Crocodiles · Athens, conditional help and temporary work
Explain the difference between appearing to belong and having a home · Read hunger and pride as a conflict within dependence · Analyse temporary opportunity beside continuing vulnerability
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 StudyForA teaching for the 2025–2027 Paper 3 option In the Sea There Are Crocodiles, by Fabio Geda, translated by Howard Curtis. Twenty-eight lessons teach the Author’s Note and all six country chapters, with passage, whole-book essay, voice and retrieval workshops. All three complete 2025–2027 selected-work entries link this whole-book teaching pathway. Reading completion, qualified teacher assessment and calibrated full papers are not certified by these self-review exercises. Read the entire unabridged centre-selected book; lessons and models do not replace it. The public reader is a reflowed 133-page version; its page numbers are locators, not certified centre-edition pagination. Use your copy for exact wording, typography and paragraph breaks. The protected book is linked, not reproduced here. Questions and models are original self-review and do not award Cambridge marks or grades. Other well-supported readings can be valid. Qualified literature-teacher review and calibrated full papers remain unfinished. In 2025–2027, Paper 3 is closed book: 90 minutes, one extract response and one whole-text essay, 25 marks each. This book is not a 2028–2030 Paper 3 option. It is excluded from 2025–2027 coursework because it is on those years’ Paper 3 lists; private candidates cannot enter 0408. The lessons analyse a narrative of past experience, not present-day travel, legal or personal-safety advice.
Before you begin
- Read the Author’s Note and the named chapter scenes in the centre’s complete Howard Curtis translation. Use the linked reader’s text version if needed; its page numbering differs from print editions.
- Distinguish the experiencing child, the later narrating Enaiat, Fabio’s conversational questions and the authorial/translation process. Reconstructed dialogue is not a certified recording.
- Read all six country chapters before the whole-book workshops. Teaching availability does not certify individual reading, mastery or an official assessment result.
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
- Explain the difference between appearing to belong and having a home
- Read hunger and pride as a conflict within dependence
- Analyse temporary opportunity beside continuing vulnerability
Crocodiles · useful and still without a home
- Read the named scenes in the complete centre-selected book or the linked public reading before answering. The protected book is not reproduced here.
- Reader page numbers identify this web version only. Use chapter and scene locators when working with another edition.
- Write your own developed response before opening the model. Use brief accurate evidence from your copy; paraphrase plainly when exact wording is uncertain.
Original whole-book teaching and self-review, not official Cambridge questions, marks, coursework or a calibrated full paper. The lessons and models do not replace reading the complete centre-selected book or qualified assessment.
Appearance, hunger and shelter
Read arrival in Athens, the coffee, park and church meals, reader pp.107–110.
1. How do ordinary objects and actions expose the boys’ unsettled position in Athens?
Compare after trying
The coffee looks like something a tourist holds, but the boys’ dislike of it exposes the gap between performing a role and inhabiting its security. The cardboard bedding similarly changes the meaning of the park and the expected hospitality.
At the meal, hunger defeats a proud refusal and produces a performance of reading. These small actions give dependence a bodily and social form. I see neither complete helplessness nor complete independence: the boys improvise within needs they cannot simply choose away.
Why this response fits
- Analyse particular objects and actions.
- Connect apparent belonging with the unmet material conditions.
A city’s useful workers
Read the Olympic work, night-time protection and the end of employment, reader pp.110–111.
1. How does the Olympic episode combine opportunity with continuing insecurity?
Compare after trying
Enaiat values the daily wage and the work suited to his age, so the opportunity must not be erased by a wholly negative judgement. Yet the need for workers belongs to preparation for a public event, not a lasting guarantee.
The park remains the place he sleeps, and the protective response to the man approaching Jamal shows why companionship matters there. When the Games begin, employment stops. I find the contrast between public celebration and precarious living more persuasive because the story retains the genuine earnings as well as the limit.
Why this response fits
- Retain the work’s specific gains.
- Connect temporary demand with continuing housing and personal vulnerability.
A prop cannot supply the security it imitates
In Athens, other arrivals have people waiting for them, while Enaiat and Jamal do not know where to go. Holding an unwanted coffee becomes a way to look like a tourist; the small performance answers visibility without resolving their situation. Football leads them to Afghan boys whose apparent home turns out to be cardboard in a park. Companionship is real, but neither shared language nor play guarantees housing. The discovery changes what hospitality can mean when the hoped-for hosts are themselves exposed. Do not turn the narrator’s historical suggestions about finding help into present-day instructions for a child in danger.
Help can impose a condition on someone who needs it
The church meals differ. At one, Enaiat understands access to food as conditional on reading a Bible page. His initial proud refusal gives way to hunger and a performance of reading. The scene is neither a conversion nor proof that every act of religious charity has the same terms. It makes the body’s need interrupt a claim of complete independence. A later warning about predatory attention becomes concrete when a man approaches Jamal at night. The boys seek the protection of older companions. Keep the scene focused on their vulnerability and protective relationships, without inventing a further assault or a universal judgement about the city.
Useful workers are not automatically secure residents
The approaching 2004 Olympics create paid work which Enaiat values highly. He describes tasks allocated by age and daily payment, so it is inaccurate to call this period wholly unpaid or identical to the earlier samavat arrangement. The contrast with public spectacle also exposes dependence on temporary demand. The narrator’s explanation of official tolerance is qualified as his judgement, not a documented account of every official’s motives. Once the Games begin, the work stops and uncertainty returns. Earnings enable another decision to leave, but they have not changed the park into a stable home or guaranteed a continuing place in the city.
Sources for this lesson
- Cambridge World Literature 0408 · 2025–2027 · Version 2
- Cambridge 0408 · revised 2025–2027 component weightings
- Cambridge World Literature 0408 · 2028–2030 · Version 1
- Geda · In the Sea There Are Crocodiles · Howard Curtis translation · public 133-page reading and text version
- Howard Curtis · first-person account of translating Geda’s book · English PEN
- In the Sea There Are Crocodiles · publisher’s edition and translator record · Penguin
Pause and explain
Does the Bible-reading episode establish that Enaiat converts his religion to obtain food?
Worked example
Improve “Olympic work solves his life in Athens permanently”.
Show the worked solution
- He values the work and wages.
- The work ends when the Games begin, while stable housing remains absent.
Answer A real opportunity can be useful and still temporary.
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.
What does the unwanted coffee allow the boys to perform?
Give me a hint
Distinguish appearance from a material condition.
Compare my reasoning
- They copy the tourists’ visible habits.
- They still have no welcoming household or settled plan.
The prop offers a momentary social disguise rather than actual security.
Look for these in your work
- Use the concrete prop
- Explain the limitation
How does hunger alter the statement of pride?
Give me a hint
Trace the bodily interruption.
Compare my reasoning
- He initially refuses the condition.
- His hunger forces a change in behaviour.
Dependence becomes felt through a conflict inside the same person, rather than a simple contrast between bravery and weakness.
Look for these in your work
- Trace the change
- Avoid an invented conversion
Compare Olympic work with an earlier workplace.
Give me a hint
Use payment and duration rather than calling every job identical.
Compare my reasoning
- The samavat initially offers subsistence without wages.
- Athens offers valued pay for work that later stops.
Different arrangements produce different gains, while neither by itself guarantees belonging.
Look for these in your work
- Use a precise comparison
- Retain the temporary limit
Common mistakes
- Do not make the reported motive for official tolerance a verified universal policy.
- Do not invent a later assault on Jamal after the older boys intervene.
What can you explain now?
Does the Bible-reading episode establish that Enaiat converts his religion to obtain food?
Compare with the explanation
No; he describes pretending to read after hunger overcomes his refusal.
The scene stages a conflict between need, pride and a condition he perceives, not a narrated conversion.
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Make it stick
Does the Bible-reading episode establish that Enaiat converts his religion to obtain food?
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.