TEST CODE 01219010

FORM TP 2011009 JANUARY 2011

CARIBBEAN E XAM I NAT I O N S COUNCIL

SECONDARY EDUCATION CERTIFICATE
EXAMINATION
ENGLISH B
Paper 01 – General Proficiency
1 hour 45 minutes

11 JANUARY 2011 (p.m.)

INSTRUCTIONS TO CANDIDATES

1. This paper consists of THREE questions.

2. Answer ALL questions.

3. You should use 15 minutes of the time allowed to read through the entire paper.

DO NOT TURN THIS PAGE UNTIL YOU ARE TOLD TO DO SO.

Copyright © 2009 Caribbean Examinations Council

All rights reserved.

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ANSWER ALL QUESTIONS IN THIS PAPER.

SECTION A – DRAMA

1. Read the following extract carefully and answer ALL the questions that follow.

Cast of characters

Daughton – Commissioner of Police

Stickwell – Senior Civil Servant
Brock – University Professor
Kassim – Police Officer
Tramping Man – Leader of the tramp.

DAUGHTON: Right, John. Thanks. (Daughton gets up and talks quietly to John Kassim. Brock
is pacing about. The sound of hot calypso music begins to be heard.)

DAUGHTON: Well, there he goes again.

(The sound of music, tramping, gay, calypso music, comes up slowly in volume.
5 Daughton crosses to a window and looks out.)

DAUGHTON: My God! He’s done a big job this time. Half Water Street’s with him.

STICKWELL: Any sign of trouble?

DAUGHTON: Not a sign, of course. Everybody happy. Tramping away. My God, there’s the
Chairman of Bookers, there’s the Bishop. The Prime Minister’s house guard
10 too. He’s got a fine haul this time!

STICKWELL: How undignified.

BROCK: Well gentlemen. Get an exorcist or use bullets. I’m going down to have a dance.
(Exit.)

STICKWELL: I told the Minister he wouldn’t be any use down here.

15 DAUGHTON: Brock? He’s all right. I like him.

(Stickwell goes to the window to look too. John Kassim goes over and looks
down with the other two men. Gradually, the sound of the tramp dies away. The
three men go back into the centre of the room.)

DAUGHTON: Well, there you are. You saw him. All that immense crowd joyful behind him.

20 KASSIM: He has great power, sir.

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STICKWELL: It can’t go on like this.

DAUGHTON: I agree. We’ll do something quickly. I think the first thing is to get the
Tramping Man out of the way. Get him right out of the way. John, find out
where the Tramping Man lives and put him under arrest.

25 KASSIM: We know where he lives, sir.

DAUGHTON: Good. Go up there with a few men and take him under arrest. Find something
in the law books to charge him with. Get him in jail. That’s a step in the right
direction.

KASSIM: Right sir. I’ll go down with the men as soon as this tramp dies down. We’ll take
30 him in. There shouldn’t be any trouble.

Ian McDonald , “The Tramping Man”. In A Time and a Season,

School of Continuing Studies, 1976, pp, 174 – 175.

(a) What are Daughton and Stickwell referring to in lines 1 – 9? ( 2 marks)

(b) State TWO ways in which the playwright shows that Brock does not share the view of the
others. ( 2 marks)

(c) (i) What do the words, “How undignified” (line 11) reveal about Stickwell’s attitude?
( 1 mark )

(ii) What does the playwright imply by Stickwell’s emphasis on the word “told” in
line 14? ( 2 marks)

(d) (i) State ONE difference between the government officials (Stickwell, Daughton and
Kassim) and the Tramping Man and his supporters. ( 2 marks)

(ii) How does the playwright emphasise the difference identified in (d) (i) above?
( 2 marks)

(e) Are the reasons for the likely arrest of the Tramping Man justified? Support your answer
with evidence from the text. ( 4 marks)

Total 15 marks

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SECTION B – POETRY

2. Read the following poem carefully and answer ALL the questions that follow.

Pa

In the quiet of the dining-room

an ageing man sits huddled over scrambled eggs;
a copy of the Guardian1 drooling from his hands.

And in the silent rage of his broken posture,

5 he concludes how seldom he laughed in those years when
he had
sharp two-toned shoes, double-breasted suits and
steady hands.

Blanks circle him;

10 and yet those days when he rolled and pitched
the seas with the best, are a memory away.

He muses how committed he was to the corner stones

of his world. Rocks that once supported a fixed drive.
He scrambles for his thoughts across the headlines

15 recounts on stubby fingers the vices he declined

the strain of sacrifice his children never held.

. . . But dazed by so much thought and recall

the ageing man keels over. Almost bent double, he’s
anchored to his eggs.
1
Guardian - A newspaper Victor Questel, “Pa”. In West Indian Poetry - An Anthology for Schools,
Longman, 1971, p. 29.

(a) What image of Pa is given in lines 1 – 2? ( 2 marks)

(b) Identify the literary device used in line 3 and comment on its effectiveness. ( 3 marks)

(c) Give ONE reason for Pa’s “silent rage” (line 4). Support your answer with evidence from
the poem. ( 3 marks)

(d) (i) What TWO impressions of Pa do you get from the lines, “He muses how commit-
ted . . . drive” (lines 12 – 13)? ( 2 marks)

(ii) Give TWO words or phrases from the poem (other than from lines 12 – 13) which
support the impressions of Pa in (d) (i) above. ( 2 marks)

(e) Is the title of the poem, “Pa”, appropriate? Justify your answer. ( 3 marks)

Total 15 marks

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SECTION C – PROSE FICTION

3. Read the following extract carefully and answer ALL the questions that follow.

I was sent to the headmistress, Miss Moore. As punishment, I was removed from my
position as prefect, and my place was taken by the odious Hilarene. I then couldn’t wait to get
home to lunch and the comfort of my mother’s kisses and arms. I had nothing to worry about
there yet; it would be a while before my mother and father heard of my bad deeds. What a terrible
5 morning! Seeing my mother would be such a tonic—something to pick me up.
When I got home, my mother kissed me absentmindedly. My father had got home ahead
of me, and they were already deep in conversation, my father regaling her with some unusually
outlandish thing the oaf Mr. Oatie had done. I washed my hands and took my place at table. My
mother brought me my lunch. I took one smell of it, and I could tell that it was the much hated
10 breadfruit. My mother said not at all, it was a new kind of rice imported from Belgium, and not
breadfruit, mashed and forced through a ricer, as I thought. She went back to talking to my father.
My father could hardly get a few words out of his mouth before she was a jellyfish of laughter. I
sat there, putting my food in my mouth. I could not believe that she couldn’t see how miserable
I was and so reach out a hand to comfort me and caress my cheek, the way she usually did when
15 she sensed that something was amiss with me. I could not believe how she laughed at everything
he said. I ate my meal. The more I ate of it, the more I was sure that it was breadfruit. When
I finished, my mother got up to remove my plate. As she started out the door, I said, “Tell me,
really, the name of the thing I just ate.”
My mother said, “You just ate some breadfruit. As she said this, she laughed. She was
20 standing half inside the door, half outside. Her body was in the shade of our house, but her head
was in the sun. When she laughed, her mouth opened to show off big, shiny, sharp white teeth.
It was as if my mother had suddenly turned into a crocodile.
Adapted from Jamaica Kincaid, Annie John, Plume Book, 1985, pp. 82 - 88.

(a) State TWO reasons why the narrator was upset in paragraph 1. ( 2 marks)

(b) Identify the literary device in the sentence, “My father . . . jellyfish of laughter” (line 12)
and comment on its effectiveness. ( 3 marks)

(c) Explain the irony in lines 4 – 8. ( 3 marks

(d) How did the narrator feel after her mother confirmed that she had eaten breadfruit?
Support your answer with evidence from the passage. ( 3 marks)

(e) Do you agree with the way the narrator feels about her mother? Justify your answer using
evidence from the passage. ( 4 marks)

Total 15 marks

END OF TEST

The Council has made every effort to trace copyright holders. However, if any have been inadvertently
overlooked, or any material has been incorrectly acknowledged, CXC will be pleased to correct this at the
earliest opportunity.

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