OXFORD CAMBRIDGE AND RSA EXAMINATIONS
GCSE (9–1)
J351/01
ENGLISH LANGUAGE
Communicating information and ideas
READING INSERT
TUESDAY 6 JUNE 2017: Morning
TIME ALLOWED: 2 hours
plus your additional time allowance
MODIFIED ENLARGED
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the Question Paper
INSTRUCTIONS
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questions in Section A of the Question Paper.
INFORMATION
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DC (ST) 145622
© OCR 2017 [601/4575/4]
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Details of text extracts:
TEXT 1
Text: ‘On Going on a Journey’
Author: William Hazlitt (1822)
TEXT 2
Text: ‘Jackboots Rule the Countryside’
Author: Jeremy Clarkson (2005)
2
TEXT 1
William Hazlitt was a critic and thinker who was known
for writing essays on a wide range of subjects. In this
passage he explains how to enjoy yourself when you go
walking in the countryside.
One of the pleasantest things in the world is going
on a journey through the countryside but I like to go
by myself. I can enjoy society in a room but, out of
doors, nature is company enough for me. I am then
never less alone than when I am alone. 5
I cannot see the worth of walking and talking at
the same time. When I am in the country I wish to
vegetate like the country. I go out of town in order to
forget the town and all that is in it. There are those
who go to watering-places1 for this purpose and 10
carry the town with them. I like more elbow-room
and fewer encumbrances2. I like solitude, when I
give myself up to it, for the sake of solitude.
Give me the clear blue sky over my head, and the
green turf beneath my feet, a winding road before 15
me, and a three hours’ march to dinner—and then
to thinking! It is hard if I cannot start some game on
these lone heaths. I laugh, I run, I leap, I sing for joy.
Then I begin to feel, think, and be myself again.
No one likes antithesis, argument, and analysis 20
better than I do; but I would sometimes rather be
without them. Is not this wild rose sweet without a
comment? Does not this daisy leap to my heart set
in its coat of emerald? Yet, if I were to explain to you
the circumstance that has so endeared it to me, you 25
would only smile. I should be but bad company all
that way, and therefore I prefer being alone.
3
I have heard it said that, when such a mood comes
on you and you wish to be alone, you may walk or
ride on by yourself. But this looks like a breach of 30
manners, a neglect of others, and you are thinking
all the time that you ought to rejoin your party. ‘Out
upon such half-hearted fellowship,’ say I. I like to be
either entirely by myself, or entirely at the disposal
of others; to talk or to be silent, to walk or to sit still, 35
to be sociable or to be solitary.
I grant there is one subject on which it is pleasant
to talk on a journey, and that is, what we shall have
for our supper when we get to our inn at night.
The open air improves this sort of conversation by 40
setting a keener edge on appetite. Every mile of the
road heightens the flavour of the viands3 we expect
at the end of it.
How fine it is to enter some old town just at
approach of nightfall, or to come to some straggling 45
village with the lights streaming through the
surrounding gloom; and then, after enquiring for the
best entertainment that the place affords, to ‘take
one’s ease at one’s inn’!
1 watering-places: spas and resorts
2 encumbrances: things that weigh you down
3 viands: items of food
4
TEXT 2
Jeremy Clarkson is an English broadcaster, journalist
and writer. Here he describes a walk he took in the
countryside.
Adapted from J Clarkson, 'The World According to Clarkson Volume 2', pp171-174,
Penguin Books Ltd, 2006. Item removed due to third party copyright restrictions.
5
Adapted from J Clarkson, 'The World According to Clarkson Volume 2', pp171-174,
Penguin Books Ltd, 2006. Item removed due to third party copyright restrictions.
6
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