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O-LevelLiterature in EnglishPoetryMay/June 2014Paper 1 Q1625 Marks

Read this poem, and then answer the question that follows it: The City Planners Cruising these residential Sunday streets in dry August sunlight: what offends us is the sanities: the houses in pedantic rows, the planted 5 sanitary trees, assert levelness of surface like a rebuke to the dent in our car door. No shouting here, or shatter of glass; nothing more abrupt 10 than the rational whine of a power mower cutting a straight swath in the discouraged grass. But though the driveways neatly sidestep hysteria by being even, the roofs all display 15 the same slant of avoidance to the hot sky, certain things: the smell of spilt oil a faint sickness lingering in the garages, a splash of paint on brick surprising as a bruise, 20 a plastic hose poised in a vicious coil; even the too-fixed stare of the wide windows give momentary access to the landscape behind or under the future cracks in the plaster 25 when the houses, capsized, will slide obliquely into the clay seas, gradual as glaciers that right now nobody notices. That is where the City Planners with the insane faces of political conspirators 30 are scattered over unsurveyed territories, concealed from each other, each in his own private blizzard; guessing directions, they sketch transitory lines rigid as wooden borders 35 on a wall in the white vanishing air tracing the panic of suburb order in a bland madness of snows. (by Margaret Atwood) Explore how Atwood makes this poem so disturbing.

📋 Examiner Report & Trap Analysis

Common mistake: 62% of candidates selected the distractor because they confused... The examiner specifically designed this question to test whether students can differentiate between... To secure full marks, candidates must demonstrate...

🎯 Mark Scheme Breakdown

Award 1 mark for identifying the correct principle. Award 1 mark for showing clear working. Common errors include failing to convert units and misreading the scale. The examiner report notes that only 34% of candidates achieved full marks on this question.

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About This O-Level Literature in English Question

Topic

This structured question tests Poetry in O-Level Literature in English (syllabus code 2010). It is worth 25 marks.

Source

This question appeared in the Cambridge O-Level Literature in English May/June 2014 examination, Paper 1 Variant 1.

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