Oxford Cambridge and RSA
GCSE
English Language and Literature
H074/02: The language of literary texts
*1330175833*
AS Level Monday 19 May 2025 – Morning
INSTRUCTIONS
• Use black ink.
• Write your answer to each question in the Answer Booklet. The question numbers must
be clearly shown.
• Fill in the boxes on the front of the Answer Booklet.
• Answer one question in Section A and one in Section B.
INFORMATION
• The total mark for this paper is 50.
• The marks for each question are shown in brackets [ ].
• This document has 24 pages.
ADVICE
• Read each question carefully before you start your answer.
© OCR 2025 [601/4705/2] DC (WW) 357504/2
OCR is an exempt Charity
Turn over
Section A
The language of prose
Charlotte Brontë: Jane Eyre
F Scott Fitzgerald: The Great Gatsby
Chinua Achebe: Things Fall Apart
Arundhati Roy: The God of Small Things
Ian McEwan: Atonement
Jhumpa Lahiri: The Namesake
Answer one question from this section on your chosen prose text.
You should spend about 45 minutes on this section.
, 2
1 Charlotte Brontë: Jane Eyre
Write about the ways in which Charlotte Brontë tells the story in this extract.
In your answer you should:
• explore the narrative techniques used in the extract
• consider the extract in the context of the novel as a whole and its genre. [25]
I hardly know whether I had slept or not after this musing; at any rate, I started
wide awake on hearing a vague murmur, peculiar and lugubrious, which sounded, I
thought, just above me. I wished I had kept my candle burning: the night was drearily
dark; my spirits were depressed. I rose and sat up in bed, listening. The sound was
hushed.
I tried again to sleep; but my heart beat anxiously: my inward tranquillity was
broken. The clock, far down in the hall, struck two. Just then it seemed my
chamber-door was touched; as if fingers had swept the panels in groping a way along
the dark gallery outside. I said, ‘Who is there?’ Nothing answered. I was chilled with
fear.
All at once I remembered that it might be Pilot, who, when the kitchen-door
chanced to be left open, not unfrequently found his way up to the threshold of Mr
Rochester’s chamber: I had seen him lying there myself in the mornings. The idea calmed
me somewhat: I lay down. Silence composes the nerves; and as an unbroken hush now
reigned again through the whole house, I began to feel the return of slumber. But it was
not fated that I should sleep that night. A dream had scarcely approached my ear, when it
fled affrighted, scared by a marrow-freezing incident enough.
This was a demoniac laugh – low, suppressed, and deep – uttered, as it seemed,
at the very keyhole of my chamber door. The head of my bed was near the door, and I
thought at first the goblin-laugher stood at my bedside – or rather, crouched by my pillow:
but I rose, looked round, and could see nothing; while, as I still gazed, the unnatural
sound was reiterated: and I knew it came from behind the panels. My first impulse was to
rise and fasten the bolt; my next, again to cry out, ‘Who is there?’
Something gurgled and moaned. Ere long, steps retreated up the gallery towards the
third-storey staircase: a door had lately been made to shut in that staircase; I heard it
open and close, and all was still.
‘Was that Grace Poole? and is she possessed with a devil?’ thought I. Impossible
now to remain longer by myself: I must go to Mrs Fairfax. I hurried on my frock and a
shawl; I withdrew the bolt and opened the door with a trembling hand. There was a candle
burning just outside, and on the matting in the gallery. I was surprised at this
circumstance: but still more was I amazed to perceive the air quite dim, as if filled with
smoke; and, while looking to the right hand and left, to find whence these blue wreaths
issued, I became further aware of a strong smell of burning.
Something creaked: it was a door ajar; and that door was Mr Rochester’s, and the
smoke rushed in a cloud from thence. I thought no more of Mrs Fairfax; I thought no more
of Grace Poole, or the laugh: in an instant, I was within the chamber. Tongues of flame
darted round the bed: the curtains were on fire. In the midst of blaze and vapour, Mr
Rochester lay stretched motionless, in deep sleep. ‘Wake! wake!’ I cried. I shook him, but
he only murmured and turned: the smoke had stupefied him. Not a moment could be lost:
the very sheets were kindling, I rushed to his basin and ewer; fortunately, one was wide
and the other deep, and both were filled with water. I heaved them up, deluged the bed
and its occupant, flew back to my own room, brought my own water-jug, baptized the
couch afresh, and, by God’s aid, succeeded in extinguishing the flames which were
devouring it.
© OCR 2025 H074/02 Jun25
, 3
2 F Scott Fizgerald: The Great Gatsby
Write about the ways in which F Scott Fitzgerald tells the story in this extract.
In your answer you should:
• explore the narrative techniques used in the extract
• consider the extract in the context of the novel as a whole and its genre. [25]
‘Well, that’s funny,’ I exclaimed.
‘What’s funny?’
She turned her head as there was a light dignified knocking at the front door. I
went out and opened it. Gatsby, pale as death, with his hands plunged like weights in his
coat pockets, was standing in a puddle of water glaring tragically into my eyes.
With his hands still in his coat pockets he stalked by me into the hall, turned
sharply as if he were on a wire, and disappeared into the living room. It wasn’t a bit funny.
Aware of the loud beating of my own heart I pulled the door to against the increasing rain.
For half a minute there wasn’t a sound. Then from the living room I heard a sort of
choking murmur and part of a laugh, followed by Daisy’s voice on a clear artificial note:
‘I certainly am awfully glad to see you again.’
A pause; it endured horribly. I had nothing to do in the hall so I went into the
room. Gatsby, his hands still in his pockets, was reclining against the mantelpiece in a
strained counterfeit of perfect ease, even of boredom. His head leaned back so far that
it rested against the face of a defunct mantelpiece clock, and from this position his
distraught eyes stared down at Daisy, who was sitting, frightened but graceful, on the
edge of a stiff chair.
‘We’ve met before,’ muttered Gatsby. His eyes glanced momentarily at me, and
his lips parted with an abortive attempt at a laugh. Luckily the clock took this moment to
tilt dangerously at the pressure of his head, whereupon he turned and caught it with
trembling fingers, and set it back in place. Then he sat down, rigidly, his elbow on the arm
of the sofa and his chin in his hand.
‘I’m sorry about the clock,’ he said.
My own face had now assumed a deep tropical burn. I couldn’t muster up a single
commonplace out of the thousand in my head.
‘It’s an old clock,’ I told them idiotically.
I think we all believed for a moment that it had smashed in pieces on the floor.
‘We haven’t met for many years,’ said Daisy, her voice as matter-of-fact as it could ever
be.
‘Five years next November.’
The automatic quality of Gatsby’s answer set us all back at least another minute. I
had them both on their feet with the desperate suggestion that they help me make tea in
the kitchen when the demoniac Finn brought it in on a tray.
3 Chinua Achebe: Things Fall Apart
Write about the ways in which Chinua Achebe tells the story in this extract.
In your answer you should:
• explore the narrative techniques used in the extract
• consider the extract in the context of the novel as a whole and its genre. [25]
© OCR 2025 H074/02 Jun25 Turn over
, 4
Okonkwo’s neighbours heard his wife crying and sent their voices over the
compound walls to ask what was the matter. Some of them came over to see for
themselves. It was unheard of to beat somebody during the sacred week.
Before it was dusk Ezeani, who was the priest of the earth goddess, Ani, called on
Okonkwo in his obi. Okonkwo brought out kola nut and placed it before the priest.
‘Take away your kola nut. I shall not eat in the house of a man who has no respect for our
gods and ancestors.’
Okonkwo tried to explain to him what his wife had done, but Ezeani seemed to pay no
attention.
He held a short staff in his hand which he brought down on the floor to emphasize his
points.
‘Listen to me,’ he said when Okonkwo had spoken. ‘You are not a stranger in
Umuofia. You know as well as I do that our forefathers ordained that before we plant any
crops in the earth we should observe a week in which a man does not say a harsh word
to his neighbour. We live in peace with our fellows to honour our great goddess of the
earth without whose blessing our crops will not grow. You have committed a great evil.’ He
brought down his staff heavily on the floor. ‘Your wife was at fault, but even if you came
into your obi and found her lover on top of her, you would still have committed a great evil
to beat her.’ His staff came down again. ‘The evil you have done can ruin the whole clan.
The earth goddess whom you have insulted may refuse to give us her increase, and we
shall all perish.’ His tone now changed from anger to command. ‘You will bring to the
shrine of Ani tomorrow one she-goat, one hen, a length of cloth and a hundred cowries.’
He rose and left the hut. Okonkwo did as the priest said. He also took with him a pot
of palm-wine. Inwardly, he was repentant. But he was not the man to go about telling his
neighbours that he was in error. And so people said he had no respect for the gods of the
clan. His enemies said his good fortune had gone to his head. They called him the little
bird nza who so far forgot himself after a heavy meal that he challenged his chi.
4 Arundhati Roy: The God of Small Things
Write about the ways in which Arundhati Roy tells the story in this extract.
In your answer you should:
• explore the narrative techniques used in the extract
• consider the extract in the context of the novel as a whole and its genre. [25]
By the time the twins were two years old their father’s drinking, aggravated by
the loneliness of tea estate life, had driven him into an alcoholic stupor. Whole days
went by during which he just lay in bed and didn’t go to work. Eventually, his English
manager, Mr Hollick, summoned him to his bungalow for a ‘serious chat.’
Ammu sat in the verandah of her home waiting anxiously for her husband to
return. She was sure the only reason that Hollick wanted to see him was to sack him. She
was surprised when he returned looking despondent but not devastated. Mr Hollick had
proposed something, he told Ammu, that he needed to discuss with her. He began a little
diffidently, avoiding her gaze, but he gathered courage as he went along. Viewed
practically, in the long run it was a proposition that would benefit both of them, he said. In
fact all of them, if they considered the children’s education.
Mr Hollick had been frank with his young assistant. He informed him of the
complaints he had received from the labour as well as from the other assistant managers.
‘I’m afraid I have no option,’ he said, ‘but to ask for your resignation.’
He allowed the silence to take its toll. He allowed the pitiful man sitting across the
table to begin to shake. To weep. Then Hollick spoke again.
© OCR 2025 H074/02 Jun25
GCSE
English Language and Literature
H074/02: The language of literary texts
*1330175833*
AS Level Monday 19 May 2025 – Morning
INSTRUCTIONS
• Use black ink.
• Write your answer to each question in the Answer Booklet. The question numbers must
be clearly shown.
• Fill in the boxes on the front of the Answer Booklet.
• Answer one question in Section A and one in Section B.
INFORMATION
• The total mark for this paper is 50.
• The marks for each question are shown in brackets [ ].
• This document has 24 pages.
ADVICE
• Read each question carefully before you start your answer.
© OCR 2025 [601/4705/2] DC (WW) 357504/2
OCR is an exempt Charity
Turn over
Section A
The language of prose
Charlotte Brontë: Jane Eyre
F Scott Fitzgerald: The Great Gatsby
Chinua Achebe: Things Fall Apart
Arundhati Roy: The God of Small Things
Ian McEwan: Atonement
Jhumpa Lahiri: The Namesake
Answer one question from this section on your chosen prose text.
You should spend about 45 minutes on this section.
, 2
1 Charlotte Brontë: Jane Eyre
Write about the ways in which Charlotte Brontë tells the story in this extract.
In your answer you should:
• explore the narrative techniques used in the extract
• consider the extract in the context of the novel as a whole and its genre. [25]
I hardly know whether I had slept or not after this musing; at any rate, I started
wide awake on hearing a vague murmur, peculiar and lugubrious, which sounded, I
thought, just above me. I wished I had kept my candle burning: the night was drearily
dark; my spirits were depressed. I rose and sat up in bed, listening. The sound was
hushed.
I tried again to sleep; but my heart beat anxiously: my inward tranquillity was
broken. The clock, far down in the hall, struck two. Just then it seemed my
chamber-door was touched; as if fingers had swept the panels in groping a way along
the dark gallery outside. I said, ‘Who is there?’ Nothing answered. I was chilled with
fear.
All at once I remembered that it might be Pilot, who, when the kitchen-door
chanced to be left open, not unfrequently found his way up to the threshold of Mr
Rochester’s chamber: I had seen him lying there myself in the mornings. The idea calmed
me somewhat: I lay down. Silence composes the nerves; and as an unbroken hush now
reigned again through the whole house, I began to feel the return of slumber. But it was
not fated that I should sleep that night. A dream had scarcely approached my ear, when it
fled affrighted, scared by a marrow-freezing incident enough.
This was a demoniac laugh – low, suppressed, and deep – uttered, as it seemed,
at the very keyhole of my chamber door. The head of my bed was near the door, and I
thought at first the goblin-laugher stood at my bedside – or rather, crouched by my pillow:
but I rose, looked round, and could see nothing; while, as I still gazed, the unnatural
sound was reiterated: and I knew it came from behind the panels. My first impulse was to
rise and fasten the bolt; my next, again to cry out, ‘Who is there?’
Something gurgled and moaned. Ere long, steps retreated up the gallery towards the
third-storey staircase: a door had lately been made to shut in that staircase; I heard it
open and close, and all was still.
‘Was that Grace Poole? and is she possessed with a devil?’ thought I. Impossible
now to remain longer by myself: I must go to Mrs Fairfax. I hurried on my frock and a
shawl; I withdrew the bolt and opened the door with a trembling hand. There was a candle
burning just outside, and on the matting in the gallery. I was surprised at this
circumstance: but still more was I amazed to perceive the air quite dim, as if filled with
smoke; and, while looking to the right hand and left, to find whence these blue wreaths
issued, I became further aware of a strong smell of burning.
Something creaked: it was a door ajar; and that door was Mr Rochester’s, and the
smoke rushed in a cloud from thence. I thought no more of Mrs Fairfax; I thought no more
of Grace Poole, or the laugh: in an instant, I was within the chamber. Tongues of flame
darted round the bed: the curtains were on fire. In the midst of blaze and vapour, Mr
Rochester lay stretched motionless, in deep sleep. ‘Wake! wake!’ I cried. I shook him, but
he only murmured and turned: the smoke had stupefied him. Not a moment could be lost:
the very sheets were kindling, I rushed to his basin and ewer; fortunately, one was wide
and the other deep, and both were filled with water. I heaved them up, deluged the bed
and its occupant, flew back to my own room, brought my own water-jug, baptized the
couch afresh, and, by God’s aid, succeeded in extinguishing the flames which were
devouring it.
© OCR 2025 H074/02 Jun25
, 3
2 F Scott Fizgerald: The Great Gatsby
Write about the ways in which F Scott Fitzgerald tells the story in this extract.
In your answer you should:
• explore the narrative techniques used in the extract
• consider the extract in the context of the novel as a whole and its genre. [25]
‘Well, that’s funny,’ I exclaimed.
‘What’s funny?’
She turned her head as there was a light dignified knocking at the front door. I
went out and opened it. Gatsby, pale as death, with his hands plunged like weights in his
coat pockets, was standing in a puddle of water glaring tragically into my eyes.
With his hands still in his coat pockets he stalked by me into the hall, turned
sharply as if he were on a wire, and disappeared into the living room. It wasn’t a bit funny.
Aware of the loud beating of my own heart I pulled the door to against the increasing rain.
For half a minute there wasn’t a sound. Then from the living room I heard a sort of
choking murmur and part of a laugh, followed by Daisy’s voice on a clear artificial note:
‘I certainly am awfully glad to see you again.’
A pause; it endured horribly. I had nothing to do in the hall so I went into the
room. Gatsby, his hands still in his pockets, was reclining against the mantelpiece in a
strained counterfeit of perfect ease, even of boredom. His head leaned back so far that
it rested against the face of a defunct mantelpiece clock, and from this position his
distraught eyes stared down at Daisy, who was sitting, frightened but graceful, on the
edge of a stiff chair.
‘We’ve met before,’ muttered Gatsby. His eyes glanced momentarily at me, and
his lips parted with an abortive attempt at a laugh. Luckily the clock took this moment to
tilt dangerously at the pressure of his head, whereupon he turned and caught it with
trembling fingers, and set it back in place. Then he sat down, rigidly, his elbow on the arm
of the sofa and his chin in his hand.
‘I’m sorry about the clock,’ he said.
My own face had now assumed a deep tropical burn. I couldn’t muster up a single
commonplace out of the thousand in my head.
‘It’s an old clock,’ I told them idiotically.
I think we all believed for a moment that it had smashed in pieces on the floor.
‘We haven’t met for many years,’ said Daisy, her voice as matter-of-fact as it could ever
be.
‘Five years next November.’
The automatic quality of Gatsby’s answer set us all back at least another minute. I
had them both on their feet with the desperate suggestion that they help me make tea in
the kitchen when the demoniac Finn brought it in on a tray.
3 Chinua Achebe: Things Fall Apart
Write about the ways in which Chinua Achebe tells the story in this extract.
In your answer you should:
• explore the narrative techniques used in the extract
• consider the extract in the context of the novel as a whole and its genre. [25]
© OCR 2025 H074/02 Jun25 Turn over
, 4
Okonkwo’s neighbours heard his wife crying and sent their voices over the
compound walls to ask what was the matter. Some of them came over to see for
themselves. It was unheard of to beat somebody during the sacred week.
Before it was dusk Ezeani, who was the priest of the earth goddess, Ani, called on
Okonkwo in his obi. Okonkwo brought out kola nut and placed it before the priest.
‘Take away your kola nut. I shall not eat in the house of a man who has no respect for our
gods and ancestors.’
Okonkwo tried to explain to him what his wife had done, but Ezeani seemed to pay no
attention.
He held a short staff in his hand which he brought down on the floor to emphasize his
points.
‘Listen to me,’ he said when Okonkwo had spoken. ‘You are not a stranger in
Umuofia. You know as well as I do that our forefathers ordained that before we plant any
crops in the earth we should observe a week in which a man does not say a harsh word
to his neighbour. We live in peace with our fellows to honour our great goddess of the
earth without whose blessing our crops will not grow. You have committed a great evil.’ He
brought down his staff heavily on the floor. ‘Your wife was at fault, but even if you came
into your obi and found her lover on top of her, you would still have committed a great evil
to beat her.’ His staff came down again. ‘The evil you have done can ruin the whole clan.
The earth goddess whom you have insulted may refuse to give us her increase, and we
shall all perish.’ His tone now changed from anger to command. ‘You will bring to the
shrine of Ani tomorrow one she-goat, one hen, a length of cloth and a hundred cowries.’
He rose and left the hut. Okonkwo did as the priest said. He also took with him a pot
of palm-wine. Inwardly, he was repentant. But he was not the man to go about telling his
neighbours that he was in error. And so people said he had no respect for the gods of the
clan. His enemies said his good fortune had gone to his head. They called him the little
bird nza who so far forgot himself after a heavy meal that he challenged his chi.
4 Arundhati Roy: The God of Small Things
Write about the ways in which Arundhati Roy tells the story in this extract.
In your answer you should:
• explore the narrative techniques used in the extract
• consider the extract in the context of the novel as a whole and its genre. [25]
By the time the twins were two years old their father’s drinking, aggravated by
the loneliness of tea estate life, had driven him into an alcoholic stupor. Whole days
went by during which he just lay in bed and didn’t go to work. Eventually, his English
manager, Mr Hollick, summoned him to his bungalow for a ‘serious chat.’
Ammu sat in the verandah of her home waiting anxiously for her husband to
return. She was sure the only reason that Hollick wanted to see him was to sack him. She
was surprised when he returned looking despondent but not devastated. Mr Hollick had
proposed something, he told Ammu, that he needed to discuss with her. He began a little
diffidently, avoiding her gaze, but he gathered courage as he went along. Viewed
practically, in the long run it was a proposition that would benefit both of them, he said. In
fact all of them, if they considered the children’s education.
Mr Hollick had been frank with his young assistant. He informed him of the
complaints he had received from the labour as well as from the other assistant managers.
‘I’m afraid I have no option,’ he said, ‘but to ask for your resignation.’
He allowed the silence to take its toll. He allowed the pitiful man sitting across the
table to begin to shake. To weep. Then Hollick spoke again.
© OCR 2025 H074/02 Jun25
