Mark Scheme (Results)

January 2022

Pearson Edexcel International GCSE

in English Language (4EA1)
Paper 02R: Poetry and Prose Texts and
Imaginative Writing
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January 2022
Question Paper Log Number P66373A
Publications Code 4EA1_02R_2201_MS
All the material in this publication is copyright
© Pearson Education Ltd 2022

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 General Marking Guidance
• All candidates must receive the same treatment. Examiners must mark the
last candidate in exactly the same way as they mark the first.
• Mark schemes should be applied positively. Candidates must be rewarded
for what they have shown they can do rather than penalised for omissions.
• Examiners should mark according to the mark scheme - not according to
their perception of where the grade boundaries may lie.
• All the marks on the mark scheme are designed to be awarded. Examiners
should always award full marks if deserved, i.e. if the answer matches the
mark scheme. Examiners should also be prepared to award zero marks if
the candidate’s response is not worthy of credit according to the mark
scheme.
• Where some judgement is required, mark schemes will provide the
principles by which marks will be awarded and exemplification/indicative
content will not be exhaustive.
• When examiners are in doubt regarding the application of the mark scheme
to a candidate’s response, a senior examiner must be consulted before a
mark is given.
• Crossed out work should be marked unless the candidate has replaced it
with an alternative response.

Specific Marking Guidance

When deciding how to reward an answer, examiners should consult both the
indicative content and the associated marking grid(s). When using a levels-based
mark scheme, the ‘best fit’ approach should be used.
• Examiners should first decide which descriptor most closely matches the
answer and place it in that level.
• The mark awarded within the level will be decided based on the quality of
the answer and will be modified according to how securely all bullet points
are displayed at that level.
• Indicative content is exactly that – they are factual points that candidates
are likely to use to construct their answer.
• It is possible for an answer to be constructed without mentioning some or
all of these points, as long as they provide alternative responses to the
indicative content that fulfils the requirements of the question. It is the
examiner’s responsibility to apply their professional judgement to the
candidate’s response in determining if the answer fulfils the requirements
of the question.

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AO1 Read and understand a variety of texts, selecting and interpreting
information, ideas and perspectives.
AO2 Understand and analyse how writers use linguistic and structural
devices to achieve their effects.
AO4 Communicate effectively and imaginatively, adapting form, tone and
register of writing for specific purposes and audiences.
AO5 Write clearly, using a range of vocabulary and sentence structures,
with appropriate paragraphing and accurate spelling, grammar and
punctuation.

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 SECTION A: Reading

Question Indicative content

Number
1 Reward responses that explain how the writer presents war.

Responses may include the following points about the impact of war on
Sarajevo and its people:

• the people of Sarajevo have to wait for simple essentials like gas: ‘After
the hours that Sarajevans pass’
• there is a suggestion that there is little left in the way of transport
following war, as people have to carry large items in any (unusual) way
they are able to: ‘they wheel home in prams’
• food is described as limited, showing the impact that war has had on
their lives: ‘queuing for the precious meagre grams/of bread they’re
rationed to each day’
• as an impact of war the people are described as ‘struggling’, and they
have to carry essentials like water ‘up sometimes eleven flights/of stairs’
• the poet seems surprised that people may feel positive or motivated to
go out, given such difficult circumstances: ‘then you’d think that the
nights/of Sarajevo would be totally devoid/of people walking streets’,
‘but tonight in Sarajevo that’s just not the case’
• the suggestion that the streets are unwelcoming, especially at night,
shows how people potentially do not want to go out ‘walking streets Serb
shells destroyed’ as they have such a daily struggle and there is no
electricity
• the poet emphasises the distinctions between people, which become
even more significant in times of war: ‘impossible to mark/as Muslim,
Serb or Croat’, ‘who/calls bread hjleb or hleb or calls it kruh’
• description is used to show how people live daily with the detritus of
war: ‘they stand/on two shell scars’
• the poet progresses from describing the everyday actions of the people
to later describing how war affected these when ‘blood-dunked crusts of
shredded bread/lay on the pavement with the broken dead’, the
innocent, everyday mention of ‘bread’ emphasising the horror of this
massacre
• the Sarajevans live with the damage done by war: ‘in holes made by the
mortar’, ‘death-deep, death-dark wells’, ‘AID flour sacks refilled with
sand’
• there is the continued threat of violence suggested in ‘ideally bright and
clear for bomber’s eye’
• the poet’s mention of the ‘curfew’ shows that the Sarajevan people have
little freedom.

Responses may include the following points about the the ways young
people behave:

• the poet describes how the ‘young’ people of Sarajevo are relaxed and
free at night as they ‘go walking at a stroller’s pace’ with ‘stroller’s
stride’
• there is a sense that there is equality between the young people at night
as the darkness makes it ‘impossible to mark/as Muslim, Serb or Croat
in such dark’

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• the poet also explores how the dark streets at night make all language
barriers obsolete: ‘In unlit streets you can’t distinguish who/calls bread
hjleb or hleb or calls it kruh’
• there is a sense that the young people of the city are peaceful and
uninterested in violence or war: ‘no torches guide them but they don’t
collide’
• the young people of Sarajevo are shown to be typical of any young
people who engage in ‘flirtatious ploys’
• the setting, which is presented as dark and dangerous to others, is
presented as quite sensuous and innocent to the young people: they
meet ‘In unlit streets’ in ‘the evening air’
• the poet suggests that the couple are symbolic of any hopeful young
couple anywhere in the world by referring to them as ‘a girl’s dark
shape…fancied by a boy’s’ and ‘The dark boy shape leads dark girl shape
away’
• there is a sense of experienced innocence in the description of the ‘tone
of voice and match-flare test’: innocence in the ‘tender’ voices and
experience in the ‘match or lighter to a cigarette’; this could suggest
what they have experienced as a result of war
• the poet’s description of the couple shows that relationships can flourish
in a negative environment: he describes how they have ‘certainly
progressed’ and how ‘he’s about, I think, to take her hand’
• the description of how the boy is about to ‘lead her away from where
they stand’ suggests tenderness as he moves her away from the scene
of the massacre
• the poet ironically suggests a romantic setting for the relationship: ‘the
Sarajevo star-filled evening sky’, ‘a candlelit café’
• there is a sense of romance and intimacy in the sharing of ‘one coffee’,
although this is ironic as it links back to the people of Sarajevo having
very little
• the setting is shown to be damaged and weather-beaten, with the ‘holes
made by the mortar’ and the ‘rain that’s poured down half the day’, but
the relationship is almost presented as a symbol of hope as when the
boy and girl meet ‘now even the smallest clouds have cleared away’
• the innocence of the relationship is juxtaposed with the horror of the
massacre: ‘he holds her hand’.

Responses may include the following points about the use of language
and structure:

• the preposition ‘After’ at the start of the poem suggests the people of
Sarajevo having to do something as a consequence of something else
(i.e. war)
• closed rhyming couplets are used to demonstrate a sense of immediacy
for the people and hurried urgency in the poem (AABB rhyme scheme),
suggesting ongoing threat of danger
• in the first stanza the verbs in progressive tense suggest a sense of
continued and ongoing difficulty for the Sarajevan people: ‘queuing’,
‘dodging’, ‘struggling’
• there are also verbs in past tense throughout the poem which show the
negative impact of the events on the people: ‘rationed’, ‘destroyed’,
‘massacred’, ‘splintered’
• the poet describes the lifestyle of the people as limited or difficult,
suggesting an imposed lifestyle that the people have not chosen:

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 ‘queuing’, ‘empty’, ‘meagre’, ‘rationed’, ‘devoid’, ‘curfew’, ‘AID flour
sacks’
• enjambement is used in the first stanza to create a continuum in the
poem, suggesting the daily struggle is regular and continuing for the
people of Sarajevo
• peaceful, gentle language is used later in the poem to demonstrate a
contrast with the everyday events for the people of Sarajevo and young
people: ‘The young go walking at a stroller’s pace’, ‘All take the evening
air with stroller’s stride’
• adverbs suggest certainty of the experience of the people: ‘totally’,
‘certainly’, ‘ideally’; although the use of ‘ideally’ is ironic as it links to the
danger implied in the ‘bomber’s eye’
• the repetition of ‘Serb’ emphasises to the reader that the experiences of
the people in Sarajevo are impacted by the actions of the Bosnian Serbs
• the line break after ‘that’s just not the case –’ creates a sense of
unexpected actions by the people, almost like a ‘cliffhanger’
• imagery of darkness suggests that war creates dark times: ‘black shapes
impossible to mark’, ‘such dark’, ‘unlit streets’, ‘no torches guide them’,
‘dark shape’, ‘dark boy shape leads dark girl shape away’
• these images are also used by the poet to suggest a sense of equality for
people and unity of religion, race and language as the people become
indistinguishable because of the dark: ‘impossible to mark/as Muslim,
Serb or Croat in such dark’, ‘you can’t distinguish who/calls bread hjleb
or hleb or calls it kruh’, contrasting with the divisive nature of war
• the poet uses gentle, romantic language to suggest an innocence in the
relationship between the young people: ‘flirtatious’, ‘fancied’, ‘tender’,
‘take her hand’, ‘holds her hand’, ‘star-filled evening sky’; this is in
contrast to the effects of war on the people
• imagery of death and destruction creates a sense of horror in what is
happening and has happened to the people: ‘dodging snipers’, ‘Serb
shells destroyed’, ‘two shell scars’, ‘Serb mortars massacred the
breadshop queue’, ‘blood-dunked crusts of shredded bread’, ‘broken
dead’, ‘bomber’s eye’, ‘Serb mortar shells’
• the poet also distances the people of Sarajevo from the causes of it,
almost personifying the weapons of war in order to place emphasis on
the people he is seeing, not the people who bomb or shoot them: ‘Serb
shells destroyed’, ‘Serb mortars massacred’, ‘holes made by the
mortar/that caused the massacre’, ‘by Serb mortar shells’. The ultimate
causes of damage are the people who use the weapons, but the poet
makes the focus on the people of the city
• hyphenated descriptions create powerful images of people and their
situation, and could suggest things joined together or ‘patched’: ‘blood-
dunked’, ‘star-filled’, ‘rain-full’, ‘shell-holes’, ‘death-deep’, death-dark’
• the use of sibilance throughout the poem creates a sense of unity and
emphasis on the experiences of the people, for example in the first
stanza, ‘stroller’s stride’, ‘shows by its signals’, ‘shell scars’, ‘Sarajevo
star-filled evening sky’, ‘splintered’, ‘sprinkled’, ‘splashed’
• the final line of the poem demonstrates the need for help from others
and how the threat of violence is still there, as they have ‘AID flour
sacks refilled with sand’.

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Level Mark AO1 Read and understand a variety of texts, selecting and
interpreting information, ideas and perspectives. (12
marks)
AO2 Understand and analyse how writers use linguistic and
structural devices to achieve their effects. (18 marks)
0 No rewardable material.
Level 1 1-6 • Basic understanding of the text.
• Selection and interpretation of information/ideas/
perspectives is limited.
• Basic identification and little understanding of the language
and/or structure used by writers to achieve effects.
• The use of references is limited.
Level 2 7–12 • Some understanding of the text.
• Selection and interpretation of information/ideas/
perspectives is valid, but not developed.
• Some understanding of and comment on language and
structure and how these are used by writers to achieve
effects, including use of vocabulary.
• The selection of references is valid, but not developed.
Level 3 13–18 • Sound understanding of the text.
• Selection and interpretation of information/ideas/
perspectives is appropriate and relevant to the points being
made.
• Clear understanding and explanation of language and
structure and how these are used by writers to achieve
effects, including use of vocabulary and sentence structure.
• The selection of references is appropriate and relevant to the
points being made.
Level 4 19–24 • Sustained understanding of the text.
• Selection and interpretation of information/ideas/
perspectives is appropriate, detailed and fully supports the
points being made.
• Thorough understanding and exploration of language and
structure and how these are used by writers to achieve
effects, including use of vocabulary, sentence structure and
other language features.
• The selection of references is detailed, appropriate and fully
supports the points being made.
Level 5 25–30 • Perceptive understanding of the text.
• Selection and interpretation of information/ideas/
perspectives is apt and is persuasive in clarifying the points
being made.
• Perceptive understanding and analysis of language and
structure and how these are used by writers to achieve
effects, including use of vocabulary, sentence structure and
other language features.
• The selection of references is discriminating and clarifies the
points being made.

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 Section B: Imaginative Writing

Refer to the writing assessment grids at the end of this section when
marking Questions 2, 3 and 4.
Question Indicative content
Number
2 Purpose: to write a real or imagined piece about a time a person had
an exciting experience. This may involve a range of approaches,
including: description, anecdote, speech, narrative, literary techniques.

Audience: the writing is for a general readership. Candidates can

choose to write for an audience of adults or young people.

Form: the response may be narrative, descriptive or a monologue.

There should be clear organisation and structure with an introduction,
development of points and a conclusion. Some candidates may
intentionally adapt their language and style to their audience by using,
for example, a more informal or colloquial approach. Candidates may
introduce some literary elements.

Responses may:
• use the poem as inspiration
• explain what the experience was, why it was exciting and how
the person and others felt about it
• describe ideas, events, settings and characters
• use appropriate techniques for creative writing: vocabulary,
imagery, language techniques
• use a voice that attempts to make the piece interesting and/or
believable to the chosen audience
• be written in a register and style appropriate for the chosen
form, which may include colloquial elements, dialogue within
description or narrative, or a sustained single voice in a
monologue.

The best-fit approach

An answer may not always satisfy every one of the assessment criteria
for a particular level in order to receive a mark within that level range,
since on individual criteria the answer may meet the descriptor for a
higher or lower mark range. The best-fit approach should be used to
determine the mark which corresponds most closely to the overall
quality of the response.

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Question Indicative content
Number
3 Purpose: to write a real or imagined story with the title ‘The Dark
City’. This may involve a range of approaches, including: description,
anecdote, speech, literary techniques.

Audience: the writing is for a general readership. Candidates can

choose to write for an audience of adults or young people.

Form: the response may be narrative, descriptive or a monologue.

There should be clear organisation and structure with an introduction,
development of points and a conclusion. Some candidates may
intentionally adapt their language and style to their audience by using,
for example, a more informal or colloquial approach. Candidates may
introduce some literary elements.

Responses may:
• describe the city: the location, people living or visiting there, the
buildings, the culture and/or history
• explain why it was dark, literally or metaphorically, for example:
a power cut, overcast weather, a curfew, a sad or forgotten place
or a dangerous place
• describe ideas, events, settings and characters
• use appropriate techniques for creative writing: vocabulary,
imagery, language techniques
• use a voice that attempts to make the piece interesting and/or
believable to the chosen audience
• be written in a register and style appropriate for the chosen
form, which may include colloquial elements, dialogue within
description or narrative, or a sustained single voice in a
monologue.

The best-fit approach

An answer may not always satisfy every one of the assessment criteria
for a particular level in order to receive a mark within that level range,
since on individual criteria the answer may meet the descriptor for a
higher or lower mark range. The best-fit approach should be used to
determine the mark which corresponds most closely to the overall
quality of the response.

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Question Indicative content
Number
4 Purpose: to write a real or imagined story that starts ‘Was it really
him?’ This may involve a range of approaches, including: description,
anecdote, speech, literary techniques.

Audience: the writing is for a general readership. Candidates can

choose to write for an audience of adults or young people.

Form: the response may be narrative, descriptive or a monologue.

There should be clear organisation and structure with an introduction,
development of points and a conclusion. Some candidates may
intentionally adapt their language and style to their audience by using,
for example, a more informal or colloquial approach. Candidates may
introduce some literary elements.

Responses may:
• use the images to inspire writing
• create a character and a scenario about something or someone
• describe ideas, events, settings and characters
• use appropriate techniques for creative writing: vocabulary,
imagery, language techniques
• use a voice that attempts to make the piece interesting and/or
believable to the chosen audience
• be written in a register and style appropriate for the chosen
form, which may include colloquial elements, dialogue within
description or narrative, or a sustained single voice in a
monologue.

The best-fit approach

An answer may not always satisfy every one of the assessment criteria
for a particular level in order to receive a mark within that level range,
since on individual criteria the answer may meet the descriptor for a
higher or lower mark range. The best-fit approach should be used to
determine the mark which corresponds most closely to the overall
quality of the response.

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 Writing assessment grids for Questions 2, 3 and 4

Level Mark AO4 Communicate effectively and imaginatively, adapting form, tone
and register of writing for specific purposes and audiences.
0 No rewardable material.
Level 1 1-3 • Communication is at a basic level, and limited in clarity.
• Little awareness is shown of the purpose of the writing and the
intended reader.
• Little awareness of form, tone and register.
Level 2 4–7 • Communicates in a broadly appropriate way.
• Shows some grasp of the purpose and of the expectations/
requirements of the intended reader.
• Straightforward use of form, tone and register.
Level 3 8-11 • Communicates clearly.
• Shows a clear sense of purpose and understanding of the
expectations/requirements of the intended reader.
• Appropriate use of form, tone and register.

Level 4 12–15 • Communicates successfully.

• A secure realisation of purpose and the
expectations/requirements of the intended reader.
• Effective use of form, tone and register.

Level 5 16–18 • Communication is perceptive and subtle.

• Task is sharply focused on purpose and the expectations/
requirements of the intended reader.
• Sophisticated use of form, tone and register.

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Level Mark AO5 Write clearly, using a range of vocabulary and sentence
structures, with appropriate paragraphing and accurate spelling,
grammar and punctuation.
0 No rewardable material.
Level 1 1-2 • Expresses information and ideas, with limited use of structural
and grammatical features.
• Uses basic vocabulary, often misspelt.
• Uses punctuation with basic control, creating undeveloped, often
repetitive, sentence structures.
Level 2 3–4 • Expresses and orders information and ideas; uses paragraphs and
a range of structural and grammatical features.
• Uses some correctly spelt vocabulary, e.g. words with regular
patterns such as prefixes, suffixes, double consonants.
• Uses punctuation with some control, creating a range of sentence
structures, including coordination and subordination.
Level 3 5-7 • Develops and connects appropriate information and ideas;
structural and grammatical features and paragraphing make the
meaning clear.
• Uses a varied vocabulary and spells words containing irregular
patterns correctly.
• Uses accurate and varied punctuation, adapting sentence
structures as appropriate.
Level 4 8–10 • Manages information and ideas, with structural and grammatical
features used cohesively and deliberately across the text.
• Uses a wide, selective vocabulary with only occasional spelling
errors.
• Positions a range of punctuation for clarity, managing sentence
structures for deliberate effect.
Level 5 11–12 • Manipulates complex ideas, utilising a range of structural and
grammatical features to support coherence and cohesion.
• Uses extensive vocabulary strategically; rare spelling errors do
not detract from overall meaning.
• Punctuates writing with accuracy to aid emphasis and precision,
using a range of sentence structures accurately and selectively to
achieve particular effects.

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