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IGCSE · Cambridge (CIE) · 0408

Crocodiles · finding Payam and learning how to be welcomed

Trace a chain of help rather than a single rescuer · Distinguish initial hospitality, institutional placement and later fostering · Analyse ordinary domestic details as signs of unfamiliar security

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

  • Trace a chain of help rather than a single rescuer
  • Distinguish initial hospitality, institutional placement and later fostering
  • Analyse ordinary domestic details as signs of unfamiliar security

Crocodiles · a name, a network and a room

  • 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.

The future given a person’s name

Read the search for Payam, telephone verification and reunion, reader pp.119–121.

  1. 1. How does the narrative make reunion depend on both shared history and new connections?

    Compare after trying

    The name carries hope because it belongs to someone from Nava, but it is not an address or a guaranteed identity. Other people supply contacts, and the questions about home test the connection before a meeting is arranged.

    Practical help on the train makes the reunion possible, while changed appearance and qualified ages show that shared childhood has not frozen either person in place. I read the familiar past as a resource within a new network, rather than an automatic return to the life before separation.

    Why this response fits

    • Trace the actual chain of help.
    • Retain changes and uncertainty at the reunion.

The unfamiliar ordinary

Read the temporary accommodation and first family stay, reader pp.122–124.

  1. 1. How do domestic details make the first welcome moving without making it effortless?

    Compare after trying

    The dogs and slippers, elaborate meal and private bed give care forms a reader can picture. Enaiat’s copying of gestures and uncertainty about night clothes show that these ordinary comforts are unfamiliar to him.

    His fear of being a nuisance and the children’s own questions keep the household from becoming a simple image of immediate harmony. I find the welcome moving because people make room for a relationship which must be learned, rather than because the journey has already made him at home everywhere.

    Why this response fits

    • Use precise objects and gestures.
    • Distinguish this initial stay from the later fostering arrangement.

A familiar name does not remove the work of finding someone

Payam gives the future a personal name, but Enaiat has neither an address nor a direct contact. The search moves through other people, a call to England and a number in Turin. Questions about the village establish identity before reunion. Even then, both have changed, and the narrator qualifies the ages rather than supplying newly certain birthdays. Help continues through a ticket-buying companion and a woman who arranges the meeting. The sequence resists a solitary-hero account and a single miraculous rescuer: a network makes the reunion possible, including people whose full stories are not told.

A welcome takes more than an available bed

Payam takes him to the Office for Foreign Minors, but no immediate place is available. A friend’s temporary hospitality ends after three days, with a stated fear about papers; this is a reported concern, not a lesson in current law. Payam refuses the park as a solution and contacts Danila, who invites Enaiat to her family. He initially resists because he fears being a nuisance and does not know how to behave. Such hesitation does not mean he prefers mistreatment. Familiar independence and unfamiliar care can pull in different directions.

Ordinary objects acquire unfamiliar meanings

Dogs, rabbit-shaped slippers, table manners, a separate bed and unfamiliar night clothes give welcome a concrete domestic scale. Copying gestures shows anxious attention rather than instant ease. The children also have uncertainties, so the new relationship is not told only from one unchanging side. His ability to use family names is contrasted with other names that cause pain; it does not erase his first family. Later, an available hostel bed interrupts the stay. Do not merge this first invitation with the subsequent fostering request, or assume that going into institutional housing completes what belonging needs.

Sources for this lesson

Pause and explain

Is the initial invitation to Danila’s house already the later formal fostering arrangement?

Put the idea to work

Worked example

Refine “Danila adopts Enaiat as soon as he reaches Turin”.

Show the worked solution
  1. Payam first tries official and temporary accommodation.
  2. The initial family stay is followed by a hostel before a later fostering request.

Answer The relationship develops through distinct stages, and fostering should not be silently renamed adoption.

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 is the search for Payam more than a lucky name?

Give me a hint

Trace the people and acts between hope and reunion.

Compare my reasoning
  1. A chain of contacts supplies a number.
  2. Questions and travel arrangements make a meeting possible.

The reunion depends on a social network and practical help, not on knowing a name alone.

Look for these in your work

  • Use the chain
  • Retain changed identities
2 · Independent

Why might welcome produce anxiety?

Give me a hint

Use his stated worry about conduct.

Compare my reasoning
  1. A family home has unfamiliar expectations.
  2. He fears causing trouble despite the offer of help.

The hesitation shows how safety can be unfamiliar after prolonged self-reliance.

Look for these in your work

  • Use the stated fear
  • Avoid an invented rejection of kindness
3 · Transfer

What can a pair of slippers show?

Give me a hint

Connect a domestic object with his uncertainty.

Compare my reasoning
  1. The household offers an ordinary comfort.
  2. He watches and copies ways of behaving.

The detail makes entry into family life tangible without pretending that comfort is immediately understood.

Look for these in your work

  • Analyse an object
  • Retain the developing relationship

Common mistakes

  • Do not change the narrated fostering into adoption.
  • Do not turn the uncertainty about ages or the reason for temporary hospitality ending into verified legal facts.
Recall without your notes

What can you explain now?

Is the initial invitation to Danila’s house already the later formal fostering arrangement?

Compare with the explanation

No; the initial stay precedes a hostel placement and a later fostering request.

The sequence matters to how the family comes to understand and answer his needs.

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

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Make it stick

Is the initial invitation to Danila’s house already the later formal fostering arrangement?

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.

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