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IGCSE · Cambridge (CIE) · 0408

Prepare all 15 prescribed poems for the 2028–2030 poetry paper

Use the complete compulsory selection from Volume 3 · Build a separate evidence map for each poem · Answer on the printed poem rather than repeat a memorised essay

Cambridge IGCSE World Literature 0408 · 2028-P2-SET
Exam scope and assessment notes

0408 preparation for exam year(s) 2028, 2029, 2030. The assessment changes in 2028; follow the component and selected texts for your year. Original StudyForA teaching and practice, with fictional examples labelled. Other well-supported literary readings can be valid. Model answers are for self-checking and do not award Cambridge marks or grades. Full set-text reading and text-specific teaching, complete timed papers and qualified literature-teacher assessment remain unfinished. Coursework must be the candidate’s own work, assessed through the centre and moderated by Cambridge.

Before you begin

  • Confirm your exam year and centre-selected full texts. Coursework and both papers are compulsory; private candidates cannot enter 0408.

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

  • Use the complete compulsory selection from Volume 3
  • Build a separate evidence map for each poem
  • Answer on the printed poem rather than repeat a memorised essay

Prepare the whole selection

The revised Paper 2 requires all 15 listed poems from Songs of Ourselves, Volume 3. These are compulsory preparation alongside unseen poetry; they are not an optional Paper 3 poetry collection. Use the exact selection and translation identified in the official exam-year list. This route’s bibliographic guide identifies the poems, while individual poem teaching is still unfinished.

Known poem, fresh question

For each poem, record its situation, voice, central tensions, language, structural movement and a few accurate details. When the poem is printed in the exam, reread it for the particular task and adjust the evidence selection. Familiarity is useful, but a memorised response may answer a different question. Candidates do not bring their set texts into the exam room.

Sources for this lesson

Pause and explain

For 2029, can three of the 15 prescribed poems be omitted as optional?

Put the idea to work

Worked example

A 2029 learner prepares twelve prescribed poems and treats the remaining three as optional. Identify the gap.

Show the worked solution
  1. The compulsory selection contains fifteen poems.
  2. Three remain unprepared; knowing the titles does not close the teaching or reading gap.

Answer Prepare the remaining three prescribed poems in the correct anthology selection.

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

A 2028 tracker includes 10 of the 15 prescribed poems. How many remain, and what source should control their selection?

Give me a hint

Use the year’s official list.

Compare my reasoning
  1. Five poems remain.
  2. Verify them against the 2028 Volume 3 selection and your centre’s edition.

Five; use the official 2028 list, not an unrelated collection.

Look for these in your work

  • Count the gap
  • Use the correct selection
2 · Independent

Give six useful headings for each prescribed-poem evidence map.

Give me a hint

Cover content, meaning and presentation.

Compare my reasoning
  1. Record situation, voice and central tensions.
  2. Add language choices, structural development and accurate evidence.

Situation, voice, tensions, language, structure and textual evidence.

Look for these in your work

  • Map the whole poem
  • Go beyond title and biography
3 · Transfer

A learner knows a poem but their prepared essay discusses nature while the new question asks about separation. Explain the next step.

Give me a hint

Re-read the printed poem in relation to the task.

Compare my reasoning
  1. Select details relevant to separation.
  2. Rebuild the argument rather than submitting an incompatible remembered essay.

Use knowledge flexibly to answer separation with fresh, relevant evidence.

Look for these in your work

  • Answer the task
  • Adapt the interpretation

Common mistakes

  • Do not confuse the revised Paper 2 with old Paper 3 choices.
  • A printed poem still requires prior study and a task-focused response.
Recall without your notes

What can you explain now?

For 2029, can three of the 15 prescribed poems be omitted as optional?

Compare with the explanation

No; the revised paper requires the complete listed selection.

Candidates prepare all fifteen prescribed poems for the set-poem question.

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

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Make it stick

For 2029, can three of the 15 prescribed poems be omitted as optional?

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.