IGCSE English 0500: Selecting Evidence for Two Purposes. Submersible Passage

Read the passage, then answer the questions that follow.

At four hundred metres, the last blue light from the surface finally gave out, and the submersible's cabin dimmed to nothing beyond the glow of the instrument panel. Naledi Vermaak had made forty-one dives in this same three-person sphere, and she still felt her pulse quicken at exactly this depth, the point past which sunlight simply could not reach no matter how clear the water above. The hull creaked once, a sound the manual described as "normal thermal contraction" but that never failed to make her hand tighten briefly on the control stick.

Her co-pilot, Dax, called out the pressure reading without being asked, a habit from an earlier expedition when a seal had failed at nine hundred metres and the crew had surfaced with eleven centimetres of water pooling under their seats. Nothing had failed today, but the memory kept both of them narrating numbers aloud long after it was strictly necessary.

Then the external lights swept across a ridge nobody on the mission had charted, and a field of tube worms taller than either pilot came into view, swaying in a current too faint to feel through the hull. Dax stopped calling out numbers. Neither of them spoke for almost a full minute, watching pale crabs pick their way between structures that had likely stood undisturbed for centuries, lit for the first time by anything other than the faint chemical glow the worms produced themselves. Naledi reached for the camera controls only when she remembered, with a slight shock, that this was still meant to be a working dive and not simply something to watch.

This part of the account contains details that show the dive felt dangerous, and details that show the same dive also became a moment of wonder.

(a) Select and quote TWO details that provide evidence the dive felt dangerous. For each, briefly explain what it shows. [4]

(b) Select and quote TWO details that provide evidence the moment at the ridge felt like a moment of wonder. For each, briefly explain what it shows. [3]

Assessment focus

This question tests selecting evidence for two different, precisely stated purposes from within the same passage, and quoting each piece of evidence exactly rather than paraphrasing. Some details could feel thematically close to both categories, so candidates must check each choice against the exact focus (danger, or wonder) before using it.

Part (a): Evidence of danger

Creditable details, each with a brief explanation of what it shows:

“past which sunlight simply could not reach”. The depth itself is presented as a genuine physical threshold, and it makes Naledi’s “pulse quicken” even after forty-one previous dives, showing the danger is real and ongoing, not just a first-timer’s nerves.
The hull creaking, dismissed by the manual as “normal thermal contraction,” but still making her “hand tighten briefly on the control stick”, showing that even a supposedly harmless sound provokes an instinctive danger response.
The earlier near-failure: a seal failing “at nine hundred metres,” after which the crew surfaced with “eleven centimetres of water pooling under their seats”. This is not danger in the present moment, but it explains why both pilots still narrate pressure readings “long after it was strictly necessary,” i.e. real precedent makes the present dive feel dangerous even when nothing has actually gone wrong.

Mark scheme, up to 4 marks: 2 marks per detail (1 for an accurate, appropriately short quotation; 1 for an explanation that correctly links it to danger), to a maximum of two details.

Part (b): Evidence of wonder

Creditable details:

“a ridge nobody on the mission had charted”, signals genuine discovery, something unknown even to the expedition’s planners.
The tube worms “taller than either pilot,” swaying in a current “too faint to feel through the hull”, an image of scale and delicacy that stops the narration of numbers.
Neither pilot speaking “for almost a full minute,” watching structures “that had likely stood undisturbed for centuries,” lit “for the first time by anything other than the faint chemical glow the worms produced themselves”. The pilots’ silence, and the detail that human light has never reached this place before, both signal awe rather than routine observation.

Mark scheme, up to 3 marks: 1 mark for each accurately quoted and correctly explained detail, to a maximum of three marks (i.e. up to three separate creditable points, or two points explained more fully).

Common pitfalls specific to this text

The “eleven centimetres of water” detail is often selected for part (a) with no explanation, when the mark is really for showing why a past incident counts as evidence of danger in this dive (it explains the crew’s habitual caution).
Candidates sometimes offer “the external lights swept across a ridge” as evidence of danger (assuming any deep-sea detail must be dangerous) rather than recognising it introduces the wonder of the discovery.