Crocodiles · being noticed, being helped and looking like a tourist
Compare different consequences of becoming visible · Explain the disagreement over describing the unnamed woman · Read clothing and bodily relief without claiming a guaranteed social rule
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
- Compare different consequences of becoming visible
- Explain the disagreement over describing the unnamed woman
- Read clothing and bodily relief without claiming a guaranteed social rule
Crocodiles · an action worth telling
- 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 portrait the teller will not supply
Read the courtyard, practical help and disagreement with Fabio, reader pp.104–105.
1. How does the conversation about the Greek woman shape the meaning of her kindness?
Compare after trying
Food, washing, clothes and fare turn kindness into specific actions rather than a vague feeling. The limited conversation means Enaiat does not acquire a complete biography of the person helping him.
Fabio’s request for description exposes what a listener might want, while the reply shifts attention to what anyone might choose to do. I read the absence of a name as compatible with lasting importance. The scene asks what deserves emphasis without making kindness universal or inevitable.
Why this response fits
- Connect actual help with the dispute about narrative selection.
- Do not invent the woman’s family or motives.
A comfortable seat and a difficult release
Read buying the ferry ticket, the nosebleed and meeting Jamal, reader pp.105–108.
1. How does the ferry journey change the meaning of travel without erasing the earlier journey?
Compare after trying
A seat, a view and ordinary ticket purchase contrast with the enclosed lorry and exposed dinghy. Yet the narrator’s suggested explanation for being accepted remains uncertain, and the meeting with Jamal brings luck into view.
The nosebleed interrupts comfort and gathers the journey’s dust, salt and other materials into an image of what has been endured. The earlier places return within the moment of relief. I would describe an emotional release rather than claim that the bodily event cures all consequences of the past.
Why this response fits
- Compare forms of travel.
- Analyse the image without converting it into a literal medical explanation.
The town has a life that continues beside theirs
The seaside shops, music and holidaymakers contrast with the boys’ hunger and lack of clothes. Their attempt to take food exposes them to attention rather than making them ordinary customers. Enaiat’s careful plan also fails: the others arrive first, the exit is blocked, and he and Hussein Ali are detained while the other two escape. The fear of fingerprinting is based on information received from others. Analyse how that fear shapes their decisions without treating a historical character’s reported understanding as a current account of asylum law or a reliable instruction for dealing with police.
A person’s actions can matter more than a descriptive portrait
After the others are caught on the road, Enaiat watches from a phone box, escapes and sleeps in a stranger’s courtyard. The woman gives food, washing, clothes, money and a bus ticket. Communication is limited, and the grandson explanation for the clothes remains a guess. Fabio asks for a fuller portrait; Enaiat instead insists on the action and the possibility that anyone could act that way. Their disagreement makes selection within storytelling visible. An unnamed helper is not an unimportant helper, and the reply does not establish that all strangers behave alike.
A changed appearance changes one encounter, not every rule
At the ferry counter he receives a ticket when other Afghan boys have been refused. He suggests cleanliness, clothing and a satisfied appearance as possible reasons; the narration does not prove the seller’s motives. The later meeting with Jamal gives luck another place in the explanation. Comfort on the ferry contrasts with earlier transport, but the nosebleed interrupts any purely smooth transition. Its description gathers the journey’s materials into an image of release. Read that emotional meaning without treating blood as literally removing past experience or the scene as a medical cure for its effects.
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 Enaiat refuse to describe the Greek woman because her help does not matter?
Worked example
Refine “The woman’s grandson definitely gives Enaiat his clothes”.
Show the worked solution
- The woman supplies the clothes.
- The narrator guesses why she has clothes in his size.
Answer A possible origin is not an established event, and the help matters without that added certainty.
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.
Compare visibility at the supermarket and the courtyard.
Give me a hint
Identify who notices him and what follows.
Compare my reasoning
- Public attention leads to detention after the theft.
- A stranger’s attention leads to practical care.
Being noticed is not given a single meaning; the response of the person who sees him changes its consequence.
Look for these in your work
- Use two scenes
- Avoid equating all encounters
What does the argument about description reveal?
Give me a hint
Keep the listener’s interest beside the teller’s priority.
Compare my reasoning
- Fabio wants the house and person made vivid.
- Enaiat stresses what the woman does and who else might do it.
The conversation exposes a choice between kinds of narrative emphasis.
Look for these in your work
- Use both voices
- Explain the choice
How does the ferry scene gather earlier places?
Give me a hint
Read the bodily event and its imagery at different levels.
Compare my reasoning
- A nosebleed occurs during unusual comfort.
- The teller associates its flow with materials from the journey.
Physical release becomes an image of accumulated experience without proving that the past has literally left his body.
Look for these in your work
- Distinguish event and image
- Connect across the book
Common mistakes
- Do not treat the woman’s guessed family connection as a fact.
- Do not present clothing as a guaranteed way to obtain travel, legal status or fair treatment.
What can you explain now?
Does Enaiat refuse to describe the Greek woman because her help does not matter?
Compare with the explanation
No; he says her actions matter and that someone else could choose to act that way.
The conversation disputes how to tell the episode, not whether the kindness is important.
After trying it yourself, choose your next review. This is your self-assessment.
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Make it stick
Does Enaiat refuse to describe the Greek woman because her help does not matter?
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.