2025 RI Prelims H2 ELit P1 QP

[Turn over RAFFLES INSTITUTION 2025 YEAR 6 PRELIMINARY EXAMINATION HIGHER 2 LITERATURE IN ENGLISH 9539/01 Paper 1 Reading Literature Monday 15 September 2025 3 hours 1330-1630 No Additional Materials are required. Set texts may be taken into the examination room. Pages may 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 pages in texts (for example, use of sticky notes or tape flags) is not permitted. READ THESE INSTRUCTIONS FIRST Writing paper will be provided. If you need additional paper, ask the invigilator. Write your name and CT group on all the work you hand in. Answer three questions: one question from Section A, one question from Section B, and one question from Section C. You are reminded of the need for good English and clear presentation in your answers. At the end of the examination tie your answer sheets to each section securely. Hand in your answers separately. All questions in this paper carry equal marks. This document consists of 7 printed pages and 1 blank page.

2 ©RI 2025 H2 P1 RI LIT PRELIM 9539/01/25 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 the end of a relationship. A 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) B Since there’s no help, come let us kiss and part Since there’s no help, come let us kiss and part, Nay, I have done, you get no more of me; And I am glad, yea glad with all my heart, That thus so cleanly I myself can free. Shake hands for ever, cancel all our vows, And when we meet at any time again, Be it not seen in either of our brows That we one jot of former love retain. Now at the last gasp of Love’s latest breath, When, his pulse failing, Passion speechless lies; When Faith is kneeling by his bed of death, And Innocence is closing up his eyes – Now, if thou wouldst, when all have given him over, From death to life thou might’st him yet recover! 5 10 Michael Drayton (1563–1631)

3 ©RI 2025 H2 P1 RI LIT PRELIM 9539/01/25 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 presentation of language. A my mother thinks i dream in bengali that my dreamscapes, like hers, are flooded by incontinent rivers that carry language and fish downstream to a subconscious shore, to be hung to dry by an ancient fisherman. she thinks i am the swimmer i am not. that if i plunge feetfirst into an open sea my ankles will not break. instead i will break the surface with a beard, rich and salted, tagore’s1 or my grandfather’s. my mother dreams i have her accent. some nights she is right, with a prescience i put down to maternal instinct. these are the nights when language rises like air, the fish swim downstream. the land i stand on does not subduct under my feet. these are the nights i do not instead dream of falling from a skyscraper into an olympic pool. i do not fall in a language that is bleached to bone, neither english nor bengali. 5 10 15 Wahid Al Mamun (published 2017) B Mother Tongue Which language do you dream in, swear in, cry in, asked the questionnaire. How many languages do you swim in, drown in, breathe in, mime in? Do you know how many tongues have adopted your voice? And when at night you stare at dark walls and one pair of lips comes closer, whispering in perfect German Ich bin deine Mutter2 – Or the night shadows enlarge into a Fritz Lang3 open scream and Muttersprache4 appears on the silent movie screen, then: what do you reply? In which language, and how clearly, do you say: my mother tongue is somewhere in the recesses of my mind. I am not an orphan. I have a mother. She put me to bed one night and went away. The film we made together has long been silent. But I still hear her voice in the keyhole of my heart. 5 10 15 20 Nora Nadjarian (published 2003) [Turn over 1 Tagore: Rabrindanath Tagore was a Bengali polymath who was recognised as a poet, writer, composer and philosopher. 2 Ich bin deine Mutter: German phrase that translates to ‘I am your mother’. 3 Fritz Lang: Austrian filmmaker. 4 Muttersprache: German word that translates to ‘mother tongue’ or ‘native language’.

4 ©RI 2025 H2 P1 RI LIT PRELIM 9539/01/25 Section B Charlotte Brontë: Jane Eyre 2 Either (a) “In Jane Eyre, the wealthy and well-born are not the characters we most respect.” How far, and in what ways, do you agree? Or (b) Write a critical commentary on the following passage, relating it to the presentation of Jane’s state of mind here and elsewhere in the novel. I would have got past Mr Rochester ’s chamber without a pause; but my heart momentarily stopping its beat at that threshold, my foot was forced to stop also. No sleep was there: the inmate was walking restlessly from wall to wall; and again and again he sighed while I listened. There was a heaven – a temporary heaven – in this room for me, if I chose: I had but to go in and to say – “Mr Rochester, I will love you and live with you through life till death,” and a fount of rapture would spring to my lips. I thought of this. That kind master, who could not sleep now, was waiting with impatience for day. He would send for me in the morning; I should be gone. He would have me sought for: vainly. He would feel himself forsaken; his love rejected: he would suffer; perhaps grow desperate. I thought of this too. My hand moved towards the lock: I caught it back, and glided on. Drearily I wound my way downstairs: I knew what I had to do, and I did it mechanically. I sought the key of the side-door in the kitchen; I sought, too, a phial of oil and a feather; I oiled the key and the lock. I got some water, I got some bread: for perhaps I should have to walk far; and my strength, sorely shaken of late, must not break down. All this I did without one sound. I opened the door, passed out, shut it softly. Dim dawn glimmered in the yard. The great gates were closed and locked; but a w icket in one of them was only latched. Through that I departed: it, too, I shut; and now I was out of Thornfield. A mile off, beyond the fields, lay a road which stretched in the contrary direction to Millcote;