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IGCSE · Cambridge (CIE) · 0408

Little Foxes · missing bonds and an unfinished new will

Trace how information moves from the bank into the room · Distinguish the earlier unauthorised use from the later proposed cover story · Analyse the effect of an inheritance plan on Regina’s choices

Section 2025-P3-B · 2025–2027 · Whole-text essay response

Cambridge IGCSE World Literature 0408 · 2027-P3-FOXES / 2025-P3-A / 2025-P3-B
Exam scope and assessment notes

0408 preparation for exam year(s) 2027. The assessment changes in 2028; follow the component and selected texts for your year. Original StudyForA teaching for Lillian Hellman’s The Little Foxes, listed as Little Foxes in Cambridge’s 2027 Paper 3 selection. Twenty-two lessons teach all three acts of Little Foxes and four whole-play workshops, with sixty-six staged tasks and forty-eight original developed-response models. The complete SET-2027-2 option links this teaching for 2027; the existing supplemental route remains available without adding another counted requirement. Complete primary reading, qualified teacher review and full timed calibration remain separate requirements. Read the complete unabridged centre-selected script. The linked public scan is a Dramatists Play Service acting edition with printed pages through 79; reader scan numbers and printed page numbers differ. Check exact wording, revisions, blocking and punctuation against the centre edition. The protected play and its page images are linked, not reproduced here. Questions and models are original self-review and do not award Cambridge marks or grades. Other well-supported interpretations can be valid. Qualified literature-teacher review and calibrated full papers remain unfinished. For 2027, Paper 3 is closed book: 90 minutes, one extract response and one whole-text essay, 25 marks each. This play is not a prescribed 2025 or 2026 Paper 3 option, nor a 2028–2030 Paper 3 prose option. It is excluded from 2027 coursework because it is on that year’s Paper 3 list; private candidates cannot enter 0408. Analyse the play’s racism, unequal relationships and domestic violence critically rather than adopting a character’s claims as the author’s or a general truth.

Before you begin

  • Read the named scenes in the complete centre-selected script; read all three acts before attempting the whole-play workshops. Reader scans are two-page views; printed page locators refer to the linked acting edition.
  • Distinguish stage directions, observable action, a character’s claim and an inference about intention. A performance can realise the written directions in different ways.
  • The teaching sequence does not prove individual mastery. Read the complete play, write your own responses and seek qualified literature-teacher feedback; full timed calibration remains unfinished.

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 how information moves from the bank into the room
  • Distinguish the earlier unauthorised use from the later proposed cover story
  • Analyse the effect of an inheritance plan on Regina’s choices

Little Foxes · who controls the account?

  • Read the named scenes in the complete script before answering. The protected play is not reproduced here.
  • Printed page locators refer to the linked acting edition. Use the act and scene event when your centre edition differs.
  • Write a developed answer before opening the original model. Use brief checked wording from your copy and explain the effect of dialogue, movement or timing.

Original self-review for whole-play preparation, not official Cambridge questions, marks, coursework or a calibrated paper. These lessons do not replace the complete play, the learner’s own writing or qualified assessment; they do not certify individual mastery.

The message and the box

Read Horace’s instruction to Cal, the report from the bank and the disclosure, printed pp.57, 62–64.

  1. 1. How does the sequence make information an instrument of pressure?

    Compare after trying

    Horace’s insistence that the thanks and the lawyer’s visit be announced publicly makes an apparently courteous message reach the people most troubled by the box. Cal’s report of Leo’s reaction lets the audience see the effect without returning the stage to the bank.

    Horace then reveals that he has known about the missing bonds for several days. The audience can place this beside the earlier scheme, but his account still reconstructs actions he did not witness. I find the pressure strongest in the different meanings the same message carries for its listeners.

    Why this response fits

    • Connect the instruction with its reported effect.
    • Distinguish reconstruction from eyewitness action.

An intended inheritance

Read the proposed loan, new will and marriage recollection, printed pp.64–65.

  1. 1. How does the proposed will change the struggle between Horace and Regina?

    Compare after trying

    By assigning her the bonds and proposing to describe their use as a loan, Horace attempts to tie Regina’s hands while directing the remainder towards Alexandra. The plan turns knowledge of wrongdoing into control over what she can gain from disclosing it.

    Regina’s account of being left out of her father’s money makes this restriction part of a longer struggle over access to wealth. Her repetition of the assurance about Horace’s lifetime gives the future tense a darker force. The will remains intended, so I would analyse the pressure of the plan without claiming its execution has been shown.

    Why this response fits

    • Explain how the intended arrangement changes leverage.
    • Keep contextual explanation distinct from excuse and completion.

The audience knows more than a messenger is told

Horace asks Cal to thank Mander publicly for bringing the deposit box and to announce the expected visit with Sol Fowler. Cal notices the odd instruction, and his return reports Leo’s agitation at the bank. The message works through an uneven distribution of knowledge: a public courtesy becomes pressure on someone who knows what is missing. Horace later says that he discovered the absence three days earlier. The audience can connect his account with the earlier scheme, but he did not personally witness every stage of the removal and delivery. Keep his reconstruction distinct from what the play previously disclosed.

A loan is now a proposed story with a different purpose

Horace tells Regina that he will let the bonds remain as a loan from her and will say that he lent them. That proposed account does not make the original use authorised: Act II established access without his consent. It instead removes the leverage Regina expects to gain from exposing her brothers. The repetition of the loan description therefore changes its speaker and immediate purpose while preserving the earlier wrongdoing. Financial vocabulary can conceal coercion in more than one direction; the scene need not make Horace’s punitive control an uncomplicated form of justice.

The future tense becomes a source of pressure

Horace plans a new will leaving Regina the eighty-eight thousand dollars in bonds and Alexandra the rest. He does not execute that will on stage. Regina’s repetition of the assurance lasting while he lives makes his limited future newly significant before the crisis. Her account of the father who left his money to Ben and Oscar explains an old exclusion from power and the marriage she pursued instead. Explanation does not excuse the harm that follows. Analyse the changing value of the same words and the painful marriage history without claiming that a proposed document has already made a legally verified transfer.

Sources for this lesson

Pause and explain

Does the proposed loan account prove Horace agreed to the original use of the bonds?

Put the idea to work

Worked example

Repair “The new will proves Alexandra has already received everything”.

Show the worked solution
  1. Horace describes what he intends to arrange.
  2. The lawyer’s expected visit and completed execution are different events.

Answer The scene creates a future plan whose completion remains unshown.

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 Cal’s message create pressure?

Give me a hint

Follow the listeners rather than the polite form alone.

Compare my reasoning
  1. Cal thanks Mander and announces the lawyer publicly.
  2. Leo reacts because he knows about the missing bonds.

An apparently ordinary message becomes alarming through knowledge unevenly shared.

Look for these in your work

  • Trace the information
  • Explain the different response
2 · Independent

Compare the two uses of the loan description.

Give me a hint

Identify the speaker, timing and purpose.

Compare my reasoning
  1. Oscar uses it to justify unauthorised access.
  2. Horace proposes it to prevent Regina exploiting the discovery.

The repeated label changes its tactical use without changing the earlier absence of consent.

Look for these in your work

  • Use the chronology
  • Keep the wrongdoing explicit
3 · Transfer

Why repeat the assurance about Horace’s lifetime?

Give me a hint

Read it beside his illness and the intended will.

Compare my reasoning
  1. His promise restrains Regina while he can maintain the account.
  2. She repeats the duration before the crisis.

The repeated words acquire a threatening implication without becoming an external medical or legal verdict.

Look for these in your work

  • Use the changed emphasis
  • Avoid inventing a completed will

Common mistakes

  • Do not confuse Horace’s reconstruction with his eyewitness knowledge.
  • Do not treat a character’s financial or legal plan as a verified completed transaction.
Recall without your notes

What can you explain now?

Does the proposed loan account prove Horace agreed to the original use of the bonds?

Compare with the explanation

No; it is a later cover story proposed after he discovers their absence.

Changing the account afterwards does not supply the consent absent from the earlier scheme.

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

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Make it stick

Does the proposed loan account prove Horace agreed to the original use of the bonds?

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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