Skip to main content
O-LevelLiterature in EnglishPoetry2010/12 · Oct/Nov 2022 · Q525 Marks

CAROL ANN DUFFY: from New Selected Poems Remember to support your ideas with details from the writing. Either 5 Read this poem, and then answer the question that follows it: In Your Mind The other country, is it anticipated or half-remembered? Its language is muffled by the rain which falls all afternoon one autumn in England, and in your mind you put aside your work and head for the airport with a credit card and a warm coat you will leave on the plane. The past fades like newsprint in the sun. You know people there. Their faces are photographs on the wrong side of your eyes. A beautiful boy in the bar on the harbour serves you a drink – what? asks you if men could possibly land on the moon. A moon like an orange drawn by a child. No. Never. You watch it peel itself into the sea. Sleep. The rasp of carpentry wakes you. On the wall, a painting lost for thirty years renders the room yours. Of course. You go to your job, right at the old hotel, left, then left again. You love this job. Apt sounds mark the passing of the hours. Seagulls. Bells. A flute practising scales. You swap a coin for a fish on the way home. Then suddenly you are lost but not lost, dawdling on the blue bridge, watching six swans vanish under your feet. The certainty of place turns on the lights all over town, turns up the scent on the air. For a moment you are there, in the other country, knowing its name. And then a desk. A newspaper. A window. English rain.

  1. In what ways does Duffy make this such a memorable poem?[25]

Mark scheme

Marking points from the official mark scheme (Oct/Nov 2022). The mark or mark type is shown in brackets.

  1. [25] demonstrates knowledge by incorporating well-selected reference to the text skilfully and with flair (AO1)
  2. [25] sustains a critical understanding of the text showing individuality and insight (AO2)
  3. [25] responds sensitively and in considerable detail to the way the writer achieves her/his effects (AO3)
  4. [25] sustains personal and evaluative engagement with task and text (AO4)

Write your answer and get it marked

On Oracle Prep you can write or photograph your own answer and have it marked by AI against this mark scheme, with feedback on what you missed.

Sign up free →

About this question

Topic
Poetry, O-Level Literature in English (syllabus 2010). Structured question, 25 marks.
Source
O-Level Literature in English, Oct/Nov 2022 Paper 1 Variant 2, question 5.

Questions and mark schemes are from past examination papers and remain the copyright of the exam board. How Oracle Prep builds its content

Related Literature in English questions

© 2026 Oracle Prep