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IGCSE · Cambridge (CIE) · 0408

Select precise evidence and explain what it supports

Distinguish quotation from paraphrase · Choose details that answer the actual question · Avoid invented words and overlarge claims

Cambridge IGCSE World Literature 0408 · AO1
Exam scope and assessment notes

0408 preparation for exam year(s) 2025, 2026, 2027, 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

  • Distinguish quotation from paraphrase
  • Choose details that answer the actual question
  • Avoid invented words and overlarge claims

A quotation is a responsibility

Use exact wording from the edition you are reading. If you cannot recall it exactly, make an accurate reference or paraphrase without quotation marks rather than inventing a quotation. A short relevant phrase can support analysis more effectively than a long passage left unexplained.

Evidence needs a purpose

In the original sentence “She placed the unopened letter beneath the cup”, the adjective unopened suggests withheld access, while placing it beneath another object suggests concealment or postponement. Neither proves who wrote it or why she fears it. State what the detail supports and what it does not establish.

Sources for this lesson

Pause and explain

If you are uncertain of exact wording, should you invent a plausible quotation?

Put the idea to work

Worked example

Explain how “unopened” contributes to the original letter sentence.

Show the worked solution
  1. It identifies a message whose contents have not been accessed.
  2. In combination with hiding the letter, it can suggest avoidance or delay.

Answer The unopened letter makes the withheld message part of the tension, without establishing its contents.

Try a topic test

Choose Easy, Normal or Difficult. Save your answers and open worked review after finishing.

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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

Use one word from “She placed the unopened letter beneath the cup” to support a claim about delayed knowledge.

Give me a hint

Choose the modifier of letter.

Compare my reasoning
  1. Unopened indicates that its contents have not been read.
  2. Connect that withheld information to the proposed delay.

“Unopened” supports delayed access to the message; it does not reveal the message itself.

Look for these in your work

  • Quote accurately
  • Limit the inference
2 · Independent

Improve “The story is sad because it uses a letter” using the same original sentence.

Give me a hint

Use the actions and modifier, not the object alone.

Compare my reasoning
  1. The letter remains unopened and is placed out of sight.
  2. These details can suggest avoidance or unresolved tension rather than automatically proving sadness.

The hidden, unopened letter suggests an unresolved message that the character postpones confronting.

Look for these in your work

  • Use specific details
  • Explain an effect rather than a fixed object meaning
3 · Transfer

You remember a studied character refusing to open a door but cannot recall the sentence. How can you support a whole-text claim accurately?

Give me a hint

Refer to the action and its location without pretending to quote.

Compare my reasoning
  1. Identify the relevant scene or event.
  2. Paraphrase the refusal and connect it to the claim; verify exact words later if needed.

Use a precise, honest reference to the refusal, with no invented quotation.

Look for these in your work

  • Preserve accuracy
  • Connect the reference to the argument

Common mistakes

  • Do not fabricate quotations.
  • Explain the relevance of each selected detail.
Recall without your notes

What can you explain now?

If you are uncertain of exact wording, should you invent a plausible quotation?

Compare with the explanation

No; use an accurate reference or paraphrase and identify it honestly.

Quotation marks claim fidelity to the source wording.

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

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Make it stick

If you are uncertain of exact wording, should you invent a plausible quotation?

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.