AQA Level 1/2 Certificate
ENGLISH LANGUAGE
Foundation Tier Paper 2
F
Insert
The five sources that follow are:
• Source A: My Family Values by Meera Syal
• Source B: 1984 advertisement for the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC)
• Source C: Extract from You’re a Bad Man, Mr Gum!
• Source D: Extract from My Left Foot
• Source E: Extract from I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Please open the insert fully
to see all five sources
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Contents
Section A: Source Material
A My Family Values by Meera Syal
Page
3
B 1984 advertisement for the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) 4
C Extract from You’re a Bad Man, Mr Gum!5
D Extract from My Left Foot 6
E Extract from I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings7
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Source A: My Family Values by Meera Syal
We lived in Essington,
a mining village close to
Walsall. It was a rural,
working-class upbringing
and one of my earliest
memories is walking
through a cornfield with
my dad. My early years
were a riot of earthy
smells, outside loos, fun
in fields and windy bus
stops. And lots and lots of
fresh air and freedom.
We Punjabis are the cockneys of India. They are party people – outgoing, sharp-witted,
loud, meat-eaters. Back in the Punjab, they are basically earthy, rural workers. And that was
very much the atmosphere when we had friends around. It was incredibly noisy, loads of
music, lots of loud voices and drinking.
At social occasions everybody was expected to get up and do a turn, which would have
been awful if you were a shy child. I used to enjoy it and would perform my version of Marie
Osmond’s Paper Roses.
My parents were incredibly brave to back me when I announced that I wanted to do
English and Drama at university. They never pronounced that they wanted me to become
a doctor in the way that a lot of other Indian parents do. They could see I was passionate
about it. Their theory was that if you are passionate about something, you will be successful
at it because you really, really want to do it.
Turn over
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Source B: 1984 advertisement for the National Society for the Prevention
of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC)
In the last 100 years, the NSPCC has come to the aid
of more than 9 million children.
The money that made this possible has come almost
entirely from the public.
In this, our Centenary year, we’d like to tell you that
things are getting better.
They’re not.
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In the last year we’ve helped and comforted nearly
50,000 children.
In fact, the NSPCC remains the only national 365
days a year, 24 hours a day, source of help for
children beaten, abused or neglected.
It all costs money, so for the hundredth year running:
Thank you for your help.
5
Source C: Extract from You’re a Bad Man, Mr Gum!
Mr Gum was a fierce old man with a red beard and two
bloodshot eyes that stared out at you like an octopus curled
up in a bad cave. He was a complete horror who hated
children, animals, fun and corn on the cob. What he liked
was snoozing in bed all day, being lonely and scowling at
things.
Picture cannot be reproduced
here due to third-party
copyright constraints
He slept and scowled and picked his nose and ate it. Most
of the townsfolk of Lamonic Bibber avoided him and the
children were terrified of him. Their mothers would say,
“Go to bed when I tell you to or Mr Gum will come and
shout at your toys and leave slime on your books!” That
usually did the trick.
Mr Gum lived in a great big house in the middle of town.
Actually, it wasn’t that great, because he had turned it into
a disgusting pigsty.
The rooms were filled with junk and pizza boxes. Empty milk bottles lay around like wounded
soldiers in a war against milk, and there were old newspapers from years and years ago with
headlines like
Vikings Invade Britain
and
World’s First Newspaper Invented Today.
Insects lived in the cupboards, not just small insects but great big ones with faces and names
and jobs.
Mr Gum’s bedroom was absolutely grimsters. The wardrobe contained so much mould and
old cheese that there was hardly any room for his moth-eaten clothes and the bed was never
made. I mean the bed had never even been MADE. There was broken glass in the windows
and the ancient carpet was the colour of unhappiness and smelt like a toilet. Anyway, I could
be here all day going on about Mr Gum’s house but I think you’ve got the idea.
Turn over
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Source D: Extract from My Left Foot
Christy Nolan was born with cerebral palsy, which meant he could not easily use his limbs or speak.
It was the chalk that attracted me.
It was a long, slender stick of bright
yellow. Suddenly I wanted desperately
to do what my sister was doing. Then
– without thinking or knowing exactly
what I was doing, I reached out and
took the stick of chalk out of my
sister’s hand – with my left foot.
I held it between my toes and made a
wild sort of scribble with it on the slate.
Then I looked up and became aware
that everyone had stopped talking
and they were staring at me silently.
Nobody stirred.
My mother came in from the pantry. She stopped. She crossed over and knelt down beside me.
“I’ll show you what to do with it, Chris,” she said. Taking another piece of chalk from Mona, she
very deliberately drew, on the floor in front of me, the single letter ‘A’. “Copy that,” she said, looking
steadily at me. “Copy it, Christy.”
I tried again. I put out my foot and made a wild jerking stab with the chalk which produced a very
crooked line and nothing more. Mother held the slate steady for me.
“Try again, Chris,” she whispered in my ear. “Again.”
I stiffened my body and put my left foot out again, for the third time. I drew one side of the letter. I
drew half the other side. Then I felt my mother’s hand on my shoulder. I tried once more. Out went
my foot. I shook, I sweated and strained every muscle. My hands were so tightly clenched that my
fingernails bit into the flesh. I set my teeth so hard that I nearly pierced my lower lip. But – I drew it –
the letter ‘A’.
I looked up. I saw my mother’s face for a moment, tears on her cheeks. Then my father stooped
down and hoisted me on to his shoulder.
I had done it!
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Source E: Extract from I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
This extract is from Maya (Marguerite) Angelou’s autobiography. When she was very young she
had a frightening experience and stopped speaking. One afternoon a neighbour called Mrs Flowers
encouraged her to start talking again.
Mrs Flowers walked in front. She said, “I hear you’re doing very good schoolwork, Marguerite, but
that it’s all written. The teachers report that they have trouble getting you to talk in class. Now no
one is going to make you talk – possibly no one can. But bear in mind, language is man’s way of
communicating with his fellow man and it is language alone which separates him from the lower
animals.” That was a totally new idea to me, and I would need time to think about it. We reached her
house.
“Your grandmother says you read a lot. Every chance you get. That’s good, but not good enough.”
She said she was going to give me some books and that I not only must read them, I must read them
aloud. “I’ll accept no excuse if you return a book to me that has been badly handled.” My imagination
boggled at the punishment I would deserve if in fact I did abuse a book of Mrs Flowers. Death would
be too kind and brief.
She disappeared through the kitchen door. I looked around the room that I had never in my wildest
fantasies imagined I would see.
“Have a seat, Marguerite. Over there by the table.” She carried a tray covered with a tea towel.
Although she warned that she hadn’t tried her hand at baking sweets for some time, I was certain
that, like everything else about her, the cookies would be perfect. As I ate she began the first of what
we later called my ‘lessons in living’. She said that some people, unable to go to school, were more
educated and even more intelligent than college professors.
When I finished the cookies she brought a thick, small book from the bookcase. She opened the first
page and I heard poetry for the first time in my life.
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. . .” Her voice slid in and curved down through and
over the words. She was nearly singing. Her sounds began cascading gently.
“How do you like that?”
It occurred to me that she expected a response. I had to speak. I said, “Yes, ma’am.” It was the least
I could do, but it was the most also.
I was liked, and what a difference it made.
END OF SOURCES
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