With both Literature papers successfully achieved in late May and most students who took them praising the likes of AQA and Edexcel, the students would not be expecting something that could be described as coming out of “left field” in terms of the exam insert or the questions on the paper, but in the end, there always seems to be a howitzer of a task in each year’s exams and I personally think the first language papers did this in 2023 when it used The Life Of Pi as an insert. 

Although I’ve not seen the actual questions, the students I teach online now, due to my own disability, tell me that it was the section where the hyena is on the boat, which becomes a bit of an issue if you have never heard of, read or seen the text or film. In that book, each animal he sees represents one person in his life, or another, like his mother. Therefore, the heavy use of metaphor by the writer has to be mentioned. 

“Whoa! Wait! Metaphor?” I hear you shouting at the screen. Yes. If you didn’t get that bit in you’ve missed some points because the hyena represents someone in his life when he is abandoned on the ocean.

The Questions…

So the first question would be using lines 1-5 or so, to choose 4 things that are provable fact in those lines. That’s easy enough. Then there’s the second and third questions that ask you to write about Language and then, how the writer structures the writing; word level, sentence level, text level, as shared elsewhere on this site. 

Then comes the tricky 4th question, which we can spend some time on later, but with Section A now over, from what I’m told, you would no doubt have felt comfortable, if you mentioned the writer’s use of metaphor and symbolism. What did the hyena represent in the text, why and to what effect? 

So far, so good!

Then you get this in Section B. 

When I saw it on Twitter on the day, I nearly cried. A typical picture of a beach, or a jungle setting, would have been fine. A picture of a bus on a journey, or a pack of lions, would have sufficed, given that the first section insert was about an animal. Both sections are usually linked somehow, after all. 

But this might as well have been a Where’s Wally poster! Oh wait. It was a Where’s Wally poster! 

How utterly patronising of AQA. 

The style of the picture is the thing that alarms me. A previous exam had a scene of people walking by, like at a beach. A previous one before that had the three ladies on a bus (the Rosabel story) and then this? Were AQA really trying to patronise these fifteen year old students? 

If so, it damn well worked! 

The point I’m making is simple. Whatever source they give you has to be down the middle of the road. The level 9 students should be able to run with it and fly high. The level 2 and 3 students should be able to look at the picture and get loads of ideas from it to write about and hopefully they’ll get the elusive level 4 at least. 

Now this picture is a travesty to see in such an examination. I saw it and the now well known acronym of WTF came out of my mouth. What, I thought, are the students supposed to write about that? A description of a zoo? What if someone has never been? What if your student, possibly the higher achievers, are animal rights active? Firstly it might offend and lastly, it would be aimed far too low on the student scale of This Is Average. 

Firstly the choice is a description of a place based on this picture. Did you do the zoo? Did you have a go and think what on earth do I write? Or did you get an ingenious idea and run with it? If you did the latter, my betting is that you’re a level 6 or above so there’ll be no worries re the final grades. But some would see that pic and be forced into the story narrative arc, which asked for a time when an animal meets a human being. 

My thoughts are simple here. 

I think that the DFE and above them, the national government, dealt a bitter blow to a good chunk of the students taking this exam and the results will dip from last year in August, when the DFE will then say that the grade boundaries are being changed to say what an A or a B (8 and 9) actually are. This could impact the futures of our children so such senseless and constant changes need to stop at government level. 

Did you, if you did the story, write about a pet coming into your house? Did you find metaphors in the section A insert and then use them in your Section B? Were you that creative?

It had to be to get the higher grades. If it was me, and this exam will no doubt be the mock exam you take next year by the way, if you are Y10 now, then I’d expect the animal (cat) coming into the home (yours) for the first time. But I’d expect some “colour” into it, like a friend did when he first met his cat. 

Notice “how” he has done this….third person narrative…..man meets cat, or on this case, man falls for moggie. (for those not Northern British, a moggie is a slang term for a cat). 

The Beginning.

It was a cold morning when he set off, late autumn and the sun was just starting to break the night but the sky was a dirty grey colour full of rain yet to fall. 

  He had an errand to run but was tired from previous work, he just wanted to get it done and get home to rest.

  He climbed in the van, rubbing his hands together to try and keep them warm before turning the key and heading off. As he pulled away from the kerb the rain came, slowly at first then in torrents. He went on hoping the engine would warm soon so he could get some heat in the cab and warm his bones. Music on the radio at least to keep him company.

  Thirty miles later he had made his destination and climbed from his van with the drop off he had, a small dog called Freddie to be shipped to his son in Sweden. As he turned he saw cats of all different sizes scatter, feral strays he thought. He approached the building and there was two dishes on the floor with only the remnants of rainwater in them. They come to get fed probably from the workers here but make haste when strangers approached.

  Then he saw it, under the bench by the door in with the cigarette stubs discarded by the workforce. Bedraggled and wet, a ginger kitten hadn’t run with the rest but tried to make itself even smaller than it was already, it just looked at him, eyes sore and only partially open, covered in sores and red from inflammation.

  “Hey! What are you doing still here” he said as the kitten tried to back further into the wall behind it. 

  He stood up to deliver the dog for its onward journey to be with its loving owners. Paperwork done, all the I’s dotted and the T’s crossed and he could be on his way.

  He walked out to his van and reached for the door handle. He just stood there holding it, he gave out a deep sigh and his shoulders dropped. He knew he wasn’t going just yet.

  He turned and walked back, the kitten was still there, every opportunity to run but it stayed and just looked up at him in its pitiful state. 

  “So how come you stayed little one?” He sighed once more and headed back into the building to ask the question, 

  “Can I take it home?” 

  “If you can catch it then yes but they run off as soon as you get too close” he was told.

  He went back out, still there, still looking up, time to see if it would run or not as he reached under the bench. It didn’t, in fact it didn’t do much of anything apart from sit in his hand, small enough to fit in just one, cold, wet, bedraggled and unwell, it simply had no fight left in it.

  On the journey home it sat in a crate given to him by the freight company, he kept the van warm and it just curled up asleep.  

  Probably the warmest it’s been since birth. He wondered what will happen next but no matter what he knew it was better than what it was going to face. A bitter winter was forecast for the whole country this year, a few more weeks we would be in the midst of it and it would never have survived.

  “You’re going to meet some new people and new friends” he told it as he drove home, “we have two other cats who are probably going to ignore you for a while but you will be as thick as thieves with one when he gets to know you, we do though have two dogs, one will not have any concern for you, the other though? Well that’s another matter but she’ll settle down in time” 

  The kitten shifted but continued to sleep on the journey home.

  Home, yeah he thought, home, that’s where you are headed now, something you’ve never had, never known, warmth all the time, plenty to eat so no more fighting for scraps in bowls with remnants of rainwater but safe. Yeah, home.

  Six months on and he, the kitten, now called Fizzgig, follows the man everywhere he goes, two steps behind, sleeps on his chest or at his side, many visits to the vets to try and get him right but no matter what’s wrong with him his life will be right.

  “Sometimes I wonder who saved who?” He said as he carries the cat up to bed as he does each night.

  I was asked to relate what happens when you rescue or adopt a pet and bring them home. I chose to do it this way.

(Courtesy: MF Shaw: Facebook)

The point of telling a story is to entertain and Mike’s story does this so well. I’ve left any and all errors in it, because we all make them. The only thing I’ve changed is the beginning of each paragraph, to not miss any lines out, assuming you will be hand writing your exam answer out and I’ve put the speech on its own line. 

Can you do better? If you can do (or did) as well as this you will score highly in the exam. 

Happy hunting. 

RJ