O and A Level English Language

Kawkab Ms 01918499060 1

Passage 1

Climate change: one person’s view on causes and consequences

1 While climate change is a reality familiar to all of us, those aged 35 or younger will have
experienced average global temperatures rising every year of their lives. These increases are
harmful to our planet and are almost always the result of human behaviour. So, what are the
possible causes and consequences of climate change?

2 One cause is that industrialised countries rely on fossil fuels – fuels formed from the remains 5
of dead animals and plants – notably, coal, oil and natural gas. This means that excessive
amounts of harmful gases are pumped skywards every day, dangerous substances pouring
out as plumes of smoke from factory chimneys. Individuals also contribute to climate change
in their own homes as they produce greenhouse gases in the domestic gas and oil boilers
that provide their hot water and keep their houses at the desired temperature. Homeowners 10
should be encouraged to switch to sustainable heat sources such as solar panels. Many
countries, for example Germany, are leading the way here.

3 Trees are our most effective weapon in combatting climate change and they do this in two ways:
they help to remove the harmful gas carbon dioxide from the air, and they also release beneficial
oxygen into it. However, trees are frequently cut down to make way for ever-increasing industrial 15
complexes and the sprawling cities that support them. Another possible factor in climate change
is animal farming because grazing animals emit the greenhouse gas methane from their
digestive systems. Of course, animals are an excellent source of food, but we all need to think
about reducing our meat consumption to help in the fight against climate change. In order to
ensure higher levels of output for less money, modern farming methods sometimes use toxic 20
pesticides which release vast quantities of greenhouse gases into the earth’s atmosphere.

4 Emissions from planes, released high into the atmosphere, stay there for a long time, triggering
chemical reactions that heat the planet and cause further climate change. Furthermore, in
recent times, there has been a sharp rise in the number of flights taken, linked to both the
increased affluence in some parts of the world, and the advent of budget airlines. Travellers 25
should choose airlines which have committed to reducing carbon emissions by, for example,
switching to electrification, although this is currently unsuitable for flights over 1500 kilometres.
Travelling in polluting vehicles such as petrol and diesel cars produces unacceptable levels of
dangerous emissions which contribute to climate change.

5 There are many serious consequences of climate change. One of these is that, as the earth 30
gets warmer, ice is melting on, for example, mountain glaciers and the ice sheets covering
Antarctica and Greenland. Since glaciers store around 75% of the earth’s fresh water, the
supply of drinking water for human and animal consumption is decreasing in many parts
of the world, including Peru, China and India. Ironically, it is just as the supplies of drinking
water in these countries are decreasing that the population is increasing. Flooding is another 35
serious effect of climate change: melted ice flows into our oceans and, when the ocean levels
rise, the excess water pours into coastal areas. As the Earth’s surface warms up, so too do
the depths of the oceans and, although this may sound attractive to holiday makers, there are
serious consequences. Seafood stocks dwindle, devastating for the millions of people who
rely on our oceans for their food or livelihood. 40

6 Other wildlife and their habitats are affected in an adverse way; for example, one species of
Antarctic penguin has suffered a population decrease of 90% and polar bears are in danger
of extinction. Conversely, some creatures, many of which carry dangerous or even fatal
diseases, thrive in higher global temperatures and their numbers multiply. Some species of
mosquito are increasing, and the booming population of bark beetles that feeds on spruce 45
and pine trees has devastated millions of forested acres in the USA. Extreme weather events
caused by climate change – such as fires, tornadoes and exceptional heatwaves which are
especially dangerous for babies, children and elderly people – are now on the increase. We
all looked on helplessly as bush fires raged through many parts of Australia in recent times.
O and A Level English Language
Kawkab Ms 01918499060 2

Passage 2

The Garage

1 One day my mother told me about an accident I nearly had in my early childhood. We had
been shopping when I was only three years old, and when we came back she drove the
car into the garage, telling me to stay in my seat in the back of the car while she took the
shopping from the front seat. She did that and was just about to slam the door shut when
she saw that I had got out of the car. I was standing beside her with my hand holding on to 5
the inside edge of the door frame. ‘I very nearly squashed your fingers,’ she said. She held
up the thumb and first finger of her right hand, narrowly parted. There was a short silence. I
was thinking that perhaps I should apologise for being the kind of child who never did as she
was told, persistently putting herself in the way of danger.

2 Although I have no memory of that event, I do remember the garage. I thought it a fascinating 10
but slightly frightening place, with oil stains, thick and pungent, on the concrete floor which,
if looked at one way, could transform into rainbows, shiny and fleeting. It had dark red
doors and a window behind which a confused bird once became trapped, its wings flapping
incessantly. My father wrestled with the catch, which had been painted shut, while the bird
dived again and again into the glass, unable to comprehend that it would not yield. Finally, 15
the catch gave way and the bird flew out, swooping once over the flowerbed, then away
over the hedge. In my memory the garage was a cobwebby, dim place, filled with spades
and other gardening tools, an axe hanging on a high nail. One summer we set up a childish
museum in the garage, arranging our exhibits on the workbench. They included, among
other mismatched and valueless things, some old postage stamps, several dead insects 20
and some pieces of rock.

3 Our cat chose the garage as the place to give birth to her kittens. Awed and delighted, our
family visited her and her new family to worship at the side of the cardboard box which was
their temporary home. We watched the four squirming bodies as they burrowed into their
mother’s grey-striped fur. My mother instructed my sister and me not to touch the kittens, 25
not yet, and we nodded gravely. As soon as she had left the shrine and gone back to the
kitchen, however, I told my sister to keep watch at the garage door. I reasoned with her that
obviously there was no way I was going to leave those kittens untouched. No way at all.
The sheer joy of plunging my hands into the box and lifting up all four kittens in a mewing,
writhing mass and burying my face in their softness, their never-walked-on paws: how could 30
I pass up this opportunity?

4 The cat looked at me with eyes that were alert but which also seemed to me to be full of
forgiveness. She knew it wasn’t possible for me to follow my mother’s edict – there was no
way I could. She purred when I gently touched the kittens, stretching out an ecstatic paw to
touch me on the wrist. 35

5 That cat lived an astonishing twenty-one years. There are photographs in my parents’
house of me holding her when I was a self-conscious ten-year-old, with teeth too large and
numerous crowding my mouth, and photographs of me as an adult with the cat on my lap.
When I was living at the other side of the world, years after the birth of those kittens, my
sister, who was by then a veterinary surgeon, phoned me to say that the cat who, a lifetime 40
ago, gave birth to kittens in a cardboard box in our garage, had died of old age. She had
been sick and could not survive another operation. My sister and I clutched the ends of
our respective phones close to our ears, separated by mountains and countries and seas,
reluctant to end the call because we both knew what would happen next. We would be
transported back to that moment in childhood when we were separated by only the length of 45
the garage, as she stood, an anxious sentinel, keeping watch, her head turning between me
and the house, as I bent over the cardboard box and lifted the kittens out.
O and A Level English Language
Kawkab Ms 01918499060 3

Section 1: Reading for Ideas

Read Passage 1, Climate change: one person’s view on causes and consequences, in the insert and
answer all the questions below.

1 (a) Notes

Identify and write down what are the causes of climate change, and the consequences of
climate change, according to the writer.

USE MATERIAL FROM PARAGRAPHS 2 TO 6 INCLUSIVE

At this stage, you do not need to use your own words. Use note form. To help you get started,
the first point in each section of notes is done for you. You may find it helpful to use bullet
points when listing the content points.

You will be awarded up to 12 marks for content points.

Content Points

Causes of climate change

• Industrialised countries rely on fossil fuels

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Consequences of climate change

• Ice is melting

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O and A Level English Language
Kawkab Ms 01918499060 4

(b) Summary

Now use your notes from 1(a) to write a summary of the causes of climate change, and the
consequences of climate change, according to the writer.

Use your own words as far as possible. You will be awarded marks for producing a piece of
writing which is relevant, well organised and easy to follow.

Your summary must be in continuous writing (not note form). You are advised to write
between 150 and 180 words, including the 10 words given below.

Begin your summary as follows:

According to the writer, a cause of climate change is ...............................................................

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O and A Level English Language
Kawkab Ms 01918499060 5

2 Re-read paragraphs 2, 3, and 4, and write down one piece of advice given by the writer from
each of these paragraphs.

Paragraph 2 .....................................................................................................................................

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Paragraph 3 .....................................................................................................................................

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Paragraph 4 .....................................................................................................................................

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[Total: 25]
O and A Level English Language
Kawkab Ms 01918499060 6

Section 2: Reading for meaning

Read Passage 2, The Garage, in the insert and answer all the questions below.

From paragraph 1

3 (a) Why do you think the writer did not remember the event described by her mother?

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(b) What ‘accident’ did the writer nearly have?

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(c) Give the sentence where the mother shows how close the writer was to being hurt.

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(d) Write down the single word which shows that this was not the only time the writer was
disobedient as a child.

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From paragraph 2

4 (a) The writer thought that the garage was ‘a fascinating but slightly frightening place’. Explain in
your own words how she felt about the garage.

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(b) Give the two actions of the trapped bird which show that it was ‘confused’.

(i) ...........................................................................................................................................

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(ii) ...........................................................................................................................................

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(c) Why do you think that the writer describes the museum with its postage stamps, dead insects
and pieces of rock as ‘childish’?

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O and A Level English Language
Kawkab Ms 01918499060 7

From paragraph 3

5 (a) The family visited the cat and her kittens ‘to worship at the side of the cardboard box’. Write
down the single word used later in the paragraph which continues this idea of ‘worship’.

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(b) The writer told her sister ‘to keep watch at the garage door’. Explain (i) what the writer asked
her sister to do and (ii) why.

(i) ...........................................................................................................................................

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(ii) ...........................................................................................................................................

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From paragraph 4

6 ‘The cat looked at me with eyes that were alert but which also seemed to me to be full of
forgiveness.’ Explain in your own words what the writer saw in the cat’s look.

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From paragraph 5

7 (a) ‘That cat lived an astonishing twenty-one years.’ What evidence is there in the paragraph to
show that the cat was part of the writer’s life for a long time?

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(b) What comparison do you think the writer is making when she tells us that, as children, she
and her sister ‘were separated by only the length of the garage’?

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O and A Level English Language
Kawkab Ms 01918499060 8

8 From paragraphs 2 to 5

For each of the words below, circle the letter (A, B, C or D) which has the same meaning that the
word has in the passage.

(a) pungent (line 11)

A hot B bitter C strong D smelly [1]

(b) gravely (line 26)

A determinedly B lifelessly C seriously D obediently [1]

(c) edict (line 33)

A order B example C suggestion D judgement [1]

(d) self-conscious (line 37)

A quiet B lost C polite D shy [1]

(e) clutched (line 42)

A held lightly B held lovingly C held joyfully D held carefully [1]

9 Re-read paragraphs 3 and 5, which contain phrases telling us about (a) the writer’s attitude to the
kittens and (b) the writer’s phone call with her sister.

Give:

• the meaning of each expression as it is used in the passage

• the effect of each expression as it is used in the passage.

(a) ‘burying my face in their softness, their never-walked-on paws’ (line 30)

Meaning: ...................................................................................................................................

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Effect: ........................................................................................................................................

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(b) ‘We would be transported back to that moment in childhood’ (lines 44–45)

Meaning: ...................................................................................................................................

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Effect: ........................................................................................................................................

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[Total: 25]