Crocodiles · deciding to leave on knowledge that cannot guarantee safety
Separate remembered harm, hearsay and retrospective correction · Explain how hope is produced through visible comparisons · Read debt and the changing journey as limits on a simple freedom narrative
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
- Separate remembered harm, hearsay and retrospective correction
- Explain how hope is produced through visible comparisons
- Read debt and the changing journey as limits on a simple freedom narrative
Crocodiles · hope, hearsay and a constrained decision
- 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.
Which reports become believable?
Read the wish to leave, the returned travellers, Rahim’s referral and the conversation with Sufi, reader pp.36–39.
1. How does the later telling make the decision understandable while exposing its limited knowledge?
Compare after trying
Repeated humiliations give the wish to leave an immediate pressure, while returned boys provide a visible image of another life. Their appearance makes reports of work and belonging persuasive to a child who wants the place he is in to stop being his future.
The later voice also notices the ease with which listening became belief. Warnings are weighed within that desire, not from a position of equal information or security. I find the decision understandable without treating the hoped-for destination as an already verified answer.
Why this response fits
- Connect the wish with specific forms of persuasion.
- Keep remembered harm, reported claims and later comment distinct.
A chapter ending with more work ahead
Read the wage agreement and changing conditions of passage to Kerman, reader pp.39–42. Continue with the complete Iran chapter in your book and the next four Iran lessons in this pathway.
1. How does the end of the Pakistan chapter prevent movement from meaning complete freedom?
Compare after trying
The agreement ties movement to future labour, while the child initially responds to the work as a benefit. Lack of money limits the available choice, so accepting a proposal is not the same as understanding or controlling every condition.
The ticketed bus beginning is followed by crowding and concealment. Kerman is an arrival, but not the end of the book or proof that obligations and vulnerability have vanished. The sequence keeps hope in motion while refusing a settled rescue at the chapter boundary.
Why this response fits
- Analyse the agreement and changing bodily conditions.
- Do not replace a local arrival with a whole-book conclusion.
The wish to leave has several kinds of evidence
Humiliation, extortion and threatened violence accumulate within the account of Quetta. Some incidents are directly recounted, while news of deaths at the mosque is qualified as something heard from others. These distinctions should survive analysis. The narrator also states a wish for kindness beyond a check of religious identity, which complicates the hope that shared affiliation will guarantee better treatment elsewhere. The chapter offers a remembered account of particular pressures, not reliable advice about present-day conditions or a statement that every person in Pakistan behaves the same way.
Hope can be sincere and insufficiently tested
Returned boys’ cleaner clothing and apparent prosperity make Iran seem desirable. The later voice comments on the young child’s readiness to believe what he hears. Yet in the conversation before departure he also dismisses some warnings as rumour, suggesting that the wish to leave shapes how competing reports are weighed. Sufi’s commitment gives the decision companionship without turning uncertainty into knowledge. A strong response can explain why hope is attractive while resisting an assumption that what is hoped for has already been proved.
A promise of work is also a claim on future labour
The trafficker proposes to take wages for an uncertain period to cover passage. Enaiat initially hears the work as an additional benefit, and recognises a possible catch without possessing the money to choose freely. No watch is available to the boys, so the appointed time adds another small mismatch between their resources and the transaction’s demands. The initial comfort of paid bus seats is then qualified by crowded and concealed travel. Arrival in Kerman ends this chapter’s journey, not the whole book or all dependence. Continue to the named Iran lessons for that next stage.
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 arrival in Kerman complete the book’s journey and free the boys from every obligation?
Worked example
Improve “They know Iran will be safe because everyone says so”.
Show the worked solution
- Identify the attractive reports and visible returned boys.
- Retain the later comment on belief, competing warnings and the wage condition.
Answer The decision is intelligible within a strong wish to leave, but knowledge of the destination remains limited and unequally supplied.
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.
How do the returned boys influence the decision?
Give me a hint
Use what can be seen and what is inferred from it.
Compare my reasoning
- Their clothes and apparent money provide a visible contrast.
- The child interprets that contrast as a likely future for himself.
The account shows hope being made through comparison, without certifying every inference.
Look for these in your work
- Separate observation and inference
- Explain desire’s role
Why is the proposed work not simply a free gift?
Give me a hint
Read the claim on future earnings.
Compare my reasoning
- The trafficker offers passage and a workplace.
- He also claims the wages for a period whose length is not fixed precisely.
The offer binds the expected benefit to a continuing dependence that the child cannot fully assess.
Look for these in your work
- Use both sides of the terms
- Avoid a guaranteed rescue
Explain the shift from the bus seats to the later concealed ride.
Give me a hint
Trace expectations across the journey’s stages.
Compare my reasoning
- The ticketed beginning feels unexpectedly comfortable.
- Crowding and concealment restore bodily vulnerability.
The sequence qualifies an initial judgement before a chapter endpoint can be mistaken for complete security.
Look for these in your work
- Use the changing sequence
- Keep the endpoint limited
Common mistakes
- Do not make a reported casualty count an independently verified historical statistic.
- Do not turn the account into a guide to a route, border crossing or present-day legal status.
What can you explain now?
Does arrival in Kerman complete the book’s journey and free the boys from every obligation?
Compare with the explanation
No; it ends the Pakistan chapter’s crossing, with the Iranian experience and the rest of the book still ahead.
A chapter endpoint is not a whole-work resolution, and a promise of future wages remains consequential.
After trying it yourself, choose your next review. This is your self-assessment.
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Make it stick
Does arrival in Kerman complete the book’s journey and free the boys from every obligation?
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.