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

Crocodiles · a building site that becomes a world

Explain enclosure through a sequence of expanding comparisons · Read Hamid’s reassurance beside continuing fear · Connect wages, objects and gratitude without erasing exploitation

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

  • Explain enclosure through a sequence of expanding comparisons
  • Read Hamid’s reassurance beside continuing fear
  • Connect wages, objects and gratitude without erasing exploitation

Crocodiles · an enclosed place with human connections

  • 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 size of an available world

Read the site, shared living and Hamid’s shopping trip, reader pp.49–53.

  1. 1. How does the site become both a place of attachment and a form of enclosure?

    Compare after trying

    The workers help make a sleeping place and share ordinary tasks, so the site is more than an anonymous workplace. Yet the comparisons which enlarge it into a world also expose how little outside it feels available.

    The shopping argument gives that enclosure a practical measure: a simple errand becomes a source of anticipated detention. Hamid’s return does not cancel the fear, but prevents the child’s imagined outcome from being treated as an event. Attachment develops within a restricted horizon.

    Why this response fits

    • Connect the metaphor with daily actions.
    • Keep anticipation distinct from the actual return.

A gain which does not cancel the cost

Read the first wages, coins, later gratitude and Hamid’s help with literacy, reader pp.53–54.

  1. 1. How does the telling complicate a claim that the site gives Enaiat nothing?

    Compare after trying

    The payment changes after the agreed four months, and the coins make possession a repeated physical experience. Hamid’s help with reading and the exercise book adds a resource that cannot be reduced to wages.

    The later expression of gratitude asks readers to retain those gains alongside exhausting labour and fear. I would therefore qualify a wholly negative judgement without turning kindness into approval of the conditions. What the site gives is real and specific, rather than a complete solution to belonging or freedom.

    Why this response fits

    • Use the actual payment sequence.
    • Let the qualification refine rather than erase a judgement about inequality.

The workplace gives shelter and limits the horizon

The bare apartment is made into a sleeping space through shared work, and the workers cook, eat and take turns together. Such arrangements create a lived community. At the same time, fear of leaving makes the site feel like the whole available world. The expanding comparisons from home to world to solar system magnify an enclosure rather than demonstrate physical size. Later pictures of Isfahan belong to the narrator’s subsequent knowledge, not evidence that the working child toured the monuments. The distinction prevents a geographical location from being mistaken for access to all it contains.

Fear is shown through an imagined outcome and a return

The debate over shopping exposes how an ordinary errand becomes dangerous in the workers’ understanding. Enaiat imagines Hamid detained, but Hamid returns with the shopping; the imagined arrest is not what happens on that trip. His answer about being both never and always afraid suggests fear becoming part of routine. It is not evidence that danger is imaginary, nor a clinical diagnosis. Rumours about the named detention centres and later comparisons shape how the child anticipates events. Do not replace that reporting chain with direct eyewitness knowledge of every feared practice.

What is gained remains specific

After four months, pay begins to reach the boys as agreed. This matters: the account does not say the first wage arrangement continues forever or that every adult promise is broken. Counting coins and storing earnings make a new sense of possession tangible, while Hamid’s help with reading and writing offers another kind of resource. The later gratitude addressed to men who might read the book is a deliberate qualification of a wholly bleak account. It does not erase long hours, limited movement or the unequal conditions within which kindness and competence develop.

Sources for this lesson

Pause and explain

Does the trafficker continue taking the boys’ pay throughout the whole Iran chapter?

Put the idea to work

Worked example

Why is “Enaiat sees Hamid arrested while shopping” inaccurate?

Show the worked solution
  1. Identify the child’s feared picture before the taxi returns.
  2. Keep Hamid’s actual return with the goods distinct from that anticipation.

Answer The episode makes fear active in the mind without staging the arrest which the child imagines.

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

Why compare the site to a solar system?

Give me a hint

Read the enlargement as a change in the available horizon.

Compare my reasoning
  1. The workers live and work within the same place.
  2. Fear makes the outside difficult to enter.

The expansive image makes their experienced world feel bounded, rather than simply praising the site’s size.

Look for these in your work

  • Use context
  • Explain the apparent contradiction
2 · Independent

How does Hamid’s answer resist a simple description of courage?

Give me a hint

Keep both halves of the reply.

Compare my reasoning
  1. He denies a separate moment of fear.
  2. He also describes fear as constant.

The paradox makes endurance coexist with anxiety rather than proving total fearlessness.

Look for these in your work

  • Retain both claims
  • Avoid a clinical label
3 · Transfer

Build a claim using wages and the narrator’s gratitude.

Give me a hint

Recognise gains without making them universal.

Compare my reasoning
  1. The agreed payment change actually occurs.
  2. The later teller thanks people whose care mattered.

The account can value particular relationships while retaining the pressures of the workplace.

Look for these in your work

  • Use counterevidence
  • Keep the larger conditions visible

Common mistakes

  • Do not convert later online pictures into a childhood sightseeing trip.
  • Do not treat gratitude as proof that the working conditions are equal or harmless.
Recall without your notes

What can you explain now?

Does the trafficker continue taking the boys’ pay throughout the whole Iran chapter?

Compare with the explanation

No; after four months the foreman begins paying the boys, as agreed.

Later gains and losses depend on keeping this actual change in the arrangement clear.

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 trafficker continue taking the boys’ pay throughout the whole Iran chapter?

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.