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IGCSE · Cambridge (CIE) · 0408

The Cherry Orchard · choose an edition and read the whole play

Match the play to 2025–2027 Paper 3 · Keep translation wording and character names accurate · Build a four-act evidence record

Cambridge IGCSE World Literature 0408 · SET-2025-4 / SET-2026-4 / SET-2027-4 / 2025-P3-A / 2025-P3-B
Exam scope and assessment notes

0408 preparation for exam year(s) 2025, 2026, 2027. The assessment changes in 2028; follow the component and selected texts for your year. Original commentary and practice on Chekhov’s complete play, using the Julius West translation. Read all four acts in your centre-selected unabridged edition; names and wording can differ between translations. The supplied passages are selected public-domain excerpts, not the whole play or Cambridge examination passages. Alternative interpretations need textual support. Models do not award Cambridge marks or grades. Qualified teacher assessment and full calibrated papers remain unfinished. This sequence is for 2025–2027 Paper 3; The Cherry Orchard is on that cycle’s set list and cannot be used for its Component 1 coursework. It is not a 2028–2030 Paper 3 prose option.

Before you begin

  • Choose 2025, 2026 or 2027 and confirm The Cherry Orchard with your centre. Read the full four-act play, including stage directions, in an unabridged edition. This play is not eligible for 2025–2027 coursework; private candidates cannot enter 0408.

Work on paper. Try each question before revealing help, and explain why your method works.

Quick readiness check

What should support a claim about a literary text?

What you will learn

  • Match the play to 2025–2027 Paper 3
  • Keep translation wording and character names accurate
  • Build a four-act evidence record

Read the selected play, not an extract collection

The official 2025, 2026 and 2027 lists include The Cherry Orchard by Anton Chekhov for Paper 3. This sequence uses Julius West’s complete English translation, linked in Sources. Its cast calls the returning landowner Lubov Andreyevna Ranevsky, the elderly servant Fiers, and the brother Gaev; other editions commonly use Ranevskaya, Firs and Gayev. These are name variants, not extra characters. Quotes must match the edition you actually use. Check your centre’s chosen or nominated edition, since the printed examination extract may use different wording.

A reading route through all four acts

Act One: a May homecoming in the nursery meets an August auction deadline and Lopakhin’s redevelopment proposal. Act Two: conversations outdoors place personal troubles alongside arguments about work, serfdom and change. Act Three: a ball takes place while the auction happens elsewhere; Lopakhin returns as purchaser. Act Four: the emptied nursery receives farewells in October, an unspoken marriage proposal and, after departure, the forgotten Fiers. Read every act before using the summaries as revision. Record what happens, how it is staged, and what it changes.

Prepare the right assessment

For 2025–2027, Paper 3 is closed book: one extract answer and one whole-text essay, 25 marks each in 90 minutes. You may use this play for both sections. It is not eligible for that cycle’s coursework because coursework texts must be outside the Paper 3 list. From 2028, Paper 3 is prose; this sequence does not become a revised Paper 3 option.

Sources for this lesson

Pause and explain

Can a 2026 student use The Cherry Orchard for Component 1 because their Paper 3 choice is another book?

Put the idea to work

Worked example

A student’s edition says Firs while this guide says Fiers. How should the evidence record handle it?

Show the worked solution
  1. Identify the same elderly servant through role and actions.
  2. Use the spelling and exact quotation from the student’s edition; identify West if quoting this guide.

Answer Keep the character identity consistent and label the translation; do not splice quotations from two editions.

Try a topic test

Choose Easy, Normal or Difficult. Save your answers and open worked review after finishing.

Test this topic →

From guided practice to a new situation

Write your answer and reasoning first. Use a hint only if you are stuck. The model solution is for self-checking; your written work is not automatically marked.

1 · Guided

Arrange these events: Lopakhin announces his purchase; the family returns in May; Fiers is left in the locked house; the outdoor debate about change.

Give me a hint

Follow the four acts, not the order of the question.

Compare my reasoning
  1. Homecoming begins Act One; the debate belongs to Act Two.
  2. The purchase is reported in Act Three; the locked house closes Act Four.

Homecoming → outdoor debate → purchase announcement → Fiers left behind.

Look for these in your work

  • Order all four acts
  • Distinguish the auction from the departure
2 · Independent

Your class edition spells the owner Ranevskaya. A quotation from West names Lubov. What should you check?

Give me a hint

Compare cast, speaker and translation.

Compare my reasoning
  1. Ranevskaya/Ranevsky and Lubov refer to the same returning landowner.
  2. Check the quotation’s exact wording and attribute the translation used.

Verify the speaker and translation, then quote one edition accurately or use an accurate unquoted paraphrase.

Look for these in your work

  • Recognise the name variant
  • Avoid a hybrid quotation
3 · Transfer

A 2028 learner adds this play to a Paper 3 prose revision list. Explain the error and the next check.

Give me a hint

The form of the revised paper matters.

Compare my reasoning
  1. The Cherry Orchard is drama, not one of the revised Paper 3 prose choices.
  2. Use the official list for 2028 and the centre’s selection; coursework selection is a separate decision.

Replace the Paper 3 preparation with an eligible selected prose work; do not silently carry forward the old drama list.

Look for these in your work

  • Apply the correct year
  • Separate Paper 3 from coursework

Common mistakes

  • Do not mistake a translation variant for a different character.
  • Do not treat four act summaries as reading the complete play.
Recall without your notes

What can you explain now?

Can a 2026 student use The Cherry Orchard for Component 1 because their Paper 3 choice is another book?

Compare with the explanation

No; the exclusion concerns the whole Paper 3 set list.

Being on the list makes this play ineligible for 2025–2027 coursework, regardless of the student’s chosen Paper 3 text.

After trying it yourself, choose your next review. This is your self-assessment.

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Make it stick

Can a 2026 student use The Cherry Orchard for Component 1 because their Paper 3 choice is another book?

If you needed the solution, close it and solve the problem again from a blank page. A correct answer is stronger when you can explain the reason for each step.

Keep learning World Literature

Course scope and assessment

238 original lessons provide 714 guided, independent and transfer tasks, plus 431 reading-tracker and long-response prompts. Twenty skill and route entries, three year-specific Cherry Orchard entries, two Anowa entries, three Crocodiles entries, one 2027 Little Foxes entry, two year-specific Volume 1 poetry entries, one historical 2025 Volume 2 poetry entry and three year-specific Volume 2 story entries link teaching. Anowa has ten lessons through the Prologue and all three phases, with thirty staged tasks and ten original developed responses. Complete primary reading locators support analysis of the contested community frame, partnership, enslavement, the children, remembered dream, separation and ending. The protected play is linked rather than reproduced; editorial BECE material is not reused. Both eligible 2025–2026 Anowa rows link the whole-play pathway. Twenty-eight lessons teach the Author’s Note and all six country chapters of In the Sea There Are Crocodiles, with eighty-four staged tasks and sixty original developed responses. Four workshops teach passage analysis, whole-book argument, layered voice and retrieval/revision. All three complete 2025–2027 book entries link the whole-book pathway; the existing supplemental route remains available without adding another counted requirement. The public reflowed reading is linked rather than reproduced, with edition limits explicit. Twenty-two Little Foxes lessons teach all three acts for 2027, with sixty-six staged tasks and forty-eight original developed responses. Hospitality, silenced voices, the mill, financial negotiation, the proposed marriage, Horace’s return and refusal, the bonds, Birdie’s disclosure, withheld help, the final bargain and Alexandra’s decision are taught through actual stage directions and dialogue locators. Four workshops develop passage analysis, whole-play argument, stagecraft and corrective retrieval. SET-2027-2 links the full sequence; the existing supplemental route remains available without inflating counted requirements. The protected acting script is linked rather than reproduced; exact centre-edition wording and revisions must be checked. The Cherry Orchard has an 18-lesson whole-text sequence with five actual Julius West excerpts and three argument models. The 2026–2027 poetry option has teaching for all fourteen members, three complete public-domain poems and close-reading, comparison and retrieval workshops. Twenty-four lessons teach all ten 2026–2028 Stories of Ourselves Volume 2 members, with named reading and writing sequences and evidence, passage-context, essay and ten-member retrieval workshops. Two complete public-domain narratives, nineteen actual prose extracts and Katie’s complete twenty-line poem within Besant’s prose story support close reading and whole-story writing. The Shrinking Shoe follows the original 1895 prose and its five sections; the embedded poem is not a Paper 2 set poem. All three eligible ten-story selection rows link the complete pathway. Wodehouse and Woolf use brief quotations and original commentary with complete reading sources; their full texts are not reproduced here. Twelve lessons teach twelve compulsory 2028–2030 Volume 3 poems, with thirty-six staged tasks and twenty-four developed-response prompts. The Dutt and Kingsley excerpts and Cissoko’s exact translation still need verified reading and teaching; full-selection workshops remain unfinished, so all three complete poetry rows remain unlinked. Fourteen lessons teach seven 2029–2030 Volume 3 stories with thirty-five developed-response prompts. Twelve actual older primary excerpts support four stories; Achebe, Desai and Danticat use original commentary with complete primary reading links rather than reproducing their protected texts. A separate partial-member pathway supports The Necklace, The Model Millionaire, Sultana’s Dream, The Interlopers, The Sacrificial Egg, Sale and New York Day Women without linking either complete ten-story row. The three other members and full-selection workshops remain unfinished. Read the full centre-selected works and protected anthology; check edition differences, including Weissenhorn’s older Necklace translation. The historical 2025 poetry pathway teaches all fourteen members through eighteen lessons, fifty-four staged tasks and fifty-one developed-response models. Three complete public-domain poems remain printed with line breaks; eleven protected poems use complete primary reading links and original commentary. Four workshops teach close analysis, whole-poem argument, preparation comparisons and specific retrieval of all fourteen members. The complete SET-2025-5 option links this sequence; the historical supplemental route remains without increasing counted requirements. Archival Cambridge and WJEC papers supply primary poems, not reused questions or later-year assessment rules. Centre-edition differences remain explicit. Forty-six lessons provide original teaching and practice for nine historical 2025 story members: The Doll’s House, The Gold Watch, A Visit, A Walk to the Jetty, In the Mountains, Mrs. Sen’s, Promenade, The Plantation and The Paper Menagerie. Together they provide one hundred and thirty-eight staged tasks and one hundred and one developed-response models. A Visit uses complete primary reading visually checked across printed pages 306–310. Promenade follows the complete seven-page narrative on printed pages 416–422; its four lessons trace bodily control, wordless meetings, the interrupted circuit and changed final walk. Mrs. Sen’s has six lessons through the complete story, with eighteen staged tasks and thirteen developed-response models. Teaching follows the collection scan from its unnumbered opening through printed p.135, with food, letters, recordings, separate journeys and the changed final care arrangement. The Plantation has five lessons, fifteen staged tasks and eleven developed-response models through all four numbered sections, visually checked against printed pages 423–429 through the final dawn bird-call. In the Mountains has seven lessons, twenty-one staged tasks and fifteen developed-response models through the final invitation to eat. The complete publisher transcription supports scene-based reading; automated-text errors and subscription access remain explicit, and original printed pages were not visually verified. A Walk to the Jetty has seven lessons, twenty-one staged tasks and fifteen developed-response models through the complete six-page retype’s final berth. Reader annotations and the appended question are separate; the complete publisher version has wording differences, so exact quotations require the approved edition. The centre edition remains required for exact quotations. The protected stories are linked, not reproduced. The partial member pathway is supplemental; Words and full-selection workshops remain unfinished, so SET-2025-6 stays unlinked. Fifteen year-specific prescribed-work entries remain unfinished; complete centre-selected coursework reading also needs substantive text-specific teaching. The 51-entry map is a StudyForA preparation map, not official numbered syllabus sections or a percentage of student mastery. Written practice is self-checked and is not officially marked. Full timed papers and qualified literature-teacher assessment remain unfinished. Fictional exercises are labelled separately from actual excerpts; alternative well-supported readings can be valid. Centre-authenticated coursework and Cambridge moderation are separate from self-check practice.

StudyForA · Learn with understanding

Original teaching content and links to official sources. Check your exam year and qualification before using a resource.