Free AQA GCSE English Literature (8702) Exam Questions and Answers

Read the following extract from Act 5 Scene 3 of Macbeth and then answer the question that follows. At this point in the play, Macbeth hears that the English army is approaching and asks the Doctor for a report about Lady Macbeth. MACBETH Seyton! – I am sick at heart, When I behold – Seyton, I say! – this push Will cheer me ever or disseat me now. I have lived long enough. My way of life Is fall’n into the sere, the yellow leaf, And that which should accompany old age, As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends, I must not look to have; but in their stead, Curses, not loud but deep, mouth-honour, breath Which the poor heart would fain deny, and dare not. Seyton! Enter SEYTON SEYTON What’s your gracious pleasure? MACBETH What news more? SEYTON All is confirmed, my lord, which was reported. MACBETH I’ll fight till from my bones my flesh be hacked. Give me my armour. SEYTON ’Tis not needed yet. MACBETH I’ll put it on; Send out more horses; skirr the country round. Hang those that talk of fear. Give me mine armour. How does your patient, doctor? DOCTOR Not so sick, my lord, As she is troubled with thick-coming fancies That keep her from her rest. MACBETH Cure her of that. Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased, Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow, Raze out the written troubles of the brain, And with some sweet oblivious antidote Cleanse the stuffed bosom of that perilous stuff Which weighs upon the heart? Starting with this conversation, explore how far Shakespeare presents Macbeth as a male character who changes during the play. Write about: • how Shakespeare presents Macbeth in this conversation • how far Shakespeare presents Macbeth as a male character who changes in the play as a whole.

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Read the following extract from Act 3 Scene 2 of Romeo and Juliet and then answer the question that follows. At this point in the play, Juliet reacts to the news that Romeo has killed her cousin Tybalt and so has been banished from Verona. JULIET Shall I speak ill of him that is my husband? Ah, poor my lord, what tongue shall smooth thy name, When I, thy three-hours wife, have mangled it? But wherefore, villain, didst thou kill my cousin? That villain cousin would have killed my husband. Back, foolish tears, back to your native spring, Your tributary drops belong to woe, Which you mistaking offer up to joy. My husband lives that Tybalt would have slain, And Tybalt’s dead that would have slain my husband: All this is comfort, wherefore weep I then? Some word there was, worser than Tybalt’s death, That murdered me; I would forget it fain, But O, it presses to my memory, Like damnèd guilty deeds to sinners’ minds: ‘Tybalt is dead, and Romeo banishèd.’ That ‘banishèd’, that one word ‘banishèd’, Hath slain ten thousand Tybalts. Tybalt’s death Was woe enough if it had ended there; Or if sour woe delights in fellowship, And needly will be ranked with other griefs, Why followed not, when she said ‘Tybalt’s dead’, ‘Thy father’ or ‘thy mother’, nay, or both, Which modern lamentation might have moved? But with a rear-ward following Tybalt’s death, ‘Romeo is banishèd’: to speak that word, Is father, mother, Tybalt, Romeo, Juliet, All slain, all dead. ‘Romeo is banishèd!’ There is no end, no limit, measure, bound, In that word’s death, no words can that woe sound. Starting with this speech, explore how Shakespeare presents Juliet’s feelings towards Romeo in Romeo and Juliet. Write about: • how Shakespeare presents Juliet’s feelings towards Romeo in this speech • how Shakespeare presents Juliet’s feelings towards Romeo in the play as a whole.

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Read the following extract from Act 1 Scene 2 of The Tempest and then answer the question that follows. At this point in the play, Ariel has completed various tasks for Prospero and there is now some disagreement about Ariel being given more work to do. PROSPERO Ariel, thy charge Exactly is performed; but there’s more work. What is the time o’th’day? ARIEL Past the mid-season. PROSPERO At least two glasses. The time ’twixt six and now Must by us both be spent most preciously. ARIEL Is there more toil? Since thou dost give me pains, Let me remember thee what thou hast promised, Which is not yet performed me. PROSPERO How now? Moody? What is’t thou canst demand? ARIEL My liberty. PROSPERO Before the time be out? No more. ARIEL I prithee, Remember I have done thee worthy service, Told thee no lies, made no mistakings, served Without or grudge or grumblings. Thou didst promise To bate me a full year. PROSPERO Dost thou forget From what a torment I did free thee? ARIEL No. PROSPERO Thou dost! And think’st it much to tread the ooze Of the salt deep, To run upon the sharp wind of the north, To do me business in the veins o’th’earth When it is baked with frost. ARIEL I do not, sir. PROSPERO Thou liest, malignant thing. Hast thou forgot The foul witch Sycorax, who with age and envy Was grown into a hoop? Hast thou forgot her? ARIEL No, sir. PROSPERO Thou hast. Where was she born? Speak. Tell me. Starting with this conversation, explore how far Shakespeare presents Prospero as a good master in The Tempest. Write about: • how far Shakespeare presents Prospero as a good master in this conversation • how far Shakespeare presents Prospero as a good master in the play as a whole.

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The Merchant of Venice. Read the following extract from Act 1 Scene 1 of The Merchant of Venice and then answer the question that follows. At this point in the play, Bassanio explains to Antonio that he is in debt and has been foolish with his money. BASSANIO To you, Antonio, I owe the most in money and in love, And from your love I have a warranty To unburden all my plots and purposes How to get clear of all the debts I owe. ANTONIO I pray you, good Bassanio, let me know it, And if it stand as you yourself still do Within the eye of honour, be assured My purse, my person, my extremest means Lie all unlocked to your occasions. BASSANIO In my schooldays, when I had lost one shaft, I shot his fellow of the selfsame flight The selfsame way, with more advisèd watch To find the other forth; and by adventuring both I oft found both. I urge this childhood proof Because what follows is pure innocence. I owe you much, and like a wilful youth That which I owe is lost; but if you please To shoot another arrow that self way Which you did shoot the first, I do not doubt, As I will watch the aim, or to find both Or bring your latter hazard back again And thankfully rest debtor for the first. ANTONIO You know me well, and herein spend but time To wind about my love with circumstance; And out of doubt you do me now more wrong In making question of my uttermost Than if you had made waste of all I have. Then do but say to me what I should do That in your knowledge may by me be done, And I am prest unto it: therefore, speak. Starting with this conversation, explore how Shakespeare presents ideas about loyalty in The Merchant of Venice. Write about: • how Shakespeare presents the loyalty between Antonio and Bassanio in this conversation • how Shakespeare presents ideas about loyalty in the play as a whole.

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Much Ado About Nothing. Read the following extract from Act 2 Scene 1 of Much Ado About Nothing and then answer the question that follows. At this point in the play, Beatrice and Hero have been discussing their idea of a perfect man. This leads to a conversation about whether or not Beatrice will ever get a husband. BEATRICE With a good leg and a good foot, uncle, and money enough in his purse, such a man would win any woman in the world if a could get her good will. LEONATO By my troth, niece, thou wilt never get thee a husband, if thou be so shrewd of thy tongue. ANTONIO In faith, she’s too curst. BEATRICE Too curst is more than curst, I shall lessen God’s sending that way: for it is said, God sends a curst cow short horns, but to a cow too curst, he sends none. LEONATO So, by being too curst, God will send you no horns. BEATRICE Just, if he send me no husband, for the which blessing I am at him upon my knees every morning and evening: Lord, I could not endure a husband with a beard on his face, I had rather lie in the woollen! LEONATO You may light on a husband that hath no beard. BEATRICE What should I do with him – dress him in my apparel and make him my waiting gentlewoman? He that hath a beard is more than a youth: and he that hath no beard is less than a man: and he that is more than a youth, is not for me, and he that is less than a man, I am not for him: therefore I will even take sixpence in earnest of the bearward, and lead his apes into hell. LEONATO Well then, go you into hell. BEATRICE No, but to the gate, and there will the devil meet me like an old cuckold with horns on his head, and say, get you to heaven, Beatrice, get you to heaven, here’s no place for you maids. So deliver I up my apes, and away to Saint Peter: for the heavens, he shows me where the bachelors sit, and there live we, as merry as the day is long. Starting with this conversation, explore how far Shakespeare presents Beatrice as an independent female character in Much Ado About Nothing. Write about: • how far Shakespeare presents Beatrice as an independent female character in this conversation • how far Shakespeare presents Beatrice as an independent female character in the play as a whole.

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Julius Caesar. Read the following extract from Act 5 Scene 5 of Julius Caesar and then answer the question that follows. At this point in the play, Anthony and Octavius respond to news of Brutus’ death. MESSALA How died my master, Strato? STRATO I held the sword, and he did run on it. MESSALA Octavius, then take him to follow thee, That did the latest service to my master. ANTONY This was the noblest Roman of them all: All the conspirators, save only he, Did that they did in envy of great Caesar. He only, in a general honest thought And common good to all, made one of them. His life was gentle, and the elements So mixed in him that Nature might stand up And say to all the world, ‘This was a man!’ OCTAVIUS According to his virtue let us use him, With all respect and rites of burial. Within my tent his bones tonight shall lie, Most like a soldier, ordered honourably. So call the field to rest, and let’s away To part the glories of this happy day. Starting with this conversation, explore how far Shakespeare presents Brutus as an honourable man in Julius Caesar. Write about: • how Shakespeare presents Brutus in this conversation • how far Shakespeare presents Brutus as an honourable man in the play as a whole.

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Robert Louis Stevenson: The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Read the following extract from Chapter 1 (Story of the Door) of The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and then answer the question that follows. In this extract, Mr Enfield tells Mr Utterson about his encounter with Mr Hyde. “Well, it was this way,” returned Mr. Enfield: “I was coming home from some place at the end of the world, about three o’clock of a black winter morning, and my way lay through a part of town where there was literally nothing to be seen but lamps. Street after street, and all the folks asleep – street after street, all lighted up as if for a procession and all as empty as a church – till at last I got into that state of mind when a man listens and listens and begins to long for the sight of a policeman. All at once I saw two figures: one a little man who was stumping along eastward at a good walk, and the other a girl of maybe eight or ten, who was running as hard as she was able down a cross street. Well, sir, the two ran into one another naturally enough at the corner; and then came the horrible part of the thing; for the man trampled calmly over the child’s body and left her screaming on the ground. It sounds nothing to hear, but it was hellish to see. It wasn’t like a man; it was like some damned Juggernaut. I gave a view-holloa, took to my heels, collared my gentleman, and brought him back to where there was already quite a group about the screaming child. He was perfectly cool, and made no resistance, but gave me one look so ugly that it brought out the sweat on me like running. The people who had turned out were the girl’s own family; and pretty soon, the doctor, for whom she had been sent, put in his appearance. Well, the child was not much the worse, more frightened, according to the Sawbones; and there you might have supposed would be an end to it. But there was one curious circumstance. I had taken a loathing to my gentleman at first sight. So had the child’s family, which was only natural. But the doctor’s case was what struck me. He was the usual cut-and-dry apothecary, of no particular age and colour, with a strong Edinburgh accent, and about as emotional as a bagpipe. Well, sir, he was like the rest of us; every time he looked at my prisoner, I saw that Sawbones turn sick and white with the desire to kill him. I knew what was in his mind, just as he knew what was in mine; and killing being out of the question, we did the next best. We told the man we could and would make such a scandal out of this as should make his name stink from one end of London to the other. If he had any friends or any credit, we undertook that he should lose them. And all the time, as we were pitching it in red-hot, we were keeping the women off him as best we could, for they were as wild as harpies. I never saw a circle of such hateful faces; and there was the man in the middle, with a kind of black, sneering coolness – frightened, too, I could see that – but carrying it off, sir, really like Satan.” Starting with this extract, explore how far Stevenson presents Mr Hyde as a threatening and dangerous character. Write about: • how Stevenson presents Mr Hyde in this extract • how far Stevenson presents Mr Hyde as threatening and dangerous in the novel as a whole.

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Charles Dickens: A Christmas Carol. Read the following extract from Chapter 2 of A Christmas Carol and then answer the question that follows. In this extract, the Ghost of Christmas Past shows Scrooge his last meeting with Belle. This was not addressed to Scrooge, or to any one whom he could see, but it produced an immediate effect. For again Scrooge saw himself. He was older now; a man in the prime of life. His face had not the harsh and rigid lines of later years; but it had begun to wear the signs of care and avarice. There was an eager, greedy, restless motion in the eye, which showed the passion that had taken root, and where the shadow of the growing tree would fall. He was not alone, but sat by the side of a fair young girl in a mourning-dress: in whose eyes there were tears, which sparkled in the light that shone out of the Ghost of Christmas Past. “It matters little,” she said, softly. “To you, very little. Another idol has displaced me; and if it can cheer and comfort you in time to come, as I would have tried to do, I have no just cause to grieve.” “What Idol has displaced you?” he rejoined. “A golden one.” “This is the even-handed dealing of the world!” he said. “There is nothing on which it is so hard as poverty; and there is nothing it professes to condemn with such severity as the pursuit of wealth!” “You fear the world too much,” she answered, gently. “All your other hopes have merged into the hope of being beyond the chance of its sordid reproach. I have seen your nobler aspirations fall off one by one, until the master-passion, Gain, engrosses you. Have I not?” “What then?” he retorted. “Even if I have grown so much wiser, what then? I am not changed towards you.” She shook her head. “Am I?” “Our contract is an old one. It was made when we were both poor and content to be so, until, in good season, we could improve our worldly fortune by our patient industry. You are changed. When it was made, you were another man.” “I was a boy,” he said impatiently. “Your own feeling tells you that you were not what you are,” she returned. “I am. That which promised happiness when we were one in heart, is fraught with misery now that we are two. How often and how keenly I have thought of this, I will not say. It is enough that I have thought of it, and can release you.” Starting with this extract, explore how Dickens presents the effects of greed in A Christmas Carol. Write about: • how Dickens presents the effects of greed in this extract • how Dickens presents the effects of greed in the novel as a whole.

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Charles Dickens: Great Expectations Read the following extract from Chapter 58 of Great Expectations and then answer the question that follows. In this extract, Pip returns home to discover that Joe and Biddy have just got married. My first thought was one of great thankfulness that I had never breathed this last baffled hope to Joe. How often, while he was with me in my illness, had it risen to my lips. How irrevocable would have been his knowledge of it, if he had remained with me but another hour! ‘Dear Biddy,’ said I, ‘you have the best husband in the whole world, and if you could have seen him by my bed you would have—But no, you couldn’t love him better than you do.’ ‘No, I couldn’t indeed,’ said Biddy. ‘And, dear Joe, you have the best wife in the whole world, and she will make you as happy as even you deserve to be, you dear, good, noble Joe!’ Joe looked at me with a quivering lip, and faintly put his sleeve before his eyes. ‘And Joe and Biddy both, as you have been to church to-day and are in charity and love with all mankind, receive my humble thanks for all you have done for me, and all I have so ill repaid! And when I say that I am going away within the hour, for I am soon going abroad, and that I shall never rest until I have worked for the money with which you have kept me out of prison, and have sent it to you, don’t think, dear Joe and Biddy, that if I could repay it a thousand times over, I suppose I could cancel a farthing of the debt I owe you, or that I would do so if I could!’ They were both melted by these words, and both entreated me to say no more. ‘But I must say more. Dear Joe, I hope you will have children to love, and that some little fellow will sit in this chimney corner of a winter night, who may remind you of another little fellow gone out of it for ever. Don’t tell him, Joe, that I was thankless; don’t tell him, Biddy, that I was ungenerous and unjust; only tell him that I honoured you both, because you were both so good and true, and that, as your child, I said it would be natural to him to grow up a much better man than I did.’ ‘I ain’t a-going,’ said Joe, from behind his sleeve, ‘to tell him nothink o’ that natur, Pip. Nor Biddy ain’t. Nor yet no one ain’t.’ ‘And now, though I know you have already done it in your own kind hearts, pray tell me, both, that you forgive me! Pray let me hear you say the words, that I may carry the sound of them away with me, and then I shall be able to believe that you can trust me, and think better of me, in the time to come!’ ‘O dear old Pip, old chap,’ said Joe. ‘God knows as I forgive you, if I have anythink to forgive!’ ‘Amen! And God knows I do!’ echoed Biddy. ‘Now let me go up and look at my old little room, and rest there a few minutes by myself. And then when I have eaten and drunk with you, go with me as far as the finger-post, dear Joe and Biddy, before we say good-bye!’ Starting with this extract, explore how Dickens presents the lessons Pip learns about what is really important in life. Write about: • how Dickens presents Pip in this extract • how Dickens presents the lessons Pip learns about what is really important in life in the novel as a whole.

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Charlotte Brontë: Jane Eyre Read the following extract from Chapter 38 of Jane Eyre and then answer the question that follows. In this extract, Jane reflects on her married life with Rochester. I have now been married ten years. I know what it is to live entirely for and with what I love best on earth. I hold myself supremely blest – blest beyond what language can express; because I am my husband’s life as fully as he is mine. No woman was ever nearer to her mate than I am: ever more absolutely bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh. I know no weariness of my Edward’s society: he knows none of mine, any more than we each do of the pulsation of the heart that beats in our separate bosoms; consequently, we are ever together. To be together is for us to be at once as free as in solitude, as gay as in company. We talk, I believe, all day long: to talk to each other is but a more animated and an audible thinking. All my confidence is bestowed on him, all his confidence is devoted to me; we are precisely suited in character – perfect concord is the result. Mr Rochester continued blind the first two years of our union: perhaps it was that circumstance that drew us so very near – that knit us so very close: for I was then his vision, as I am still his right hand. Literally, I was (what he often called me) the apple of his eye. He saw nature – he saw books through me; and never did I weary of gazing for his behalf, and of putting into words the effect of field, tree, town, river, cloud, sunbeam – of the landscape before us; of the weather round us and impressing by sound on his ear what light could no longer stamp on his eye. Never did I weary of reading to him; never did I weary of conducting him where he wished to go: of doing for him what he wished to be done. And there was a pleasure in my services, most full, most exquisite, even though sad – because he claimed these services without painful shame or damping humiliation. He loved me so truly, that he knew no reluctance in profiting by my attendance: he felt I loved him so fondly, that to yield that attendance was to indulge my sweetest wishes. ‘Jane Eyre is a novel about Jane’s search for happiness.’ Starting with this extract, explore how far you agree with this view. Write about: • how Brontë presents Jane in this extract • how far Brontë presents Jane’s search for happiness in the novel as a whole.

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