2025 VJC Prelim P2

1 VICTORIA JUNIOR COLLEGE JC2 PRELIMINARY EXAMINATION 2025 HIGHER 1 GENERAL PAPER 8881/02 Paper 2 INSERT 1 hour 30 mins READ THESE INSTRUCTIONS FIRST This Insert contains the passages for comprehension. This document consists of 4 printed pages. [Turn over

2 Passage 1. An author writes about the shift in reading culture. 1 What do you read, and why? A few decades ago, these were not urgent questions. Reading was an unremarkable activity, essentially unchanged since the advent of the modern publishing industry in the nineteenth century. In a 2017 article titled ‘Before the Internet’, the writer Emma Rathbone captured the spirit of reading as it used to be: ‘Before the Internet, you could laze around on a couch reading a Roald Dahl paperback, and that would be a legitimate thing to do . No one would ever know you had done it unless you told them. ’ Reading was just reading, and no matter what you chose to read – the newspaper or Great Expectations – you basically did it by moving your eyes across a page in silence. 5 2 Today, the nature of reading has shifted. Plenty of people still enjoy traditional books and periodicals, and there are even readers for whom the networked age has enabled a kind of hyper -literacy; for them, a smartphone is a library in their pocket. For o thers however, the conventional ideal sort of reading – intense, extended, beginning-to-end encounters with carefully crafted texts – has become almost outdated. There is something both diffuse and concentrated about reading now. Readers might start a book on an e-reader and then continue it on the go, via audio narration. Or they might forgo books entirely, spending evenings browsing Google News before drifting down Reddit’s lazy river. On the other hand, the lurking presence of YouTube, Fortnite, Netflix, and t he like ensures that, once we have begun to read, we must consciously choose not to stop. 10 15 20 3 This shift in reading habits has taken decades, and it has been driven by technologies that have been disproportionately adopted by the young. Unsurprisingly, this has led to a greater impact on reading habits for the young compared to other age groups. In 2023, the National Endowment for the Arts reported that, over the preceding decade, the proportion of adults who read at least one book a year had fallen from fifty-five percent to forty-eight percent. That is a striking change, but modest compared to what has happened among teenagers: the National Center for Education Statistics found that, over roughly the same period, the number of thirteen-year-olds who read for fun ‘almost every day’ fell from twenty-seven percent to less than ten percent. 25 30 4 The drop in literacy may not be as alarming as some believe. If we binge -watch Stranger Things instead of reading Stephen King, or listen to self -help podcasts instead of buying self -help books, is that the end of civilisation? There are also reasons to be optimistic about the slide away from books. On some level, declines in traditional reading ar e connected to the exponential increase of information in the digital age through other platforms. Do we really want to return to a time when there was less to read, watch, hear and learn? 35 5 Furthermore, with the advent of A I, what will happen to reading culture? In this future, people will often read by asking for a text to be made shorter and more to- the-point, or to be changed into something different, like a podcast or multi -text report. The people who actually read unabridged books will be rare as who would want to read Homer’s Odyssey in its entirety? One will also no longer have to deliberate on the next book to read when they have AI curations instead. 40

3 Passage 2. Another author presents the benefits of reading. 1 In a media-saturated age characterised by ubiquitous access to digital entertainment ranging from television streaming services to social media platforms, reading endures as an intellectually stimulating activity. Despite the prevalence of these modern diversions, the sustained popularity of literature remains evident; bestselling titles such as Paula Hawkins’ The Girl on the Train continue to achieve impressive sales figures, with over half a million copies sold annually in the United Kingdom alone. 5 2 Studies indicate that engaging in leisure reading for as little as 30 minutes per week can improve self-esteem and bolster confidence through the enhancement of literacy. For young people in particular, regular reading builds vocabulary, strengthens comprehension skills, and contributes to better academic performance across subjects. 10 3 Reading stimulates the imagination and encourages original thinking because it functions as a portal into alternate realities. Although visual media such as film and television provide accessible adaptations of literary works, they do not replicate the unique mental engagement that reading elicits. For example, Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go presents a quiet, haunting dystopia that loses some emotional subtlety in its film version. It is common for readers to imagine scenes and characters in more detail and depth than what is presented in a film adaptation. This is because books allow for a more personalised interpretation of the story, while films offer a predefined visual and auditory experience. 15 4 Beyond the acknowledged cognitive benefits of reading, its impact is both broader and more profound. Reading fiction places us inside other minds and lives, some of which are very different from our own. For instance, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun gives insight into the Nigerian Civil War from deeply human perspectives, something that most of us would never experience in our lifetimes. Although one might acquire factual knowledge about WWII or Victorian social conditions through academic texts, fictional representations, such as Boyne’s The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas or Dickens’ Oliver Twist, convey these realities with an emotional richness that pure historical texts rarely capture. 20 25 5 As such, the many benefits of reading remind us why it continues to matter – even in a digital world. 30

4 Passage 3. This passage describes a young person’s views on reading. 1 Growing up, I often heard teachers and relatives insist that reading was the most valuable way to learn. They spoke of books as if they were the highest form of knowledge, unmatched in depth or insight. Yet the insistence on reading felt like something passed down more out of tradition than necessity. In my experience, meaningful understanding comes from many sources, not just printed pages. 5 2 The rise of podcasts, videos, social media, and other interactive platforms offers ways of learning that are more aligned with how my generation processes information. A short, well-researched documentary can convey complex historical events through visuals, narration, and expert interviews, giving me both the facts and the context in a fraction of the time it takes to read a textbook chapter. Podcasts allow me to hear directly from people in the field, their tone and emphasis adding nuance that text alone cannot capture. 10 3 The skills required to navigate modern media are just as difficult as that of reading. Interpreting the layered symbolism in a film or evaluating competing perspectives in an online debate also requires focus, inference, and critical thinking – skills too often credited solely to reading. 15

VICTORIA JUNIOR COLLEGE JC2 PRELIMINARY EXAMINATION 2025 HIGHER 1