Three and Four: Adam's return and what follows — OCR GCSE English Literature J352
OCR GCSE English Literature · J352
Three and Four: Adam's return and what follows
The plot, part by part
What you need to know
Mark's news that Adam has been found, Leah packed to run away while Phil makes a waffle, the group in the wood with Adam, alive, confused and living wild, Phil's decision that he cannot come back and Leah's protest,
Leah's silent exit as Phil calls after her, Jan and Mark's news that she has gone, and Richard in the field telling a silent Phil what has become of everyone.
Key quotations: 'Cathy found him in the woods', 'running away', 'a lot, lot bigger', 'I admire you so much', 'starts to butter his waffle', 'as though they are aliens', 'What's more important', 'He can't come back', 'This is insane', 'She's gone', 'He's joined the Jesus army', 'Doesn't that bother you'.
Structure: the climax and its aftermath, as the last ensemble scene in the wood brings Adam back only for Phil to decide his fate, a reversal in the field where Leah says nothing and Phil calls after her, and a final section of just two scenes.
Richard's news of what has become of everyone, from John Tate and Brian to Cathy 'running things', and an ending with no adults, no confession and no punishment.
OCR's 2024 comparison extract, Leah about to leave and asking about something 'a lot, lot bigger' while Phil eats, and Richard's last scene as a moment of disagreement with a Phil who will not 'come down'.
Quotations are short phrases of a few words, the way you would learn them for a closed-book exam.
OCR's question on this text has two parts on the same text. Part (a), 20 marks, compares a printed extract from it with an unseen extract of the same genre, and weights your response (AO1) and context (AO3) twice as heavily as language analysis (AO2), where context means the social and cultural situations you can infer from the two extracts and their introductions; an answer on only one of the two extracts cannot go above Level 3. Part (b), 20 marks, explores another moment in the same text from memory, with response and analysis of language, form and structure (AO1 and AO2) equally weighted and no marks for context. Each worked paragraph and exam tip is labelled with the part it is for.
