2025 CJC Prelims H2 ELit P1 QP

LITERATURE IN ENGLISH 9539/01 Paper 1: Reading Literature 03 September 2025 3 hours Additional Materials: Set Texts Set texts may be taken into the examination room. They may bear underlining or highlighting. Pages can be flagged with paper clips or by folding the page corners. Page numbers can be highlighted, underlined or marked out with vertical lines. Any other kind of folding or flagging of papers in texts (for example use of sticky notes or tape flags) is not permitted. READ THESE INSTRUCTIONS FIRST An answer booklet will be provided with this question paper. You should follow the instructions on the front cover of the answer booklet. If you need additional answer paper ask the invigilator for a continuation booklet. Answer three questions: one from Section A, one from Section B, and one from Section C. You are reminded of the need for good English and clear presentation in your answers. All questions in this paper carry equal marks. This document consists of 8 printed pages. [Turn over Instruction Catholic Junior College JC2 Preliminary Examinations Higher 2

© CJC 2025 9539/01 2 Section A 1 Either (a) Write a critical comparison of the following poems, considering in detail ways in which language, style and form contribute to each poet’s portrayal of separation. A BOATS You and your photographs of boats; that repeated metaphor for departure, or simply the possibility of a voyage? What you cannot tell me you tell me with a vessel and its single passenger, eyes fixed on some skylit conclusion. Set apart and starkly upon a canvas of tractable waves, brought to still by the trigger-click of your camera, like the sound a key makes when it releases the lock. Your heart became that lock; these images how you have always articulated distance, a withdrawal. Darling, there are just as many ways of saying goodbye as there are ways of letting you go. The boat is narrow like the width of my heart after impossible loss, cruel resignation; this heart you ride in. Love, if this is how you choose to leave me let me let you. Cyril Wong (Published 2007) 5 10 15 20

© CJC 2025 9539/01 3 B LOVE, WE MUST PART NOW Love, we must part now: do not let it be Calamitous and bitter. In the past There has been too much moonlight and self-pity: Let us have done with it: for now at last Never has sun more boldly paced the sky, Never were hearts more eager to be free, To kick down worlds, lash forests; you and I No longer hold them; we are husks, that see The grain going forward to a different use. There is regret. Always, there is regret. But it is better that our lives unloose, As two tall ships, wind-mastered, wet with light, Break from an estuary with their courses set, And waving part, and waving drop from sight. 5 10 Philip Larkin (1922 –1985)

© CJC 2025 9539/01 4 Or (b) Write a critical comparison of the following poems, considering in detail ways in which language, style and form contribute to each poet’s portrayal of autumn. A AUTUMN B LOVE IN AUTUMN They brought me a quilled, yellow dahlia1, Opulent, flaunting. Round gold Flung out of a pale green stalk. Round, ripe gold Of maturity, Meticulously frilled and flaming, A fire-ball of proclamation: Fecundity decked in staring yellow For all the world to see. They brought a quilled, yellow dahlia, To me who am barren Shall I send it to you, You who have taken with you All I once possessed? 5 10 15 Amy Lowell (1874 –1925) 1dahlia: a brightly coloured garden flower with long, thin petals I sought among the drifting leaves, The golden leaves that once were green, To see if Love were hiding there And peeping out between. For thro’ the silver showers of May And thro’ the summer’s heavy heat, In vain I sought his golden head And light, fast-flying feet. Perhaps when all the world is bare And cruel winter holds the land, The Love that finds no place to hide Will run and catch my hand. I shall not care to have him then, I shall be bitter and a-cold — It grows too late for frolicking When all the world is old. Then little hiding Love, come forth, Come forth before the autumn goes, And let us seek thro’ ruined paths The garden’s last red rose. Sara Teasdale (1884 –1933) 5 10 15 20

© CJC 2025 9539/01 5 Section B Answer one question from this section. CHARLOTTE BRONTË: Jane Eyre 2 Either Or (a) (b) Discuss the presentation and significance of isolation in the novel. Write a critical commentary on the following passage, relating it to the presentation of Edward Rochester, here and elsewhere in the novel. It was very near, but not yet in sight; when, in addition to the tramp, tramp, I heard a rush under the hedge, and close down by the hazel stems glided a great dog, whose black and white colour made him a distinct object against the trees. It was exactly one form of Bessie's Gytrash – a lion-like creature with long hair and a huge head: it passed me, however, quietly enough; not staying to look up, with strange pretercanine eyes, in my face, as I half expected it would. The horse followed, – a tall steed, and on its back a rider. The man, the human being, broke the spell at once. Nothing ever rode the Gytrash: it was always alone; and goblins, to my notions, though they might tenant the dumb carcases of beasts, could scarce covet shelter in the commonplace human form. No Gytrash was this, – only a traveller taking the short cut to Millcote. He passed, and I went on; a few steps, and I turned; a sliding sound and an exclamation of "What the deuce is to do now?" and a clattering tumble, arrested my attention. Man and horse were down; they had slipped on the sheet of ice which glazed the causeway. The dog came bounding back, and seeing his master in a predicament, and hearing the horse groan, barked till the evening hills echoed the sound, which was deep in prop ortion to his magnitude. He snuffed round the prostrate group, and then he ran up to me; it was all he could do, – there was no other help at hand to summon. I obeyed him, and walked down to the traveller, by this time struggling himself free of his steed. His efforts were so vigorous, I thought he could not be much hurt; but I asked him the question – ‘Are you injured, sir?’ I think he was swearing, but am not certain; however, he was pronouncing some formula which prevented him from replying to me directly. ‘Can I do anything?’ I asked again. ‘You must just stand on one side,’ he answered as he rose, first to his knees, and then to his feet. I did; whereupon began a heaving, stamping, clattering process, accompanied by a barking and baying which removed me effectually some yards' distance; but I would not be driven quite away till I saw the event. This was finally fortunate; the horse was re-established, and the dog was silenced with a ‘Down, Pilot!’ The traveller now, s