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IGCSE · Cambridge (CIE) · 0408

Ten-story pathway · read the full selection and build an evidence record

Use the correct 2026, 2027 or 2028 selection · Record voice, development and ending for every story · Separate preparation resources from assessed performance

Cambridge IGCSE World Literature 0408 · SET-2026-6 / SET-2027-6 / SET-2028-4 / 2025-P3-A / 2025-P3-B / 2028-P3-A / 2028-P3-B
Exam scope and assessment notes

0408 preparation for exam year(s) 2026, 2027, 2028. The assessment changes in 2028; follow the component and selected texts for your year. Original StudyForA teaching and practice for the 2026, 2027 and 2028 Stories of Ourselves Volume 2 Paper 3 option. Read all ten prescribed stories in your centre-selected anthology. Teaching is available for all ten stories: twenty named reading and writing lessons plus four full-selection workshops. Complete reading and independently supported writing are still required. The protected anthology is not reproduced in full. Public-domain texts and selected extracts are primary transcriptions; Wodehouse and Woolf use brief quotations and original commentary with linked complete reading sources. These are not Cambridge examination passages; punctuation and spelling may differ from the anthology. Models do not award Cambridge marks or grades. Other supported interpretations can be valid. Qualified teacher assessment and calibrated full papers remain unfinished. This is not the different 2025 Volume 2 selection or the 2029–2030 Volume 3 selection. Listed stories are not eligible for 2026–2027 coursework, and the revised 2028 coursework requires drama.

Before you begin

  • Confirm your exam year is 2026, 2027 or 2028 and your centre selected this ten-story option. Read the complete story before the analysis and writing lesson. All ten members need preparation; 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 correct 2026, 2027 or 2028 selection
  • Record voice, development and ending for every story
  • Separate preparation resources from assessed performance

Start an evidence record

  • Read the complete story before analysing. Use the linked primary source for any portions not printed here.
  • Write your response before opening the model. Explain the effect of your textual evidence.
  • Check references and quotations against the complete story in your centre’s anthology.

Original self-check practice, not Cambridge examination passages, marked examination scripts or coursework submissions. Models illustrate an argument; they are not the only valid interpretation. Read all ten selected stories. Teacher judgement and full timed assessment remain unfinished.

A record beyond plot

Choose one story after reading it completely; fill in the actual locations from your edition.

  1. 1. Create an evidence record linking a beginning, a turning point and an ending to a possible argument. Include one limit or complication.

    Compare after trying

    For the Wodehouse story a record could connect Bertie’s claims to perception with the visit’s misunderstanding, the reunion at lunch and Jeeves’s later admission. It should identify the location of each, explain the gap between formal rank and practical knowledge, and retain the sequence of disclosure.

    A complication is that the engagement does not demonstrate a future happy marriage: that is Jeeves’s expectation. A finished record adds verified wording or precise references from the learner’s own edition; this example shows a structure, not a completed reading certificate.

    Why this response fits

    • Check events and the order of information against the whole work.
    • A useful record explains effects and boundaries rather than merely naming three scenes.

Choose an option, then prepare every member

This ten-story Volume 2 option is the same in 2026, 2027 and 2028. The surrounding assessment changes in 2028, but its membership does not. A student choosing a different eligible Paper 3 work does not have to study this anthology too. Once this option is chosen, all ten prescribed stories require reading and preparation. The 2025 Volume 2 option and the 2029–2030 Volume 3 option have different members; a shared volume name or subject label is not sufficient to identify the right selection.

Build a record that can be checked

For every member identify narrator or framing voice, central situation, a turning point, the ending and at least two precise references. Beside each reference explain a method and its effect on a possible question. Include a complication: an accusation that is not proved, a character’s limited interpretation or a future only predicted. Record location by chapter, section or distinctive scene, and verify wording against the centre’s anthology. A title tick or remembered plot is not yet a supported argument.

Read before relying on a model

The pathway provides twenty named reading and writing lessons and four workshops. Its actual public texts and extracts, brief quotations and original commentary support study; they do not reproduce the entire protected anthology or replace the complete readings. Try each response before revealing a model, then return to the story to test it. A different interpretation can be strong if it accounts for relevant detail and contrary evidence. Self-checking supports revision; it does not award marks, certify mastery or replace a teacher’s assessment.

Sources for this lesson

Pause and explain

Does choosing this story option permit preparation of only a favourite three members?

Put the idea to work

Worked example

What does a record for the Wodehouse story need beyond “Jeeves arranges lunch”?

Show the worked solution
  1. Locate the reunion and the later disclosure separately.
  2. Record who knows Maudie’s identity at each point.
  3. Explain how delayed knowledge changes the apparent purpose of the meeting.

Answer An evidence record preserves sequence, perspective and the reason a detail matters, rather than compressing them into plot.

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 learner read seven of the ten selected stories. What remains?

Give me a hint

Count reading, then distinguish it from understanding.

Compare my reasoning
  1. Ten minus seven leaves three unread stories.
  2. The seven read still need evidence-led study and writing.

Read the remaining three and practise across all ten; do not convert reading count into a mastery percentage.

Look for these in your work

  • Count correctly
  • Separate reading and mastery
2 · Independent

Improve “The Woolf story is about rabbits”.

Give me a hint

Record identity, change and the ending.

Compare my reasoning
  1. Distinguish the rabbit king from the white hare.
  2. Trace shared play, protective use and final withdrawal.

Record how the private identities sustain intimacy and how the later failure of shared participation closes it.

Look for these in your work

  • Retain the distinct identities
  • Explain development
3 · Transfer

A 2029 plan imports these ten titles because it also says Stories of Ourselves. What must change?

Give me a hint

Check the year and volume, not just anthology series.

Compare my reasoning
  1. The 2029 option uses Volume 3 and another ten-story list.
  2. Keep this pathway restricted to 2026–2028.

Replace the stale membership with the official 2029 selection and prepare its actual members.

Look for these in your work

  • Use the correct edition
  • Use the correct year

Common mistakes

  • Keep 2025 and 2029–2030 selections separate.
  • A complete site pathway does not prove complete student reading.
Recall without your notes

What can you explain now?

Does choosing this story option permit preparation of only a favourite three members?

Compare with the explanation

No; prepare all ten prescribed stories in the option.

Choice operates between eligible options, not by deleting members from the chosen anthology.

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

Your review choice appears on Today. Sign in to sync it across devices.

Make it stick

Does choosing this story option permit preparation of only a favourite three members?

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.