Mark Scheme

Both questions are marked out of 30 using the levels below. Reward close, personal response to the text and precise analysis of the writer's methods, always anchored in evidence. There is no single "correct" reading; credit any interpretation that is supported from the text.

Level 6 (26–30): Perceptive, sophisticated analysis; a convergent, exploratory response; sensitive analysis of language, structure and form with precise, well-integrated references; confident understanding of writers' methods and their effects. Level 5 (21–25): Thoughtful, developed analysis; a well-structured response with apt references; clear analysis of methods and effects. Level 4 (16–20): Clear understanding; a coherent response with relevant references; clear identification of methods with some analysis of effect. Level 3 (11–15): Some understanding; a mostly relevant response with some supporting references; comments on methods rather than analysis. Level 2 (6–10): A little understanding; a general response with occasional reference; awareness of but little comment on methods. Level 1 (1–5): Simple, limited comments; few or no references; little awareness of methods.

Indicative content — Question 1 ("The Kept Light")

Candidates might explore:

• The ritual as devotion, not superstition: the candle is "not for the living" but to stop the dead losing "their way"; the grandmother "does not pray", so the flame itself becomes her faith/act of love.
• Structure as a journey of understanding: the speaker moves from dismissal ("I used to think the habit foolish") to inheritance ("Now I stand where she once stood") — the poem turns on this shift; the final stanza reframes the ritual as defiance.
• Language: the diminishing tricolon "a stubbornness, a wick, a waste" (dismissive, with harsh alliteration) contrasted with the tender verbs "strike... cup the blaze"; personification of darkness having "the last word".
• Form: regular quatrains and gentle rhyme mirror the steadiness of the nightly habit; the "small flame leans and steadies" enacts the persistence the poem admires.
• The final meaning: the ritual is redefined not as "hope that someone nears" but as "refusing to let darkness / have the last word" — grief transformed into quiet resistance. Credit personal response to this turn.

Indicative content — Question 2 ("The Weighing Room")

Candidates might explore:

• Character: Mr Attah's pride, integrity and stubbornness; his identity is bound to the shop ("thirty-one years") and the scales that "had never once been wrong".
• The scales as symbol: honesty and self-worth; refusing to "lean his thumb upon the brass" equates lowering prices with cheating/dishonesty — he will not compromise his principles even to survive.
• Language of decline: the simile of customers visiting "someone who is unwell"; the empty till and watching "nobody come in" for "the length of a whole song" convey slow, dignified defeat.
• What cannot be weighed: the extract's emotional core — "things... that did not go on the scales at all: the knowing of a name, the reaching-down of a tin" — the human value of the shop against the supermarket's efficiency.
• Structure: movement from proud routine (polishing) → the threat (supermarket) → the refusal (the son's plea) → the unspoken feeling; the repeated final image of polishing and waiting for "the door" frames his quiet, futile hope.
• The gap between father and son: the son's practical "just match them" against the father's inarticulate values ("he did not have the words for it") — credit response to this tension.

Sample Answers with Examiner Commentary

Question 1 — Sample Answers

Grade A response (extract). "At first the poem presents the grandmother's nightly ritual as something the speaker cannot understand. The candle is set for 'no one she waits for', and 'the boats stopped sailing when I was three', so the reader, like the young speaker, senses the futility of the habit. The poet deepens this strangeness with the line 'she watches it, and does not pray' — the grandmother has a faith, but it is wordless; the flame itself has replaced prayer, which makes her devotion both moving and a little mysterious.

The turning point of the poem is structural. The speaker admits, 'I used to think the habit foolish — / a stubbornness, a wick, a waste', where the harsh, dismissive tricolon and the alliteration of 'wick' and 'waste' capture a younger self's impatience. But the very next stanza pivots on 'Now I stand where she once stood', and the tender, deliberate verbs 'strike the match, and cup the blaze' show the speaker physically taking on the ritual and, with it, its meaning.

By the final stanza the poet redefines the whole poem. The keeping of the light is 'not the hope that someone nears, / but the refusing to let darkness / have the last word'. Here darkness is personified as something that could 'win', and the ritual becomes an act of quiet defiance against grief and death rather than mere superstition. My response shifts with the speaker's: what seemed foolish is revealed as a small, stubborn form of love, and the regular quatrains and steady rhyme throughout mirror exactly the persistence the poem comes to admire."

Mark: 28/30 (Level 6). Examiner commentary: A perceptive, exploratory response that tracks the poem's central movement — from the speaker's dismissal to their understanding — and roots every point in precise textual detail. The candidate analyses method and effect together (the dismissive tricolon and alliteration; the tender verbs at the turn; the personification of darkness) rather than merely spotting features, and links form to meaning by noting how the regular quatrains mirror the ritual's steadiness. The genuinely personal engagement in the final sentence ('what seemed foolish is revealed as... love') lifts it to the top band.

Grade C response (extract). "The poem is about a grandmother who puts a candle in the window every night for people who have died. The speaker used to think it was 'foolish' and calls it 'a stubbornness, a wick, a waste', which shows he thought it was pointless. But then he changes his mind and does it himself, saying 'Now I stand where she once stood'. At the end he understands it is about 'refusing to let darkness have the last word', so it is really about not giving up hope. The poet uses quatrains and rhyme which makes it flow nicely and easy to read."

Mark: 13/30 (Level 3). Examiner commentary: The candidate understands the poem's basic movement — the change from thinking the ritual foolish to understanding it — and selects some relevant quotations. However, the references are explained rather than analysed: the answer says the ritual is 'pointless' and that the ending is about 'not giving up hope' without exploring how the language creates these effects (for example, why the tricolon 'a stubbornness, a wick, a waste' sounds dismissive, or how darkness is personified). The comment on form is generic ('flow nicely'). To reach Level 4–5, each point needs to analyse the effect of a specific method, not just identify it.

Question 2 — Sample Answers

Grade A response (extract). "The writer presents Mr Attah as a man whose entire identity is bound up in his shop and, above all, in the brass scales that 'had never once been wrong'. The scales become a symbol of his honesty: the detail that he refuses to 'lean his thumb upon the brass' equates lowering his prices with cheating a customer, showing that for him, integrity is not negotiable even when it is ruining him. His morning ritual of polishing the pans until 'the metal threw back a warped little version of his own face' subtly suggests that the scales reflect the man himself — his self-worth is literally mirrored in them.

The writer structures the extract as a slow, dignified decline. The simile that customers now visit 'the way people visit someone who is unwell' is devastating, because it shows Mr Attah being pitied, and the writer tells us this 'wounded him more than the empty till' — his pride hurts more than his poverty. The emotional heart of the passage is the list of things that 'did not go on the scales at all: the knowing of a name, the reaching-down of a tin', which sets the human value of his shop against the impersonal efficiency of the supermarket.

Finally, the gap between Mr Attah and his son deepens our sense of his character. The son's practical plea, 'Just match them, Dad', is met with silence because the father 'did not have the words for it'. This inarticulacy is poignant: he feels the value of what he does deeply but cannot defend it in the language of business, and so the extract ends where it began, with him polishing the pans and waiting for 'the door' that may never open."

Mark: 27/30 (Level 6). Examiner commentary: A sophisticated, well-integrated response that reads the scales symbolically and sustains that reading across the answer. The candidate analyses specific methods and their effects — the mirror detail suggesting self-worth, the 'unwell' simile conveying pity, the list of things that cannot be weighed — and tracks the extract's structure as a 'dignified decline'. The exploration of the father–son gap and the return to the opening image shows a perceptive grasp of structure and an authentic personal response, securing the top band.

Grade C response (extract). "Mr Attah owns a grocery shop and has done for thirty-one years. He really cares about it and cleans his scales every morning. The writer shows he is honest because he won't lower his prices even though the supermarket is taking his customers and his son tells him to. There is a good quote where it says customers visit 'the way people visit someone who is unwell' which shows the shop is dying. He thinks there are things that don't 'go on the scales' like knowing people's names. This shows he cares about his customers more than money."

Mark: 14/30 (Level 3). Examiner commentary: A clear, relevant response that understands Mr Attah's honesty and the shop's decline, and selects two effective quotations. The weakness is that methods are identified but not analysed: the 'unwell' simile is quoted and glossed as 'the shop is dying' without exploring the idea of pity, and the powerful image of things that cannot be weighed is noted but not developed into an analysis of the scales as a symbol. Turning these observations into analysis of how the writer creates the effect — and why the scales matter symbolically — would move the answer into Level 4–5.