the time? (2 marks)

8. Read the last three paragraphs. a) Explain briefly how each paragraph shows the importance

various groups of people attach to education. (3 marks)b) Show how any two examples of the writer’s use of language

in these lines create a very positive and inspiring conclusion to the passage. (4 marks)

16. Boys and Girls Club (Swinney)

1 One Direction, five amiable young men under the age of twenty-one who came together in England, on the set of The X Factor, has taken over America. The band’s record, Up All Night, became the first debut album by a British group to enter the American charts at No. 1. It is the newest standard-bearer of an old form: the boy band.

2 During The X Factor’s 2010 season, all five members were competing in the solo category, when the show’s producers urged them instead to form a band. They took this advice but finished third. In a convincing simulation of surprise, Simon Cowell, the series creator, said he was ‘gutted’ about the band’s failure to win. No worries, boys – Cowell promptly signed One Direction to his Syco label and set about producing the various commodities that would bear the name One Direction including, as of now,

three books.3 After its reality-show appearance, the band built up a large online

presence, with nearly 6 million Twitter followers to date. The group’s TV performances circulated widely on YouTube before there was a single recording credited to the group.

4 Does this success herald another boy-band gold rush, like the one in the mid-nineties (with Take That, Westlife, ‘NSync and the Backstreet Boys)?

5 Like its predecessors, One Direction has been compared to the Beatles, mostly owing to its remarkable chart success. But the comparison is misleading. In a way that was not possible fifteen years ago, let alone 50, tweens had access, via the Internet, to the fresh face of Harry Styles, Louis Tomlinson, Niall Horan, Zayn Malik and Liam Payne for months before their band’s album release. ‘We have to laugh it off because the Beatles were iconic,’ Payne demurred once, slightly to accurately, when asked by Australia’s Sunday Telegraph about the resemblance.

6 The internet isn’t the only change. The nineties cohort of boy bands performed music that was rooted in American R&B. in contrast, One Direction and other chart-topping bands are evenly split between guitar-heavy pop rock and club beats. This makes for a dramatic stylistic shift. ‘We’re five lads in a band,’ Payne said. ‘Boy bands aren’t all about dancing and being structured and wearing the same clothes.’

7 Not only is this statement a dismissal of twenty years of unison dance routines and syncopated beats; it also signals One Direction’s desire to take its place in Britain’s lad culture, which has historically rejected boy bands, preferring rowdy acts like Oasis. Lads are now in boy bands, and they need not dance.

8 What One Direction really sounds like, though, is a bunch of girls. The band plays a form of pop rock made popular, in the past ten years, by women. In it, details are either eliminated or enlarged to barn size: there are big hand claps, huge dropouts that spotlight a single word, even sirens. Syncopation is replaces with a big thumping global four-beat. The sound was popularised by Pink’s ‘Don’t Let Me Get Me’ from 2001. The current trend setter is Katy Perry, whose album Teenage Dream has spawned a series of hits that may eclipse Michael Jackson’s Bad for the number of No. 1 songs from a single record. Perry’s influence on One Direction extends up to Up All Nights title song, in which Style sings, ‘Katy Perry’s on replay, she’s on replay.’ Then the guitars lurch in for the chorus, following Perry’s formula of club-plus-rock, for those who missed the message.

9 Cowell has positioned the band brilliantly, well aware that ‘pre-packaged’ is a pejorative label, and that Auto-Tune has become a commercial liability, Cowell has used shows like The X Factor and its progenitors, Pop Idol and American Idol, to reward actual singing ability. The five boys in One Direction can sing quite ably, which lends them a crutch of authenticity to lean on. In interviews, Styles has said that the band members have been writing songs in hotels and airports, because they don’t want to sound like their performing work for hire, produced by some ’40 year old man’. Indeed, the long list of professionals credited on Up All Night are mostly younger than 40, though they also aren’t in One

Direction. The three songs written by the band have outside co-writers, and none has been released as a single. The group’s Twitter and Facebook audience has been praised by industry participants as some kind of DIY phenomenon, as if the social-media accounts weren’t being promoted with the resources of corporations like Hasbro, which will soon release a group of One Direction action figures.

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Cowell has come up with an ingenious way of creating a sort of self-sustaining economy. He has devised a system in which one party 9advertisers) pays for ingredients, another party (fans) buys the resulting pizza, and various third parties argue about whether or not the pizza is organic – a debate that further promotes the pizza. The problem with the formula is that this band is not distinct enough to spawn secondary bands. Malik has genuine swagger, and Styles has a shaggy amiability. The other three are of various heights, and that’s about all I can tell you.

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What the group needs is better 40 year olds. The album and the band are like a dull grey sphere, with few flaws and fewer distinguishing marks. The marketing plan seems to have been ‘Make no mistakes’. One Direction has no commercial need to change course, or to rough up it cuteness. But the band needs one demonically well-built track, the kind of thing an industry oldie could provide. In the end, nobody really cares if the pizza is organic, as long as it tastes like pizza.

Questions (TOTAL: 30 marks)1. Look at paragraphs 1 to 3. Using your own words as far as possible,

summarise the One Direction story so far. (4 marks)2. Look at paragraph 5 and explain in your own words as far as possible,

one similarity and two differences between One Direction and the Beatles ( 3 marks)

3. With reference to the text, explain the part played by the sentence at the beginning of paragraph 6 in the structure of the writer’s argument ( 2 marks)

4. Look at paragraph 7 and explain, with reference to the text, how the writer uses word choice and/or examples to show how One Direction tries to appeal to both boys and girls (4 marks)

5. Look at paragraph 9 and explain how the writer uses word choice to show how Simon Cowell has successfully managed to ‘celebrate actual singing ability’ in shows like The X Factor. (3 marks)

6. Look at paragraph 9 and explain, in your own words as far as possible, the ways in which One Direction have been unsuccessful in claiming that ‘they don’t want to sound like they’re performing work for hire, produced by some “40-year-old man”(4 marks)

7. Look at paragraphs 10 and 11. Explain fully how the writer uses the metaphor/image of a pizza to illustrate his point about Cowell’s ‘ingenious way of creating a sort of self-sustaining economy’. (3 marks)

8. Explain fully the writer’s use of the ‘sphere’ metaphor/image (paragraph 11) to make a negative point about One Direction. (3 marks)

9. Considering the article as a whole, what are the main points the writer

makes about the appeal of One Direction? Use your own words as far as possible in your answer. (4 marks)

17. Dynamo, the magician who walks on water (Swinney)

1 This is a story about poverty, bullies and 19 prize-winning golden retrievers. But most of all, about magic. Not the rabbit-from-a-hat, creepy, holiday-camp entertainer kind of magic, but the sort of trickery that feels so fresh it turns bullish hip-hop artists and football stars into giggling children. Mobile phones miraculously appear in beer bottles. This magician can vanish and reappear on the other side of a glass window. His shows are shocking – he swallows necklaces and pulls them out of his stomach – and delightful. Last year he walked on the river Thames near the houses of parliament. A slight figure, dressed casually in a red jacket and trainers, looking like he'd just got off the bus.

2 This is why it works, I think – an ordinary kid (though 29, he looks younger) who can do extraordinary things. A magician whose fans are very familiar with the idea of a young wizard with a difficult childhood, whose discovery of his magic powers changed his life. "This is Dynamo," says the PR, who introduces us. Do people really call him that? His real name is Steven Frayne. I suppose they do.

3 His first series brought in an average of 1.7 million viewers – this, on a non-Freeview channel that would consider anything over 100,000 a success. What is the appeal? He leans back and thinks. He doesn't look all that ordinary when you study him – he has weirdly blue eyes, and although small and narrow, he looks nimble and fleeting, as if he could fly off at any second. "In this day and age, you walk down the street and you've got everything shoved in your face. We're in a consumer market where we're constantly force-fed, we consume what's given to us. But people like what they don't understand. They like mystery." When he walked on water, "I didn't tell anybody I was going to do it, I didn't advertise it. It was about that moment, and anybody who happened to be there got to witness a spectacle that will never happen again. It's always about keeping that sense of wonder. I get to create little moments of astonishment."

4 But times aren't so great for other television magicians. Last week, both the BBC and ITV cancelled their Saturday night magic shows, The Magicians and Penn & Teller: Fool Us. "I believe that part of it was that the style of the shows was still that cliched magician," he says. "Shiny-floor shows in general, studio-based shows, have kind of been done to the hilt. There's so much competition out there, and I think they weren't doing anything that was different enough to keep people interested. But the magic on the shows was amazing – Penn and Teller are geniuses. I hope I'm as successful as them in years to come." The mainstream channels must be casting a greedy eye over him. He sinks back into the sofa. "I guess so, but I'm happy with Watch at the moment. Everyone has knocked us back over the years."

5 So what's next? Does he feel he has to keep going bigger and better?6 The new series features one illusion where he walks down the side of the LA

Times building. "I don't really like to put a scale on what I do. I treat walking on the Thames with the same approach as I treat a pack of cards. It's more about how amazing the magic is. I like doing magic with nothing, like just my hands."

He bends his little finger as if it were clay – the same trick he once showed a horrified Prince Charles, who had invited him to a party at Clarence House. He takes a pack of cards on the table in front of us, shuffles them, hands as fast as dragonflies, and makes one of the cards disappear in his hand, then reappear. I feel myself do a cartoonish, wide-eyed gasp. He smiles. He never gets tired of people's reactions, he says.

7 Dynamo grew up moving around some of Bradford's most deprived housing estates. He has three half-siblings, but they are much younger, so he spent a good deal of his childhood as an only child. Or a "lonely child" as he puts it. He moved in with his grandparents (actually, his great-grandparents) when he was 16.

8 His great-grandfather Ken was a second world war veteran who had learned tricks in the navy. He died earlier this year, but lived long enough to see his great-grandson well on his way to becoming a magic superstar. "The first thing he ever showed me was how to take away the bullies' strength," he says. The trick he learned – he still uses it today, once to baffle the heavyweight boxer David Haye – makes him impossible to physically pick up.

9 Rumours spread around the school that he had super powers. "At the beginning, people thought I was weird, but slowly it got to the point where people wanted to see me do things." Magic, he says, "gave me the power to bring people to me. It gave me an edge, something to make me unique. The only reason I stood out before was being the smallest kid in school. This made me different, but in a way that was positive."

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He decided on a career in magic, and thought going to live in Las Vegas would be the best way to do it. His grandmother lives in America and spent her time travelling to dog shows. "She had 19 award-winning golden retrievers," he says. "She was doing a tour of America, and invited me to go with her. She was going to places I wanted to go, like Vegas and New Orleans, quite magical. I saw this as a learning experience."

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A born blagger, he got past doormen and backstage security guards and persuaded numerous celebrities, such as Chris Martin, Ian Brown and Snoop Dogg, to appear on the self-made DVD, Underground Magic, which came out in 2005. "I made the DVD, put it on the website and with no advertising sold 8,000 copies in a month."

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It would have been easy, he says, with his celebrity contacts – Lewis Hamilton is a friend, but there are plenty of others including Ashton Kutcher, Richard Branson, Will Smith, Tinie Tempah, Rio Ferdinand and Wayne Rooney, who are all fans – "to come back with series two, all glitzy and glam, but what we've done is allow people who have supported it from the beginning to pick up where we left off and come along for the journey. You see it go from me still being relatively unknown to shutting down Westfield when I went shopping [he tweeted he would be there and thousands of people turned up]. I had to have eight security guards to get me out. You see the transition from being a normal guy to …"

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He pauses. I can feel eyes on us through the window behind me as time runs out and the people around him start to worry about the next stop on his schedule. "It's very weird. I don't think I'll ever fully feel this is normal. It's crazy the way people have taken to me and my show. One thing the first series gave me, the success of it, was the confidence that people like me for

who I am. For the first time in years, I feel accepted."

Questions (TOTAL: 30 marks)1. Show how contrasting word choice in par 1 makes clear that Dynamo’s

magic is new and different. (4)2. Show how, in par 1 the writer presents evidence for Dynamo being

both ordinary and extraordinary. (2)3. Look at par 3 and explain in your own words ways in which Dynamo is

not ordinary. (4)4. Explain the part played by par 5 in the structure of the writer’s

argument. (2)5. Look at par 7-9 and show how two examples of the writer’s language

make clear the impressive nature of Dynamo’s magic (4)6. Explain, with reference to par 10-12, how the writer uses examples to

show how much Dynamo’s life has been turned around since going to America. (4)

7. ‘He pauses’ (par 13) signals a mood change in the telling of Dynamo’s story. Explain what this mood change is and explain how the writer uses word choice to make this clear. (3)

8. Explain the main points you have learned about Dynamo from this article. (3)

18. The iPaddy (Swinney)

1 Ask any parent what can tip their toddler into a fit of the screaming furies and right up there with being asked to eat broccoli or put on a warm coat will be the taking-away-the-iPad moment. As the gadget is prised from sticky fingers, there will be wails and tears from tiny children who seem to have become tech addicts. So common is this kind of toddler tantrum that it even has its own name, the iPaddy.

2 Young children – even infants – are spending more of their time with digital technology and parents are both fascinated and worried by this development. Log on to YouTube and there are dozens of videos posted by proud parents showing cute kids, some still in nappies, jabbing and swiping screens like geeks in Silicon Valley.

3 But while parents hope that all this digital time is giving their offspring a kick-start on numeracy or learning French, they are also wondering what it is doing to young brains. Seeing a child in a trance in front of a screen, head down and oblivious to anything else going on around them, or having a mini meltdown when the device is taken away, is making parents feel uneasy.

4 Hannah Rosin, writing about the subject in The Atlantic magazine, calls it the neurosis of our age. ‘Technological competence and sophistication have not, for parents, translated into comfort and ease,’ she writes. ‘They have merely created yet another sphere that parents feel they have to navigate in exactly the right way…Parents end up treating tablets like precision surgical instruments, gadgets that might perform miracles for their child’s IQ and help them win some nifty robotics competition – but only if they are used just so. Otherwise, their child could end up one of those pale, sad creatures who can’t maintain eye contact and have an avatar for a girlfriend.’

5 Research suggests that children of preschool age are spending increasing

time with their faces a few inches away from screens instead of entertaining themselves with traditional toys or reading books. More than half of children aged up to eight are estimated to have access to an interactive device such as an iPhone, an iPad or some other tablet – in addition to television. Young children can spend up to three hours a day on screen media and even infants under a year old can consume up to two hours a day.

6 While studies suggest that television holds little educational value for under-3s, very young children may be able to learn more from interactive gadgets. This follows the ‘video deficit’ theory that shows that under-3s learn better from real-life interaction than from watching a video.

7 In one of many studies that prove the theory, children aged 30 to 36 months were better at remembering where puppets were hiding in a room if they had to press a button when they saw the puppets, compared with toddlers who only saw a video of the puppet show.

8 This means that compared with the passive activity of watching TV, interactive devices are likely to be more stimulating, positive and educational for toddlers.

9 ‘Having a person on screen talk to a child and respond to them seems to help them learn,’ Dr Heather Kirkorian, of the University of Wisconsin-madison, says. ‘So touch-screen technology might actually afford some education value.’

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A recent study found that three-year-olds taking a vocabulary test improved their score by 17% after using an educational app based on word games.

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Researchers are, however, concerned about the length of time young children spend with digital media, and say screen time should never replace human interaction.

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‘The greatest touch screen in the world of a child is an adult face,’ points out Lisa Guerney, author of screen Time, a book that looks at how electronic media effects children. ‘Social interaction is the crucible of learning for young children – they need a person that they can have a back-and-forth conversation with, who can respond to their questions and direct their play,’ she adds.

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She describes a video on YouTube that has been viewed by more than half a million people, which shows a boy aged about one year sitting rapt in front of an iPad, watching a cartoon cat called Talking Tom. The boy says some nonsensical words and the cat repeats the chatter back to him. The child does not know, of course, that he is not communicating with a living creature.

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‘When I see that video it’s charming and it makes me laugh, but it also shows how hardwired we are to want to talk to something that talks back to us.’

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Guernsey says that parents should think about the three Cs: content, context and the child’s individual needs. Games don’t all have to be educational – something parents put forward to assuage their discomfort about their children using interactive devices – but they do need to be high quality.

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She points out that we don’t force children to read textbooks at bedtime so it’s all right to let them have some playtime based around an app. The best apps, she says, don’t dictate how children paly but let them use their imaginations.

1 She understands parents who worry that a tidal wave of media is washing

7 over their children. ‘We’re losing sight of the fact that it’s not as if – puff! – childhood has changed overnight.’ After all, children still play with dolls and trains and do make-believe, which is backed by the fact that bouncy balls, Scrabble and a butterfly garden kit feature in Amazon UK’s bestselling toys.

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It’s important to remember that children obsessed with gadgets eventually balance it out with other activities. Hana Rosin says she gave her four-year-old carte blanche to use an iPad. Eventually he lost interest and now picks it up only occasionally. And what of the trance-like state that children adopt when staring at iPads or other devices? The experts say parents shouldn’t worry too much – they are simply concentrating like they would if they were playing snap.

Questions (TOTAL: 30 marks)1. Show how two examples of the writer’s use of language in

paragraph 1 help make clear what she means by the iPaddy. (4 marks)

2. Look again at paragraphs 2 to 3. Show how the writer’s use of language in these paragraphs makes it clear that parents are ‘both fascinated and worried’ that their children are spending ‘more of their time with digital technology’. (5 marks)

3. In paragraph 4 the writer calls technology ‘the neurosis of our age’ for parents. How does the writer develop this idea of technology being a worry for parents throughout the rest of the paragraph? Use your own words where possible. (4 marks)

4. Look at paragraph 6 to 11 and then sum up in your own words the main points the writer is making in these lines (3 marks)

5. With reference to paragraph 12, 13 and 14 explain how the writer emphasises the view that ‘screen time should never replace human interaction’ (4 marks)

6. How effective do you find the words ‘tidal wave’ in paragraph 17 as an image to illustrate parents’ fear of the media? (3 marks)

7. Using your own words as far as possible, explain the positive conclusion drawn by the writer in the final paragraph. (3 marks)

8. List the main points the writer makes in this article about the use of gadgets use your own words as far as possible. (4 marks)