Australia 1970 · fierce resistance and the human cost of conquest
Trace the changing addresses to the wild country · Explain how comparisons make resistance physical · Interpret the final inclusion of humanity in the damage
Exam scope and assessment notes
0408 preparation for exam year(s) 2025. The assessment changes in 2028; follow the component and selected texts for your year. Original StudyForA teaching and self-review for the historical 2025 Songs of Ourselves Volume 2 Paper 3 option. Teaching and practice are available for all fourteen 2025 prescribed poems, with four whole-selection workshops. Eighteen lessons provide fifty-four staged tasks and fifty-one original developed responses. The complete SET-2025-5 option links the sequence; the existing historical supplemental route remains available without adding another counted requirement. Complete primary reading, qualified assessment and full timed calibration remain separate requirements. Prepare all fourteen members if this is the selected 2025 option. This is not the 2026–2027 Volume 1 option or the compulsory 2028–2030 Volume 3 Paper 2 selection. Three complete older public-domain poems are supplied as readings, with line breaks preserved and block counters supplied only by StudyForA; check your centre’s anthology for exact spelling, punctuation and layout. Protected poems are linked through complete primary reprints, not reproduced here. Archival Cambridge papers and the WJEC reprint supply poems, not rules or reused questions for this practice pathway. All questions and models here 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. The 2025 Paper 3 is closed book: 90 minutes, one extract question and one whole-text essay, 25 marks each. Paper 2 in 2025 is unseen poetry, not this set-poem list. Coursework must use eligible complete works outside the Paper 3 set-text list; private candidates cannot enter 0408.
Before you begin
- Historical 2025 option only. For another examination year, use its different official selection. Read all fourteen members if your centre selects the 2025 Volume 2 poetry option.
- Use the complete poem and the centre’s line and stanza layout. Only three older public-domain readings are printed here; the protected poems are linked. Where shown, bracketed block counters are not original line numbers. These practice models are not assessed coursework.
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 the changing addresses to the wild country
- Explain how comparisons make resistance physical
- Interpret the final inclusion of humanity in the damage
Australia 1970 · an argument under pressure
- Read the complete poem in the named reading or centre anthology before writing; keep its line and stanza layout visible.
- Bracketed block counters identify reading blocks, not original line numbers. Use the centre’s anthology for exact layout.
- Try a developed answer before opening the model. Explain how precise evidence supports your interpretation.
Original self-review for historical 2025 whole-selection preparation, not official Cambridge questions, marks, coursework or calibrated full papers. All fourteen poems require primary reading; model comparison does not certify individual mastery. Cross-poem comparisons are preparation exercises, not a claim that the official question must require comparison.
Commands and comparisons
Read the complete poem in Cambridge 0427/01 June 2019, printed p.4, or the centre anthology.
1. How do the changing comparisons develop the speaker’s address to the country?
Compare after trying
The eaglehawk, snake and ironwood make resistance take different physical forms, from striking back to damaging the instrument of clearance. Their movement is forceful rather than decorative, so the repeated commands keep the threatened country active within an unequal struggle.
The soldier-ant comparison then unsettles the assumption that human intelligence necessarily represents progress. I read the address as a refusal of tame defeat, though its repeated attention to dying and suffering keeps victory uncertain. The poem demands resistance without showing that destruction has been prevented.
Why this response fits
- Trace different forms of opposition.
- Retain the threat rather than inventing a successful recovery.
The last turn towards humanity
Read the final two stanzas beside the earlier commands; distinguish poetic praise from a literal programme.
1. How does the ending complicate a simple contrast between people and nature?
Compare after trying
The collective human voice acknowledges conquest and self-poisoning, so damage cannot remain something inflicted safely outside human life. Praising the harsh landscape makes resistance valuable even where nature does not offer comfort or convenience.
The final connection between killing and ruin exposes the dependence which conquest tries to ignore. I find the anger strongest because the speaker remains implicated in the human community. That involvement makes the ending an accusation with consequences, rather than a celebration of destruction from a position beyond its reach.
Why this response fits
- Explain the pronoun and the unconventional praise.
- Connect human harm with the earlier physical resistance.
The command is disturbing because it refuses tame defeat
The speaker addresses the country through repeated commands to die or suffer like particular living things. The eaglehawk strikes, the snake threatens its killer and the ironwood damages the blade that attacks it. These comparisons do not make the poem a simple wish for environmental destruction. They insist that, if destruction comes, it should meet resistance rather than passive submission. Follow the verbs and the changing scale from animal body to tree and soil. The command belongs to an impassioned poetic address, not practical advice to harm wildlife or a prediction that every species has already disappeared.
The speaking position is inside the destructive community
The movement towards a collective human pronoun matters. The speaker condemns conquest and the corrupting human mind while including humanity in the source of injury. This prevents an easy account in which an innocent observer blames only an unnamed group elsewhere. The comparison with the soldier-ant also complicates habitual praise of intelligence: unthinking persistence can appear preferable to the human capacity for calculated damage. Analyse that reversal as an argument made by the voice. It does not require a literal claim that animals hold political principles or that every use of human thought is equally destructive.
Praise and ruin remain deliberately entangled
Near the end the voice praises drought, dust, a drying creek and the animal that continues to oppose human control. These are not conventional images of a pleasant landscape. Their harshness gives the praise its challenge, refusing to make nature valuable only when it comforts or serves people. The final connection between killing and human ruin brings damage back upon the conquerors. It can suggest dependence on what is being destroyed without promising an already achieved ecological recovery. A developed response should retain both resistance and the possibility of irreversible loss, rather than turn the forceful ending into a guaranteed happy result.
Sources for this lesson
Pause and explain
Does the final human pronoun place the speaker outside the destructive community?
Worked example
Revise “The speaker wants nature destroyed because it is unpleasant”.
Show the worked solution
- The address demands resistance to destruction.
- The final human pronoun includes the conquerors in the consequences.
Answer The unpleasant force is praised as opposition to conquest, not offered as a reason to destroy the country.
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 does the ironwood comparison develop resistance?
Give me a hint
Consider the result for the attacking tool.
Compare my reasoning
- The tree is damaged by clearance.
- It also damages the blade.
The comparison makes opposition physically consequential even within an unequal encounter.
Look for these in your work
- Explain the two-way damage
- Connect it to the address
What changes when the speaker uses a collective human pronoun?
Give me a hint
Ask who causes and suffers the harm.
Compare my reasoning
- Humans become conquerors and makers of poison.
- Their own ruin is joined to what they kill.
The speaking position exposes involvement and dependence rather than a harmless observer’s judgement.
Look for these in your work
- Identify the inclusion
- Explain its consequence
Why praise a harsh landscape near the end?
Give me a hint
Distinguish resistance from comfort.
Compare my reasoning
- Drought and dust do not offer an easy pastoral refuge.
- Their refusal of control continues the earlier resistance.
The praise values opposition to conquest while leaving the cost of the struggle disturbing.
Look for these in your work
- Use the unexpected praise
- Avoid a guaranteed recovery
Common mistakes
- Do not treat the repeated command as a practical instruction to injure animals.
- Do not turn resistance into proof that the threatened environment has recovered.
What can you explain now?
Does the final human pronoun place the speaker outside the destructive community?
Compare with the explanation
No; the voice includes humanity in conquest, self-poisoning and the resulting ruin.
The accusation gains force through involvement rather than complete personal exemption.
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Make it stick
Does the final human pronoun place the speaker outside the destructive community?
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.