Cambridge Past Paper Questions
Browse 23,045questions from 25 years of O-Level & A-Level exams. Click any question to practice.
You are Gilbert. You have just spent your first evening with Makhaya. Write your thoughts.
Read this extract, and then answer the question that follows it: "Is this where Ned and Ruth kissed each other?" she whispered breathlessly, and fl...
To what extent do you think Wharton suggests that Ethan is himself responsible for being a failure? Support your ideas with details from the writing.
You are Zeena, at the moment when Ethan steps into the kitchen bringing a visitor (the narrator). Write your thoughts.
Read this extract from There Will Come Soft Rains, and then answer the question that follows it: At ten o'clock the house began to die. The wind bl...
Explore in detail the ways in which the writer memorably portrays suffering in either The Yellow Wall Paper (by Charlotte Perkins Gilman) or The Le...
You are Mother in On Her Knees (by Tim Winton). You have just read the note from your employer. Write your thoughts.
Read this extract, and then answer the question that follows it: Willy: Loves me. [Wonderingly] Always loved me. Isn’t that a remarkable thing? Ben...
How do you think Miller makes the audience care about what happens to Willy? Support your ideas with details from the play.
You are Linda. Willy has returned from the restaurant and you are waiting for the return of Biff and Happy. Write your thoughts.
Read this extract, and then answer the question that follows it: Brutus: Remember March, the ides of March remember: Did not great Julius bleed for...
Explore the ways in which Shakespeare vividly presents the Roman crowd in the play.
You are Antony. You have just made your speech to the crowd following Brutus’s oration after Caesar’s murder. Write your thoughts.
Read this extract, and then answer the question that follows it: Master: Boatswain! Boatswain: Here, master; what cheer? Master: Good! Speak to th’...
How far does Shakespeare make it possible for you to have sympathy for Caliban? Support your ideas with details from the play.
You are Ariel at the end of the play. Prospero has just promised you freedom once you have completed your final task. Write your thoughts.
Read this extract, and then answer the question that follows it: Lady Bracknell: Untruthful! My nephew Algernon? Impossible! He is an Oxonian. Jack...
How far do you think Gwendolen’s personality resembles that of her mother? Support your ideas with details from Wilde’s writing.
You are Jack Worthing. You have left London and are on your way to your home in the country. Write your thoughts.
Read these two parts of In Memoriam, and then answer the question that follows: L Be near me when my light is low, When the blood creeps, and the n...
Explore the ways in which Tennyson makes the story so compelling in either Mariana or The Lady of Shalott.
How does Tennyson movingly convey the feelings of Ulysses contemplating his last journey?
Read this poem, and then answer the question that follows: Pied Beauty Glory be to God for dappled things – For skies of couple-colour as a brinded...
How does Elizabeth Brewster strikingly convey the contrasts between city and country life in Where I Come From?
Choose two poems from this selection from Songs of Ourselves which contrast natural and man-made things. Explore in detail how the poems you have c...
Read this extract, and then answer the question that follows it: I took a seat at the end of the hearthstone opposite that towards which my landlor...
Explore the ways in which Brontë makes the contrast between Heathcliff and Edgar Linton such a compelling part of the novel.
You are Catherine Linton the night before your marriage to Hareton. Write your thoughts.
Read this extract, and then answer the question that follows it: Nyasha was losing weight steadily, constantly, rapidly. It dropped off her body al...
How far do you think Dangarembga makes the narrator’s life before she moves to the town seem attractive? Support your ideas with details from the w...
You are Lucia, just after Babamukuru has told you he has found you a job. Write your thoughts.
Read this extract, and then answer the question that follows it: After the last of the school examinations – the most frenzied, the most panic-stri...
Explore the ways in which Desai makes the preparation and eating of food so significant in the ‘Feasting’ part of the novel.
You are Aruna. Your father is on his way to rescue Uma from Harish and his family. Write your thoughts.
Read this extract, and then answer the question that follows it: And so the post office stood in the middle of the hustle and bustle of Shahkot. Sc...
Before Sampath runs away, how does Desai amusingly portray the lack of understanding between Sampath and his father?
You are Grandmother Ammaji on the day the monkey stole your false teeth. It is near the end of the day. Write your thoughts.
Read this extract, and then answer the question that follows it: Under the dripping bare lilac-trees a large open car was coming up the drive. It s...
A moving love story. A story of self-deception. Which of these descriptions is closer to your view of the novel? Support your ideas by close refer...
You are Jordan Baker. You have just telephoned Nick before going to Southampton (towards the end of the novel) and he has turned down your suggesti...
Read this extract from The Custody of the Pumpkin (by P.G. Wodehouse), and then answer the question that follows it: Two new arrivals had just join...
How does the writer of one of the following stories memorably portray the power that one character has over another? The Son’s Veto (by Thomas Har...
You are Mr Thomas in The Destructors. You have just finished showing Trevor (T.) around your house. Write your thoughts.
Read this extract, and then answer the question that follows it: Willy: I could build two guest houses, so they'd both come. Did he decide how much...
How do you think Miller makes Bernard such a dramatically effective contrast to the Loman brothers? Support your ideas with details from Miller's w...
You are Willy, sitting outside Howard Wagner's office waiting to see him. Write your thoughts.
Read this extract, and then answer the question that follows it: Cassius: I think we are too bold upon your rest. Good morrow, Brutus. Do we troubl...
To what extent does Shakespeare suggest that the triumvirate (Antony, Octavius and Lepidus) is suited to govern Rome? Support your ideas with detai...
You are Calphurnia. You have just heard of Caesar's assassination. Write your thoughts.
Read this extract, and then answer the question that follows it: Sebastian: I remember You did supplant your brother Prospero. Antonio: True. And l...