Learn in your language
Skip to content
IGCSE · Cambridge (CIE) · 0408

Crocodiles · an injured worker and a watch with a history

Analyse the conflict between a person’s body and the value of property · Trace the watch’s meaning beyond its price · Distinguish imagined retaliation and an uncertain observation from established events

Cambridge IGCSE World Literature 0408 · 2025-P3-CROCODILES / 2025-P3-A / 2025-P3-B / SET-2025-3 / SET-2026-3 / SET-2027-3
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

  • Analyse the conflict between a person’s body and the value of property
  • Trace the watch’s meaning beyond its price
  • Distinguish imagined retaliation and an uncertain observation from established events

Crocodiles · different measures of value

  • 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.

A stone, a body and a first watch

Read factory work, injury, the watch and the second expulsion, reader pp.63–67.

  1. 1. How does the watch’s meaning challenge the ways value is assigned around Enaiat?

    Compare after trying

    The foreman’s response to the broken stone gives a damaged object priority over the hurt worker. The watch then becomes a possession whose importance comes from personal history rather than a high price. It lets the child attach achievement and memory to something he can carry.

    The later theft makes the difference between those measures painful: what seems barely worth taking to the policeman matters intensely to its owner. I find the contrast more specific than a general claim that money is bad, because it asks whose experience is permitted to give an object value.

    Why this response fits

    • Connect the two scenes through the priority given to objects and people.
    • Do not reduce the watch to an interchangeable price.

An action corrected before it becomes a fact

Read the watch’s seizure and the flight at the end of Iran, reader pp.67–69.

  1. 1. How do self-correction and limited observation shape the reader’s response to the chapter ending?

    Compare after trying

    The offered attack gives anger a momentary form, but its immediate correction makes the actual loss more stark. The narrator can admit a retaliatory wish without claiming that he carried it out or recovered the watch.

    During the flight, the falling man and the boy’s thoughts of invisibility likewise need different kinds of reading. Observation, inference and desperate imagination coexist. The chapter ends in a decision to leave, not a proved victory or a complete record of everyone’s fate.

    Why this response fits

    • Respect the correction and the actual loss.
    • Keep intensity of feeling distinct from certainty about events.

Useful labour does not guarantee that a body counts

In Qom, kitchen work, shopping and other duties expose Enaiat to different forms of risk. Football provides a limited space of companionship within long working hours. When the stone breaks and injures him, the foreman’s immediate priority is the damaged order rather than the wound. The contrast makes value visible through an action and a command. A later scar carries the past into the teller’s present, but the account should not be converted into medical instructions or a diagnosis. Do not treat continued usefulness at work as proof that the injury is slight.

A first possession holds more than exchange value

The watch gives time a material shape and connects personal achievement with remembered family and a valued religious place. Its importance does not depend on it being expensive. After the second expulsion, a policeman takes it during the return journey; this is not the first raid and not a voluntary sale. The contrast between the child’s singular attachment and the taker’s disappointment at its low value explains why buying a replacement could not simply undo the loss. The object has accumulated a history which a price alone cannot describe.

A correction exposes anger without making it an assault

The narrator briefly offers a retaliatory attack, then immediately corrects the account: he shows his wrist instead. That self-interruption can let the reader feel a wish before recognising what actually happened. It must not be summarised as a bite or a fight with the policeman. In the later flight, a man falls and Enaiat supposes he has been hit; the account does not certify a witnessed death. Thoughts of being small or invisible register desperation, not literal immunity. The decision to seek Turkey grows from renewed fear rather than from a successful victory over it.

Sources for this lesson

Pause and explain

Does the narrator’s brief description of attacking the policeman remain the event he says actually happened?

Put the idea to work

Worked example

Why is “Enaiat bites the policeman and wins back his watch” false?

Show the worked solution
  1. Follow the immediate correction of the retaliatory account.
  2. The actual narrated response is showing his wrist and losing the object.

Answer The telling exposes an impulse and the power which prevents it from becoming the triumphant action imagined.

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

How does the foreman’s reaction develop the treatment of labour?

Give me a hint

Compare the broken stone with the injured worker.

Compare my reasoning
  1. The valuable delivery is named first.
  2. The worker is ordered to clear the pieces while hurt.

The command exposes a hierarchy of value in which usefulness does not secure humane care.

Look for these in your work

  • Use the response’s priority
  • Explain an effect
2 · Independent

Why can a replacement watch fail to replace this one?

Give me a hint

Distinguish price from accumulated experience.

Compare my reasoning
  1. It is the first watch he has chosen and treasured.
  2. Its meaning includes memories and an attempt to make time his own.

A different object could perform the function without restoring the particular history.

Look for these in your work

  • Explain more than symbolism
  • Use its place in the sequence
3 · Transfer

Audit a summary of the flight after the theft.

Give me a hint

Keep thought, observation and inference apart.

Compare my reasoning
  1. He sees a man fall and supposes a cause.
  2. His own thoughts make smallness an imagined protection.

The passage communicates fear intensely without certifying every consequence or a literal escape power.

Look for these in your work

  • Retain attribution
  • Do not add a death

Common mistakes

  • Do not make low monetary value mean the watch is unimportant.
  • Do not turn the falling man into a confirmed death or the boy’s wish for invisibility into a real power.
Recall without your notes

What can you explain now?

Does the narrator’s brief description of attacking the policeman remain the event he says actually happened?

Compare with the explanation

No; he immediately corrects it and says he showed his wrist instead.

A self-correction changes the status of the preceding imagined action.

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

Your review choice appears on Today. Sign in to sync it across devices.

Make it stick

Does the narrator’s brief description of attacking the policeman remain the event he says actually happened?

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.