Cambridge Lower Secondary Checkpoint
ENGLISH 1111/02
Paper 2 Fiction April 2021
INSERT 1 hour 10 minutes
INFORMATION
• This insert contains the reading passage.
• You may annotate this insert and use the blank spaces for planning. Do not write your answers on
the insert.
This document has 4 pages. Any blank pages are indicated.
IB21 05_1111_02/RP
© UCLES 2021 [Turn over
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Text for Section A, an extract from ‘The House on Mango Street’ by Sandra Cisneros
The house on Mango Street
They always told us that one day we would move into a house, a real house that would be ours
for always so we wouldn’t have to move each year. And our house would have running water
and pipes that worked. And inside it would have real stairs, not hallway stairs, but stairs inside
like the houses on T.V. And we’d have a basement and at least three washrooms so when we
took a bath we wouldn’t have to tell everybody. Our house would be white with trees around it, a 5
great big yard and grass growing without a fence. This was the house Papa talked about when
he held a lottery ticket and this was the house Mama dreamed up in the stories she told us
before we went to bed.
But the house on Mango Street is not the way they told it at all. It’s small and red with tight steps
in front and windows so small you’d think they were holding their breath. Bricks are crumbling in 10
places, and the front door is so swollen you have to push hard to get in. There is no front yard,
only four little elms the city planted by the curb. Out back is a small garage for the car we don’t
own yet and a small yard that looks smaller between the two buildings on either side. There are
stairs in our house, but they’re ordinary hallway stairs, and the house has only one washroom.
Everybody has to share a bedroom – Mama and Papa, Carlos and Kiki, me and Nenny. 15
Once when we were living on Loomis, a nun from my school passed by and saw me playing out
front. The laundromat downstairs had been boarded up because it had been robbed two days
before and the owner had painted on the wood YES WE’RE OPEN so as not to lose business.
‘Where do you live?’ she asked.
‘There,’ I said pointing up to the third floor. 20
‘You live there?’
There. I had to look to where she pointed – the third floor, the paint peeling, wooden bars Papa
had nailed on the windows so we wouldn’t fall out. You live there? The way she said it made me
feel like nothing. There. I lived there. I nodded.
I knew then I had to have a house. A real house. One I could point to. But this isn’t it. The house 25
on Mango Street isn’t it. For the time being, Mama says. Temporary, says Papa. But I know how
those things go.
Hairs
Everybody in our family has different hair. My Papa’s hair is like a broom, all up in the air. And
me, my hair is lazy. It never obeys barrettes or bands. Carlos’ hair is thick and straight. He 30
doesn’t need to comb it. Nenny’s hair is slippery – slides out of your hand. And Kiki, who is the
youngest, has hair like fur.
But my mother’s hair, my mother’s hair, like little rosettes, like little candy circles all curly and
pretty because she pinned it in pincurls all day, sweet to put your nose into when she is holding
you, holding you and you feel safe, is the warm smell of bread before you bake it, is the smell 35
when she makes room for you on her side of the bed still warm with her skin, and you sleep
near her, the rain outside falling and Papa snoring. The snoring, the rain, and Mama’s hair that
smells like bread.
My Name
In English my name means hope. In Spanish it means too many letters. It means sadness, it 40
means waiting. A muddy color. It is the Mexican records my father plays on Sunday mornings
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when he is shaving, songs like sobbing.
It was my great-grandmother’s name and now it is mine. She was a horse woman too, born like
me in the Chinese year of the horse.
My great-grandmother. I would’ve liked to have known her, a wild horse of a woman, so wild 45
she wouldn’t marry. Until my great-grandfather threw a sack over her head and carried her off.
Just like that, as if she were a fancy chandelier. That’s the way he did it. And the story goes she
never forgave him. She looked out the window her whole life, the way so many women sit their
sadness on an elbow. I wonder if she made the best with what she got or was she sorry
because she couldn’t be all the things she wanted to be. Esperanza. I have inherited her name, 50
but I don’t want to inherit her place by the window.
I would like a new name, a name more like the real me, the one nobody sees. Esperanza as
Lisandra or Maritza or Zeze the X. Yes. Something like Zeze the X will do.
© UCLES 2021 1111/02/INSERT/A/M/21
Cambridge Lower Secondary Checkpoint
ENGLISH 1111/02
Paper 2 Fiction April 2021
1 hour 10 minutes
You must answer on the question paper.
You will need: Insert (enclosed)
INSTRUCTIONS
• Answer all questions.
• Use a black or dark blue pen.
• Write your name, centre number and candidate number in the boxes at the top of the page.
• Write your answer to each question in the space provided.
• Do not use an erasable pen or correction fluid.
• Do not write on any bar codes.
INFORMATION
• The total mark for this paper is 50.
• The number of marks for each question or part question is shown in brackets [ ].
• The insert contains the reading passage.
This document has 8 pages. Any blank pages are indicated.
IB21 05_1111_02/4RP
© UCLES 2021 [Turn over
2
Section A: Reading
Spend 30 minutes on this section.
Read the Text in the insert, and then answer Questions 1–12.
1 Who is the narrator in the story? Tick () one box.
Papa
Mama
Carlos
Esperanza
[1]
2 The family’s hopes of a better house seem unlikely to come true.
Give one quotation from lines 1–8 that tells the reader this.
[1]
3 Look at the first and second paragraphs (lines 1–15).
(a) What are the differences between the houses described in each paragraph?
Complete the table below with information from the text.
First paragraph Second paragraph
Rooms three washrooms
Condition The bricks are crumbling.
Outside a great big yard
[3]
(b) Why has the writer put these paragraphs next to each other? Use your own words.
[1]
4 Look at this phrase: ‘… windows so small you’d think they were holding their breath.’ (Line 10)
What technique is this an example of?
[1]
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5 Give one quotation from lines 16–20 that tells the reader that Loomis is a dangerous area.
[1]
6 Look at lines 21–24.
(a) There is repeated four times in italics.
What does this tell the reader about the attitude of the nun? Tick () one box.
She feels
envy.
confusion.
amusement.
contempt.
[1]
(b) The narrator is embarrassed about the house.
Give one quotation that tells the reader this.
[1]
7 Look at this sentence: ‘But I know how those things go.’ (Lines 26–27)
What does the narrator mean in the sentence above?
[1]
8 Look at lines 33–38.
(a) Give one example of each of the following:
a metaphor
repetition
alliteration [3]
(b) What does the reader learn about the mother’s character?
[1]
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9 Look at the section of the text under the heading My Name (lines 39–53).
Why does Esperanza want to change her name? Give two reasons, using your own words.
•
•
[2]
10 Look at lines 45–51.
What does this paragraph tell the reader about women’s lives in the past? Complete the table below.
Quotation What it tells the reader
‘… a wild horse of a woman, so wild she
wouldn’t marry.’
‘… my great-grandfather threw a sack over
her head and carried her off.’
‘She looked out the window her whole life,’
[3]
11 What genre of story is this text?
Tick () one box.
historical fiction
science fiction
comical fiction
realistic fiction
[1]
12 Look at the whole text.
Explain four ways that Esperanza wants her life to be different in the future.
[4]
© UCLES 2021 1111/02/A/M/21
Cambridge International Examinations
Cambridge Secondary 1 Checkpoint
ENGLISH 1111/02
Paper 2 Fiction For Examination from 2018
SPECIMEN INSERT
1 hour plus 10 minutes’ reading time
This document consists of 3 printed pages and 1 blank page.
© UCLES 2015 [Turn over
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Text for Section A, an extract from ‘Inkheart’ by Cornelia Funke.
While looking out of her bedroom window, Meggie spots a figure standing in the shadows
outside her house. She immediately goes to find her father, Mo.
There was still a light on in Mo’s room. He often stayed up reading late into the night. Meggie
had inherited her love of books from her father. When she took refuge from a bad dream with
him, nothing could lull her back to sleep better than Mo’s calm breathing beside her and the
sound of the pages turning. Nothing chased away nightmares faster than the rustle of printed
paper. 5
But the figure outside the house was no dream.
The book Mo was reading was bound in pale blue linen. Later, Meggie remembered that too.
What unimportant little details stick in the memory.
‘Mo, there’s someone out in the yard!’
Her father raised his head and looked at her with the usual absent expression he wore when 10
she interrupted his reading. It always took him a few moments to find his way out of that other
world, the labyrinth of printed letters.
‘Someone out in the yard? Are you sure?’
‘Yes. He’s staring at our house.’
Mo put down his book. ‘So what were you reading before you went to sleep? Dr Jekyll and Mr 15
Hyde1?’
Meggie frowned. ‘Please, Mo! Come and look.’
He didn’t believe her, but he went anyway. Meggie tugged him along the corridor so impatiently
that he stubbed his toe on a pile of books, which was hardly surprising. Stacks of books were
piled high all over the house – not just arranged on bookshelves, the way other people kept 20
them, oh no! The books in Mo and Meggie’s house were stacked under tables, on chairs, in
the corners of rooms. There were books in the kitchen and books in the lavatory2. Books on
the TV set and in the wardrobe, small piles of books, tall piles of books, books thick and thin,
books old and new. They welcomed Meggie down to breakfast with invitingly open pages, they
kept boredom at bay when the weather was bad. And sometimes you fell over them. 25
‘He’s just standing there!’ whispered Meggie, leading Mo into her room.
‘Has he got a hairy face? If so, he could be a werewolf.’
‘Oh, stop it!’ Meggie looked at him sternly, although his jokes made her feel less scared.
Already, she hardly believed any more in the figure standing in the rain – until she knelt down
again at the window. ‘There! Do you see him?’ she whispered. 30
Mo looked out through the raindrops running down the pane, and said nothing.
‘Didn’t you promise burglars would never break into our house because there’s nothing here to
steal?’ whispered Meggie.
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‘He’s not a burglar,’ replied Mo, but as he stepped back from the window his face was so grave
that Meggie’s heart thudded faster than ever. ‘Go back to bed, Meggie,’ he said. ‘This visitor 35
has come to see me.’
He left the room before Meggie could ask what kind of visitor, for goodness’ sake, turned up
in the middle of the night. She followed him anxiously. As she crept down the corridor, she
heard her father taking the chain off the front door, and when she reached the hall she saw him
standing in the open doorway. The night came in, dark and damp, and the rushing of the rain 40
sounded loud and threatening.
‘Dustfinger!’ called Mo into the darkness. ‘Is that you?’
Dustfinger? What kind of a name was that? Meggie couldn’t remember hearing it before, yet it
sounded familiar, like a distant memory that wouldn’t take shape properly.
At first, all seemed still outside except for the rain falling, murmuring as if the night had found 45
its voice. But then footsteps approached the house, and the man emerged from the darkness
of the yard, his long coat so wet with rain that it clung to his legs. For a split second, as the
stranger stepped into the light spilling out of the house, Meggie thought she saw a small furry
head over his shoulder, snuffling as it looked out of his rucksack and then quickly disappearing
back into it. 50
Dustfinger wiped his wet face with his sleeve and offered his hand.
‘How are you, Silvertongue?’ he asked. ‘It’s been a long time.’
Hesitantly, Mo took the outstretched hand. ‘A very long time,’ he said, looking past his visitor as
if he expected to see another figure emerge from the night. ‘Come in, you’ll catch your death.
Meggie says you’ve been standing out there for some time.’ 55
‘Meggie? Ah yes, of course.’ Dustfinger let Mo lead him into the house. He scrutinised Meggie
so thoroughly that she felt embarrassed and didn’t know where to look. In the end, she just
stared back.
‘She’s grown.’
‘You remember her?’ 60
‘Of course.’
Meggie noticed that Mo double locked the door.
Glossary
1 Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde – a famous horror story
2 lavatory – bathroom/toilet
© UCLES 2015 1111/02/SI/18 [Turn over
Cambridge International Examinations
Cambridge Secondary 1 Checkpoint
ENGLISH 1111/02
*0123456789*
Paper 2 Fiction For Examination from 2018
SPECIMEN PAPER
1 hour plus 10 minutes’ reading time
Candidates answer on the Question Paper.
Additional Materials: Insert
READ THESE INSTRUCTIONS FIRST
Write your Centre number, candidate number and name in the spaces at the top of this page.
Write in dark blue or black pen.
Do not use staples, paper clips, glue or correction fluid.
DO NOT WRITE IN ANY BARCODES.
Answer all questions.
Suggestions for how long to spend on each section are given in the booklet.
The number of marks is given in brackets [ ] at the end of each question or part question.
This document consists of 8 printed pages.
© UCLES 2015 [Turn over
2
Section A: Reading
Spend 30 minutes on this section.
Read the Text in the Insert and then answer questions 1–13.
1 What helps Meggie get to sleep after a bad dream?
..........................................................................................................................................................
..................................................................................................................................................... [1]
2 ‘But the figure outside the house was no dream.’ (line 6)
What effect does the writer create by using this single-sentence paragraph?
..........................................................................................................................................................
..................................................................................................................................................... [1]
3 Explain in your own words how Meggie’s father looks when his reading is interrupted.
..........................................................................................................................................................
..................................................................................................................................................... [1]
4 (a) ‘Books on the TV set and in the wardrobe, small piles of books, tall piles of books, books thick
and thin, books old and new.’ (lines 22–24)
Give one way these lines emphasise how many books Mo and Meggie have.
...................................................................................................................................................
.............................................................................................................................................. [1]
(b) Look at the phrase ‘Stacks of books were piled high all over the house’ (lines 19–20).
(i) Write one quotation from the text that shows a problem caused by the books.
...................................................................................................................................... [1]
(ii) Write one quotation from the text that shows a benefit of the books.
...................................................................................................................................... [1]
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3
5 ‘Has he got a hairy face? If so, he could be a werewolf.’ (line 27)
What does this quotation suggest about Mo’s character?
..........................................................................................................................................................
..................................................................................................................................................... [1]
6 How does the mood change when Mo sees the figure standing in the rain (line 31)?
..........................................................................................................................................................
..................................................................................................................................................... [1]
7 ‘. . . except for the rain falling, murmuring as if the night had found its voice.’ (lines 45–46)
What is the underlined phrase an example of?
Tick (9) one box.
alliteration
hyperbole
metaphor
personification
[1]
8 Explain in your own words how the writer uses the night and the rain to create atmosphere (lines
40–50).
Support your answer with examples from the text.
..........................................................................................................................................................
..........................................................................................................................................................
..........................................................................................................................................................
..........................................................................................................................................................
..........................................................................................................................................................
..................................................................................................................................................... [3]
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9 Which two features from this text suggest that it is from a mystery story?
Tick (9) two boxes.
a first person narrator
a night-time setting
the use of dialogue
the use of flashbacks
the withholding of information
[2]
10 Explain in your own words Meggie’s reactions to Dustfinger (lines 34–62).
Support your answer with examples from the text.
..........................................................................................................................................................
..........................................................................................................................................................
..........................................................................................................................................................
..........................................................................................................................................................
..........................................................................................................................................................
..........................................................................................................................................................
..........................................................................................................................................................
..................................................................................................................................................... [4]
11 What two things do we learn about the past relationship between Mo and Dustfinger?
..........................................................................................................................................................
..........................................................................................................................................................
..........................................................................................................................................................
..................................................................................................................................................... [2]
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12 Write one quotation from the text which could explain why Mo double locked the door.
..........................................................................................................................................................
..................................................................................................................................................... [1]
13 Explain in your own words how you can tell that Meggie and Mo have a close relationship.
Support your answer with examples from the whole text.
..........................................................................................................................................................
..........................................................................................................................................................
..........................................................................................................................................................
..........................................................................................................................................................
..........................................................................................................................................................
..........................................................................................................................................................
..........................................................................................................................................................
..................................................................................................................................................... [4]
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