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O-LevelLiterature in EnglishProseOct/Nov 2014Paper 1 Q3125 Marks

Read this extract, and then answer the question that follows it: 'I'm going to swim,' he said later. They had eaten tomatoes and biscuits for breakfast. Hooper was lying flat on the ground in a lozenge of sunlight. His clothes looked crumpled. Just ahead of him, below a bush, a thrush was banging a snail down on to a flat stone to smash the shell. Hooper watched it intently. 'You'd better not come in the water, though. You might have got a cold from yesterday.' 'I'm all right.' 'Well ...' 'Anyway, I don't feel like swimming. In a minute, I'm going to get a biscuit and see if this bird'll come for crumbs.' 'It won't.' 'Why won't it?' 'Because it's wild. Not like in the garden.' 'Don't be stupid. All birds are wild, they're all the same.' 'It won't come nearer if you're there.' 'We'll see.' 'It's a waste of food. We need to save it all.' 'I'm only giving it crumbs. Anyway, you mind your own business, Kingshaw.' But Hooper spoke mildly, his attention fixed on the bird. Kingshaw took off his clothes, and went and lay down in the shallowest part of the stream. The stones were cold against his buttocks and shoulders, but not sharp. The water moved over and over him, parting and coming together again. He opened his legs wide and then closed them, like scissors. The sunlight was limey-yellow, coming through the leaves above. They fidgeted gently the whole time. A black and white bird flew up, parting them, going off into the open sky. Kingshaw closed his eyes. He didn't want to swim, not to move at all. He thought, this is all right, this is all right. Hooper was still watching the thrush. It had got the snail out of the broken shell, now. All round them, the wood pigeons called. It was then that he heard the first shout. A dog barked. It was far away, at first, but they got nearer very quickly. None of it seemed to take long. Crash, crash, crash they came, through the undergrowth. Someone shouted again. They were almost in the clearing, but Kingshaw couldn't tell what any of them had said. The dog barked again. He opened his eyes, and saw Hooper, sitting up, looking at him. 'Someone's coming.' Kingshaw did not answer, did not move, only closed his eyes again and lay, letting the water sift over his naked body. He thought, I don't want them to come, I don't want them to find us. Not now. This is all right. I want to stay here. He didn't even mind Hooper, now. Not in the wood. It was another world. If they couldn't have found their way out, then they would either die, or survive. But this was what he had wanted. To get away, change things. Now, someone was coming, they would be taken back to the house. For a second, he dreaded it. Then, he remembered everything that had happened with Hooper, since yesterday morning. Things had changed. Perhaps it would be all right. There was another shout. When he opened his eyes again, his view of the tree-tops and the sunlight was blocked, by a man's head. [from Chapter 9] How does Hill at this moment in the novel powerfully convey Kingshaw's feeling that he has escaped, but also suggest that he has not?

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About This O-Level Literature in English Question

This structured question appeared in the Cambridge O-Level Literature in English (2010) Oct/Nov 2014 examination, Paper 1 Variant 2. It tests the topic of Prose and is worth 25 marks.

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