Section A: To Kill a Mockingbird (passage-based) · Section B: ‘The Cockroach’
School Unit Assessment scope · by 18 Sep
90:000 / 50
Instructions
Answer both questions. Each is worth 25 marks; spend about 45 minutes on each.
You need your own copy of To Kill a Mockingbird open beside you for Section A, and the anthology open at ‘The Cockroach’ for Section B.
Every question is marked on all four AOs equally: knowledge with textual support (AO1), understanding of deeper meanings (AO2), analysis of the writer’s methods and their effects (AO3), and an informed personal response (AO4).
Write your essays in the boxes below — your work saves automatically. When you finish, press Finish & mark and mark yourself honestly against the criteria and the band table.
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Self-marked against the band criteria. Bands 7–8 need analysis of Lee’s and Halligan’s methods, not a tour of what happens.
Section ATo Kill a Mockingbird — passage-based question25 marks
Find the passage in your copy
Chapter 11, the closing pages — open your novel at the end of Chapter 11. Begin at the moment the telephone rings and Atticus returns to tell Jem that Mrs Dubose is dead. Read to the very end of the chapter: Atticus brings home the candy box holding the single white camellia, Jem reacts with fury, and Atticus explains why he made Jem read to her — ending with his verdict that she was the bravest person he ever knew. That whole stretch, from the phone call to the last sentence of the chapter, is your passage.
Question 1. Read the passage carefully, then answer this question:
How does Lee make this such a moving and significant moment in the novel?
Support your ideas with close reference to the details of the passage. [25]
Marking guidance — Section A
What a good answer notices (indicative content, not a checklist)
Placement. Lee positions this scene as the final beat of Part One, the last thing the reader carries into the trial. The definition of courage delivered here — beginning something you know you will lose and seeing it through anyway — becomes the standard by which Atticus’s own hopeless case is measured. He tells Scout in Chapter 9 that “we were licked a hundred years before we started”: Mrs Dubose’s battle and his are the same shape.
Withholding. Lee conceals Mrs Dubose’s morphine addiction until after her death, so the reader — like Jem — has spent a whole chapter despising a woman who was privately fighting the hardest battle in the book. The revelation forces a re-reading of everything before it.
The camellia. A single perfect white bloom, sent in a candy box to the boy who destroyed her flowers. Forgiveness, or a final provocation? Lee refuses to say, and the ambiguity is the point — Jem’s rage and his later quiet handling of it dramatise a child beginning to hold two ideas at once.
Courage relocated. Atticus calls her “the bravest person I ever knew” and says “I wanted you to see what real courage is” — deliberately detaching courage from the gun (the mad-dog chapter is immediately before this) and attaching it to a dying, unlikeable old woman. Giving the novel’s moral definition to a character the reader dislikes is a choice, and a brave one.
Contrast of registers. Jem’s explosive physical reaction against Atticus’s level, unhurried explanation — the calm voice is what makes the lesson land, on Jem and on us.
Band descriptors (25 marks)
Band
Marks
What it looks like
Band 8
23–25
Sustained critical engagement with how Lee shapes the moment; methods analysed for precise effects; quotations woven into the argument; individual, convincing response.
Band 7
20–22
Perceptive understanding of deeper implications; well-selected support; clear appreciation of the writer at work.
Band 6
17–19
Clear understanding of meaning and some understanding of method; relevant, thorough support.
Band 5
14–16
Understands the passage and answers the question; support present but analysis of method is intermittent.
Band 4
11–13
Some relevant comment; tends to explain content rather than analyse; quotations bolted on.
Band 3
8–10
Mostly narrative retelling with occasional relevant comment.
Band 2
5–7
A little understanding of the surface; little support.
Band 1
2–4
A few simple facts about the passage.
Three answers to the same paragraph — see the band difference
Weak — around Band 3
In this passage Mrs Dubose has died and Atticus brings Jem a candy box with a white camellia inside. Jem is angry because she was mean to him and he had to read to her for a month. Then Atticus says “I wanted you to see what real courage is”. This shows that courage is an important theme in the novel and that Mrs Dubose was brave.
Why this stays in Band 3: it is retelling. Every sentence reports what happens; none asks what Lee is doing. The quotation is bolted on at the end and followed by “this shows” plus a theme-label — that is AO1 support without AO2 or AO3. Nothing addresses the question’s two key words, moving and significant.
Middling — around Band 5
Lee uses the symbol of the white camellia to show Mrs Dubose’s hidden goodness. Even though Jem destroyed her flowers, she leaves him a perfect one, which could mean she forgives him. Atticus calls her “the bravest person I ever knew”, which is surprising because she insulted him in front of his children, and this contrast makes the reader feel the moment is moving.
Why this reaches Band 5 but not higher: it engages with the question and names a method (“symbol”), and the second quotation is at least framed by an idea. But naming the device is where the analysis stops — symbol is identified, not explored, and “could mean she forgives him” drops the harder half of the ambiguity (that the flower might be a last provocation). This is feature-spotting: the label of a technique earns little; the effect of the technique earns the band.
Strong — Band 7–8
Lee makes the moment significant by where she puts it: the courage lesson closes Part One, so the reader walks into the trial already holding Mrs Dubose’s definition — and when Atticus later concedes that “we were licked a hundred years before we started”, we recognise that he is describing himself by the standard he built for her. What makes it moving is Lee’s withholding: only after the death does Atticus reveal the addiction, so Jem’s month of resentful reading is re-cast, in a single speech, as the instrument of a stranger’s private victory. Insisting she was “the bravest person I ever knew”, Atticus detaches courage from the rifle of the previous chapter and hands it to a dying woman the reader has been taught to hate — a deliberately uncomfortable gift, like the camellia itself, which sits unresolved between forgiveness and a final provocation.
What lifts this into the top bands: every quotation is embedded mid-sentence and made to work in the argument, not exhibited after it. The paragraph analyses structural methods — placement at the end of Part One, withholding of the addiction, juxtaposition with the mad-dog chapter — and states the effect of each on the reader. It answers both key words of the question separately (significant via structure, moving via the re-cast reading sessions), and it risks a personal judgement (“a deliberately uncomfortable gift”) that is argued, not asserted.
How this question loses marks:
Retelling the plot of Chapter 11 in order — the examiner has read the book; marks come from analysing choices, not reporting events.
Ignoring the key wordsmoving and significant — an essay that never says what makes the moment emotionally powerful, or why it matters to the whole novel, is answering a different question.
Leaving the passage for a general essay on courage — range belongs in Section A only as brief, pointed links (Chapter 9, the trial); the passage must stay the centre of gravity.
Quotation as decoration — a quotation dropped in after the point (“…she was brave. ‘I wanted you to see what real courage is’”) earns far less than the same words folded inside your own sentence.
Softening the camellia into “she was nice really” — Lee keeps it ambiguous on purpose, and the top bands notice that she does.
Mark your Section A essay — 25 marks. Tick what you actually did.
AO1 — knowledge and textual support (6)
AO2 — deeper meanings (7)
AO3 — the writer’s methods and effects (7)
AO4 — informed personal response (5)
Section BKevin Halligan, ‘The Cockroach’ — poetry essay25 marks
Have the poem open
Open your Songs of Ourselves Volume 1 anthology at Kevin Halligan’s ‘The Cockroach’ — a fourteen-line poem. Keep it in front of you and refer to it by line number.
Question 2.
How does Halligan use the cockroach’s movement to explore the speaker’s scrutiny of his own life?
Support your ideas with details from the poem. [25]
Marking guidance — Section B
What a good answer notices (indicative content, not a checklist)
The question is about movement as metaphor. The whole poem is one sustained comparison whose second term is withheld until the final line, ‘I thought I recognised myself’ — so every detail of the insect’s route must be read twice, once as observation and once as autobiography.
The trajectory maps a life. Lines 1–4: purposeful, confident motion — the creature ‘start[s] to pace’ along a definite route. Lines 5–10: deterioration into circling — it begins to ‘jog in crooked rings’, doubling back, hurrying without arriving, then stopping. Lines 11–14: the speculation about punishment for a past life, and the turn inward. Confident youth, restless drifting middle, uncertain halt: a compressed biography.
The verbs deteriorate with the insect. Measured verbs of the opening give way to jerky, repetitive ones; the syntax loses its stride as the creature loses its way, so the reader experiences the loss of direction rather than being told about it.
‘Crooked rings’ is the master image — a ring should close perfectly; ‘crooked’ ruins it. Circling is busy-ness without progress: enormous energy, zero distance. More disturbing than stillness.
‘Pace’ is a human verb — people pace when anxious — so the merging of man and insect begins secretly in line 1, thirteen lines before the speaker admits it. And the hesitancy of ‘I thought’ in the last line denies him even certainty about his own recognition.
Why a cockroach? The most repellent household creature available. To recognise yourself in it is not gentle reflection but self-disgust — the emotional cost of the final line is set by the choice of insect.
Band descriptors (25 marks)
Band
Marks
What it looks like
Band 8
23–25
Sustained critical analysis of how the movement works as metaphor; effects of specific word choices explored; the ending integrated, not appended.
Band 7
20–22
Perceptive reading of the extended metaphor with well-selected line references and clear engagement with language.
Band 6
17–19
Clear understanding that the insect stands for the speaker; some analysis of particular words and phrases.
Band 5
14–16
Understands the poem’s idea; support present; analysis intermittent or device-labelling.
Band 4
11–13
Describes what the cockroach does with some relevant comment; the metaphor noticed late or thinly.
Band 3
8–10
Mostly a description of insect behaviour; the last line mentioned as an afterthought.
Band 2
5–7
A little surface understanding; little support.
Band 1
2–4
A few simple points about the poem.
Three answers to the same paragraph — see the band difference
Weak — around Band 3
The cockroach walks around the room. At first it knows where it is going but then it starts to go in ‘crooked rings’ which shows it is lost. Then it stops and seems confused. At the end the poet says ‘I thought I recognised myself’ which shows that he is like the cockroach.
Why this stays in Band 3: thirteen lines of insect and one sentence of mirror — exactly the classic misreading. It describes behaviour instead of analysing writing, uses “shows” for both quotations, and treats the final line as a footnote when it is the poem’s entire point. Nothing engages with the question’s word scrutiny.
Middling — around Band 5
Halligan uses an extended metaphor: the cockroach represents the speaker. The verbs change across the poem — at the start the insect ‘start[s] to pace’ purposefully, but by the middle it can only ‘jog in crooked rings’, which shows that, like the speaker, it has lost its direction in life. The last line reveals the comparison when the speaker sees himself in the insect.
Why this reaches Band 5 but not higher: the metaphor is correctly named and the verb contrast is a genuine method point with embedded quotation — real progress. But “extended metaphor” is announced rather than worked: the paragraph never asks why the comparison is withheld until line 14, what ‘crooked’ does to ‘rings’, or what it costs the speaker to see himself in this particular creature. Labelling the device is the ceiling of Band 5; analysing its effect is the floor of Band 6.
Strong — Band 7–8
Halligan hides the poem’s true subject inside its verbs. The opening ‘I watched a giant cockroach start to pace’ pretends to detachment — ‘watched’ holds the creature at arm’s length — yet ‘pace’ is a verb of human anxiety, so the identification the speaker will only admit in line 14 has already begun in line 1. As the insect’s purpose fails, the movement degrades into ‘crooked rings’: a ring should close cleanly, and ‘crooked’ breaks even that consolation, making the circling an image of effort spent without distance gained — a restless middle age in six lines. When the final line arrives — ‘I thought I recognised myself’ — it converts every earlier detail into autobiography, and the flinch of ‘I thought’ means his self-scrutiny ends not in knowledge but in suspicion: he cannot even be certain of his own reflection, and the choice of the most repellent of household insects turns recognition into self-disgust.
What lifts this into the top bands: single words — ‘watched’, ‘pace’, ‘crooked’, ‘thought’ — are analysed for effect, not phrases paraphrased; every quotation is embedded and load-bearing. The paragraph reads the movement as the question demands, tracks it across the poem’s three phases, integrates the ending as the device that re-reads the whole poem, and names the emotional cost (self-disgust) rather than settling for “he reflects on his life”.
How this question loses marks:
Nature writing — describing insect behaviour for most of the essay and reaching the speaker only in the last paragraph. State in your first paragraph that the poem is an extended metaphor for the speaker’s own life, then read every movement as autobiography.
Ignoring the key wordscrutiny — the question asks about self-examination; an essay only about “aimlessness” is half an answer.
No comment on the poem’s shape — even in a language-led question, the contrast between the tidy fourteen-line container and the erratic circling inside it is worth a paragraph; saying nothing about form caps the analysis.
Softening the ending into “a nice reflection on life” — Halligan chose the most repulsive creature available; the recognition is humiliating, and the top bands say so.
Calling it Shakespearean — if you name the form, name it accurately: this sonnet has no closing couplet. A wrong label is worse than the safe phrase “a sonnet” followed by what the rhyme actually does.
Mark your Section B essay — 25 marks. Tick what you actually did.