Question 1: true statements

What Question 1 asks

Paper 2 always has on a similar topic: Source A and Source B. One is from the 19th century, and the other from the 20th or 21st century.

Question 1 asks you to read a few lines of one source and choose four true statements from a list of eight, by shading boxes.

: finding explicit and implicit information.
4 marks: one for each correct statement. Shade more than four and you lose marks.
About 5 minutes.

Box the lines the question names. Only those lines count.
Read each statement carefully, and find the words in the source that prove or disprove it.
Watch for statements that are nearly right, or true of a different part of the source.
Shade exactly four.

Exam tip

If a statement isn't supported by the named lines, it's false for this question, even if it's true somewhere else in the source.

Source A is from Henry Mayhew's study of London's poor, first published in 1851.

Source A: London Labour and the London Poor (the watercress girl) by Henry Mayhew, 1851

The little watercress girl who gave me the following statement,

although only eight years of age, had entirely lost all childish ways,

and was, indeed, in thoughts and manner, a woman. There was something

cruelly pathetic in hearing this infant, so young that her features had

scarcely formed themselves, talking of the bitterest struggles of life,

with the calm earnestness of one who had endured them all. I did not

know how to talk with her. At first I treated her as a child, speaking

on childish subjects; so that I might, by being familiar with her,

remove all shyness, and get her to narrate her life freely. I asked

her about her toys and her games with her companions; but the look of

amazement that answered me soon put an end to any attempt at fun on

my part. I then talked to her about the parks, and whether she ever

went to them. “The parks!” she replied in wonder, “where are they?” I

explained to her, telling her that they were large open places with

green grass and tall trees, where beautiful carriages drove about, and

people walked for pleasure, and children played. Her eyes brightened

up a little as I spoke; and she asked, half doubtingly, “Would they

let such as me go there—just to look?” All her knowledge seemed to

begin and end with water-cresses, and what they fetched. She knew no

more of London than that part she had seen on her rounds, and believed

that no quarter of the town was handsomer or pleasanter than it was at

Farringdon-market or at Clerkenwell, where she lived.

Read again lines 1 to 12 of Source A. Choose four statements which are true.