The passage is about a boy who stands silently watching a wolf in its zoo enclosure for hours each day. At first the wolf is annoyed and curious about the boy. Over time, as the boy continues to return each day, even when the zoo is closed, the wolf becomes increasingly aware of and bothered by the boy's stare until one day the wolf decides to stare back.
The passage is about a boy who stands silently watching a wolf in its zoo enclosure for hours each day. At first the wolf is annoyed and curious about the boy. Over time, as the boy continues to return each day, even when the zoo is closed, the wolf becomes increasingly aware of and bothered by the boy's stare until one day the wolf decides to stare back.
The passage is about a boy who stands silently watching a wolf in its zoo enclosure for hours each day. At first the wolf is annoyed and curious about the boy. Over time, as the boy continues to return each day, even when the zoo is closed, the wolf becomes increasingly aware of and bothered by the boy's stare until one day the wolf decides to stare back.
The passage is about a boy who stands silently watching a wolf in its zoo enclosure for hours each day. At first the wolf is annoyed and curious about the boy. Over time, as the boy continues to return each day, even when the zoo is closed, the wolf becomes increasingly aware of and bothered by the boy's stare until one day the wolf decides to stare back.
INSTRUCTIONS • Answer all questions. • Write your answer to each question in the space provided. • You should pay attention to punctuation, spelling and handwriting.
INFORMATION • The total mark for this paper is 50. • The number of marks for each question or part question is shown in brackets [ ]. • Suggestions for how long to spend on each section are given in the booklet.
Text for Section A, an extract from The Eye of the Wolf by Daniel Pennac
ONE
The boy standing in front of the wolf’s cage doesn’t move a muscle. The wolf paces backwards and forwards. He walks the length of the enclosure and back again without stopping.
He’s starting to get on my nerves, the wolf thinks to himself. For the last two hours the boy has 5 been standing in front of the wire fencing, as still as a frozen tree, watching the wolf walking.
What does he want from me? the wolf wonders. He’s not worried (because wolves aren’t afraid of anything), just curious. What does he want?
The other children jump and run about, shout and burst into tears, stick their tongues out at the wolf and hide their heads in their mum’s skirts. But this boy is different. He stands there silently, 10 without moving a muscle. Only his eyes shift. They follow the wolf as he paces the length of the wire fencing.
What’s your problem? Haven’t you seen a wolf before?
The wolf only sees the boy every other time he passes him. That’s because the wolf only has one eye. He lost the other one ten years ago, the day he was captured. So on his outward 15 journey (if you can call it a journey) the wolf sees the zoo with all its cages, the children making faces and, standing in the middle of it all, the boy who doesn’t move a muscle. On the return journey (if you can call it a journey) the wolf sees the inside of his enclosure. It’s an empty enclosure with a solitary rock and dead tree. When the wolf turns round, there’s the boy again, breathing steadily, his white breath hanging in the cold air. 20
He’ll give up before I do, thinks the wolf, and he carries on walking.
I’m the wolf.
TWO
But the first thing the wolf sees when he wakes up the next day is the boy, standing in exactly the same spot in front of his enclosure. The wolf nearly jumps out of his fur. 25
He can’t have spent the night here!
He calms down and begins to pace again, as if nothing is out of the ordinary.
His paws don’t make a sound when they touch the ground. He moves from one end of the enclosure to the other like a silent pendulum inside a grandfather clock. The boy’s eyes move slowly, as if he’s following a game of tennis in slow motion. 30
Does he really think I’m that interesting?
The wolf frowns. The bristles on his muzzle stand on end. Sometimes the wolf would take a break from pacing. Up until last week, that is. He and the she-wolf would sit facing visitors. It was as if they couldn’t see them. He and the she-wolf would stare straight ahead. They stared straight through them. It made the visitors feel like they didn’t even exist. It was spooky. 35
But then the she-wolf, who was grey and white like a snow partridge, died. The wolf hasn’t stopped moving since. He walks from morning to evening. Outside, straight as a letter i (imagine the dot is his white breath hanging in the air), the boy watches him. 40
THREE
The next day the boy is there again.
The wolf is starting to feel worn out now. The boy’s stare seems to weigh a ton. At least the zoo will be closed tomorrow. Once a month there’s a special day when the zookeepers check on the animals’ health and repair their cages. No visitors are allowed. 45
That’ll get him off my back.
Wrong again. The next day, just like all the other days, the boy is there. He seems to be more present than ever – all alone in front of the enclosure, all alone in an empty zoo.
All right, thinks the wolf. You’ve asked for it! And suddenly he stops walking. He sits bolt upright opposite the boy. And he starts staring back. He doesn’t look through him. It’s a real stare, a 50 fixed stare.
There isn’t a single visitor in the zoo.
There’s just the boy.
And the wolf with blue fur.
So you want to stare at me? Fine? I’ll stare at you too. And we’ll soon see… 55
But there’s something bothering the wolf. A silly detail. He’s only got one eye and the boy’s got two. The wolf doesn’t know which of the boy’s eyes to stare into. He hesitates. His single eye jumps: right-left, left-right. The boy’s eyes don’t flinch. He doesn’t flutter an eyelash. The wolf feels extremely uneasy. He won’t turn his head away for the whole world. His eye begins to lose control. Soon, across the scar of his dead eye, a tear appears. Not because he’s sad, but out of 60 a sense of helplessness and anger.
So the boy does something strange that calms the wolf. The boy closes an eye.
Now they’re looking into each other’s eye, in a zoo that’s silent and empty, and they’ve got all the time in the world.
Read the text in the insert, and answer Questions 1–11.
1 Look at lines 3–4.
Find an idiom which means ‘to stay completely still’.
[1]
2 Look at lines 5–13.
The writer uses different literary techniques within these lines. Name two of the techniques and give an example of each from the text. One has been completed for you.
Literary Technique Example
simile as still as a frozen tree
[4]
3 Look at lines 14–22.
How does the writer show that the enclosure is inadequate for the wolf? Give two ideas. Support each idea with a quotation from the text.
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