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GCSE · English Literature

GE.T-T5Nights Literature: The War of the Worlds (H.G. Wells)

AQA / EDEXCEL / EDUQAS GCSE Literature 19th-century novel · Calculators not allowed · about 100 minutes

Total Marks

Name: _______________________________ Date: ____ / ____ / ______

Answer ALL questions. Show all your working.

Each description below refers to one character or figure from The War of the Worlds. Name the character or figure being described in each case. Use each name once only.

(a)The first person to examine the cylinder closely after it lands on Horsell Common, and one of the earliest people killed by the Martians.(1)

(b)The narrator's travelling companion for part of the novel, a nervous clergyman whose behaviour becomes increasingly unstable and dangerous as the invasion continues.(1)

(c)A soldier the narrator meets on two separate occasions, who develops an elaborate plan for humanity's survival underground but does little practical work towards it.(1)

(d)The narrator's relative, who gives a separate first-hand account of the chaotic flight from London and the sea escape near the Essex coast.(1)

(e)The person the narrator takes to safety in Leatherhead near the start of the novel, before travelling on alone.(1)

(f)The species that arrives from another planet inside cylinders and quickly establishes technological control over southern England.(1)

(Total for Question 1 is 6 marks)

State four separate details Wells establishes about the Martians' physical appearance or capabilities in the early chapters of the novel, before the narrator has seen them fight.

(Total for Question 2 is 4 marks)

Explain how Wells builds a growing sense of dread and threat around the Martian fighting machines in the early chapters of the novel.

(Total for Question 3 is 6 marks)

Explain how Wells presents the curate's mental and emotional collapse as the invasion continues.

(Total for Question 4 is 8 marks)

Explain how Wells presents the artilleryman's vision of humanity's future during the narrator's second meeting with him.

(Total for Question 5 is 8 marks)

Explain how the narrator changes over the course of the novel, from his early role as a calm observer to the man he becomes by the end.

(Total for Question 6 is 8 marks)

Explain how Wells uses The War of the Worlds to explore ideas about imperialism and human insignificance.

(Total for Question 7 is 8 marks)

Explain how Wells draws on contemporary scientific and evolutionary ideas in his presentation of the Martians and their eventual defeat.

(Total for Question 8 is 8 marks)

Explain how Wells presents the breakdown of ordinary social order and civilised behaviour as the invasion spreads.

(Total for Question 9 is 8 marks)

'Wells uses the curate and the artilleryman to present two equally flawed responses to catastrophe.'

Starting with this idea, write about how far you agree, referring to the novel as a whole. In your answer you should refer to the ways Wells presents character, and to the novel's historical and social context.

(Total for Question 10 is 30 marks)

Explore how Wells presents ideas about human insignificance in The War of the Worlds, and consider how far the novel can be read as a criticism of imperial power.

Refer to the novel as a whole in your answer, and to relevant historical and social context.

(Total for Question 11 is 30 marks)

Mark scheme · GE.T-T5Nights Literature: The War of the Worlds (H.G. Wells)

Question 1

(a) B1 Accept Ogilvy (the astronomer)
(a) Answer: Ogilvy
(b) B1 Accept the curate
(b) Answer: The curate
(c) B1 Accept the artilleryman
(c) Answer: The artilleryman
(d) B1 Accept the narrator's brother
(d) Answer: The narrator's brother
(e) B1 Accept the narrator's wife
(e) Answer: The narrator's wife
(f) B1 Accept the Martians
(f) Answer: The Martians

Question 2

B1 their bodies are large, greyish and rounded, with a cluster of long tentacles rather than limbs (oe)
B1 they have enormous, prominent eyes and no obvious nose, giving them a strange, unfamiliar anatomy (oe)
B1 they are physically weak and clumsy in Earth's gravity when out of their machines, moving with visible difficulty (oe)
B1 any other valid detail, e.g. they arrive inside metal cylinders fired from Mars which unscrew to release them, or they feed by taking nutrition directly rather than by eating in the human sense (oe)
Answer: Any four of: large, greyish, rounded bodies with tentacles instead of limbs; enormous eyes and no visible nose; physical weakness and clumsiness in Earth's gravity; arrival inside unscrewing metal cylinders; an unfamiliar method of feeding established early in the novel.

Question 3

Level 3 (5-6): Clear explanation: analyses more than one method Wells uses to build dread around the Martians and their machines, with well-chosen reference to the text.
Level 2 (3-4): Some explanation: identifies a relevant method with some reference to the text.
Level 1 (1-2): Simple, limited explanation: makes a simple or general comment on the Martians or their machines with little development.
Indicative content:
- the fighting machines are first heard and glimpsed only partially, through smoke and heat-haze, before being fully seen, delaying and intensifying the reveal
- their unnatural size and jointed, mechanical way of moving makes them seem alien rather than simply a new kind of military vehicle
- Wells uses precise, almost scientific description, with measurements and comparisons to recognisable objects, to make the impossible machines feel disturbingly exact and real
- the sudden, silent use of the heat-ray to destroy people and buildings before any warning shows the Martians' overwhelming and unfair advantage
- the setting shifts from a familiar, ordinary Surrey landscape to a scene of destruction, so the contrast with normal life increases the shock for the reader

Question 4

Level 4 (7-8): Clear, well-supported explanation: analyses more than one way the curate's collapse is presented, with well-chosen reference to the text.
Level 3 (5-6): Clear explanation: explains at least one clear way the curate's collapse is shown, with relevant reference to the text.
Level 2 (3-4): Some explanation: identifies a relevant point about the curate with some reference to the text.
Level 1 (1-2): Simple, limited explanation: makes a simple or general comment on the curate with little development.
Indicative content:
- the curate is introduced already shaken and self-absorbed, focusing on his own losses rather than the wider disaster around him
- he repeatedly interprets the invasion in religious terms, seeing it as a punishment or judgement, which the narrator finds irrational and unhelpful
- his behaviour becomes increasingly erratic and selfish once the two men are trapped together, eating and drinking without restraint despite the danger
- his loud, uncontrolled outbursts threaten to reveal their hiding place to the Martians, turning his instability into a direct danger to the narrator's survival
- the narrator's growing impatience, and his eventual violence towards the curate, shows how the pressure of survival strips away ordinary civilised restraint from both men
- Wells uses the curate's decline partly to question whether a purely religious response to catastrophe is adequate compared with practical reasoning

Question 5

Level 4 (7-8): Clear, well-supported explanation: analyses more than one aspect of the artilleryman's vision and its flaws, with well-chosen reference to the text.
Level 3 (5-6): Clear explanation: explains at least one clear aspect of the artilleryman's vision with relevant reference to the text.
Level 2 (3-4): Some explanation: identifies a relevant point about the artilleryman with some reference to the text.
Level 1 (1-2): Simple, limited explanation: makes a simple or general comment on the artilleryman with little development.
Indicative content:
- the artilleryman describes an ambitious plan for a hidden, underground society that will preserve and eventually rebuild human civilisation
- he divides people into those he judges strong and intelligent enough to be worth saving and those he dismisses as weak, revealing an unsettling, almost eugenic streak in his thinking
- his talk is detailed and persuasive at first, which is part of why the narrator is initially drawn in by his confidence and apparent sense of purpose
- the gap between his grand plans and the small amount of actual digging he has completed exposes him as more talker than doer
- his comfortable, self-indulgent behaviour, eating and drinking well while claiming to be preparing for humanity's survival, undermines his own stated ideals
- the narrator's eventual disillusionment and decision to leave him reflects a wider judgement on empty rhetoric that is not matched by action

Question 6

Level 4 (7-8): Clear, well-supported explanation: analyses more than one way the narrator changes across the novel, with well-chosen reference to the text.
Level 3 (5-6): Clear explanation: explains at least one clear way the narrator changes, with relevant reference to the text.
Level 2 (3-4): Some explanation: identifies a relevant point about the narrator with some reference to the text.
Level 1 (1-2): Simple, limited explanation: makes a simple or general comment on the narrator with little development.
Indicative content:
- at the start the narrator is presented as a thoughtful, almost detached writer, interested in ideas and observing events with curiosity rather than fear
- as the invasion intensifies he is forced into more instinctive, physical action, including violence he would not previously have thought himself capable of
- his time with the curate ends in an act of violence that clearly disturbs him, showing how extreme circumstances override his usual civilised self-control
- his solitary journey through a devastated, empty London, encountering the aftermath of the Martians' collapse, changes him from an active participant into a shocked witness
- by the end of the novel he is presented as permanently altered, unable to feel fully secure again even once ordinary life resumes
- Wells uses the narrator's retrospective, reflective narration to suggest the changes in him are lasting rather than temporary

Question 7

Level 4 (7-8): Clear, well-supported explanation: analyses more than one way imperialism and human insignificance are explored, with well-chosen reference to the text and clear understanding of context.
Level 3 (5-6): Clear explanation: explains at least one clear way this theme is presented, with relevant reference to the text and some understanding of context.
Level 2 (3-4): Some explanation: identifies a relevant point about the theme with some reference to the text.
Level 1 (1-2): Simple, limited explanation: makes a simple or general comment on the theme with little development.
Indicative content:
- the novel opens by inviting readers to compare the Martians' treatment of humans with the way humans have historically treated other species and other peoples, unsettling any assumption of human importance
- humanity's advanced weapons and organisation prove almost useless against a technologically superior invader, deliberately reversing the position Britain usually occupied as a colonial power
- the narrator reflects on Earth's history of one group of people conquering and displacing another with little pity, inviting readers to see the Martian invasion as an extension of human history rather than an exception to it
- by placing British readers in the position of a colonised, powerless population, Wells challenges the assumed superiority underlying contemporary imperial attitudes
- humanity's eventual survival is due to chance biological circumstance rather than to any human action or virtue, reinforcing how little control or importance humanity actually had
- context: Wells wrote at the height of British imperial power in the late Victorian period and had earlier interests in the fate of colonised and vanished peoples, so contemporary readers would have recognised the deliberate discomfort of the comparison

Question 8

Level 4 (7-8): Clear, well-supported explanation: analyses more than one way scientific and evolutionary ideas shape the Martians and their defeat, with well-chosen reference to the text and clear understanding of context.
Level 3 (5-6): Clear explanation: explains at least one clear way scientific or evolutionary ideas are used, with relevant reference to the text and some understanding of context.
Level 2 (3-4): Some explanation: identifies a relevant point with some reference to the text.
Level 1 (1-2): Simple, limited explanation: makes a simple or general comment with little development.
Indicative content:
- the Martians are presented as a more evolved form of intelligent life, with enlarged brains and reduced bodies, reflecting late-Victorian ideas about where human evolution might eventually lead
- their method of feeding, taking nutrition directly rather than through digestion, is presented with pseudo-scientific explanation, reflecting Wells's own scientific training and interest in plausible extrapolation
- the eventual destruction of the Martians by ordinary earthly bacteria, organisms they have no natural resistance to, presents natural selection and adaptation, not human effort, as the deciding factor
- this ending reflects contemporary evolutionary ideas that survival depends on adaptation to environment rather than intelligence or technological power alone
- context: Wells studied biology under a prominent supporter of Darwin's theory of evolution, and his scientific background shapes the novel's exploration of what advanced evolution might look like, and what it might cost
- a stronger response might note the irony that the Martians' advanced evolution, which sacrifices physical strength and adaptability for intelligence, ultimately proves to be a weakness

Question 9

Level 4 (7-8): Clear, well-supported explanation: analyses more than one way the breakdown of social order is presented, with well-chosen reference to the text.
Level 3 (5-6): Clear explanation: explains at least one clear way this breakdown is shown, with relevant reference to the text.
Level 2 (3-4): Some explanation: identifies a relevant point with some reference to the text.
Level 1 (1-2): Simple, limited explanation: makes a simple or general comment with little development.
Indicative content:
- the mass exodus from London is presented as chaotic and overwhelming, with ordinary politeness and consideration for others quickly abandoned under pressure
- specific incidents of people fighting over transport, food or space reveal how quickly self-interest can override community feeling when survival is threatened
- the class distinctions that structure ordinary life are shown to mean little once everyone faces the same danger, though Wells also shows some characters clinging to old habits and assumptions even as society collapses around them
- scenes of abandoned property and unclaimed goods show how quickly the structures of ownership and law lose their meaning once no one is left to enforce them
- the narrator's own moments of violence and self-preservation, particularly with the curate, show that he too is not immune to this collapse, despite his more reflective nature
- Wells's inclusion of the brother's account of the flight from London widens this exploration beyond a single character's experience to a picture of society as a whole under strain

Question 10

Level 4 (25-30): Compelling, critical response: sustained, sophisticated engagement with the statement across the whole novel; judicious, precisely selected references; perceptive analysis of characterisation, form and structure with consistently precise subject terminology; contextual understanding woven fully into the argument.
Level 3 (17-24): Critical, exploratory response: exploratory, critical engagement with the statement sustained across the novel; judicious range of references; analyses effects of characterisation and structure with precise subject terminology; contextual factors integrated fully where relevant.
Level 2 (9-16): Detailed, well-structured response: consistently clear, detailed engagement with the statement; well-chosen range of references; explains effects of characterisation and structure with subject terminology used accurately; understanding of relevant context clearly shown.
Level 1 (1-8): Simple or clear response: simple or clear engagement with the statement with some relevant reference; some comment on characterisation with limited or accurate use of subject terminology; some or little awareness of context.
Indicative content:
- agree: the curate's collapse is driven by an inward-looking, self-pitying response, focused on his own suffering and a search for religious meaning rather than practical survival, making him a largely passive, damaging presence
- agree: the artilleryman's flaw is different but comparably serious, since his confident, detailed talk of an underground future for humanity is never matched by sustained action, exposing him as someone who prefers grand words to genuine effort
- agree: both men ultimately become a burden or disappointment to the narrator, who is forced to separate from each once their limitations become clear, suggesting Wells presents both as failed models of leadership in a crisis
- qualify/counter-view: the curate's collapse can be read more sympathetically as an understandable, human response to trauma and the loss of a stable, ordered world, rather than simple weakness
- qualify/counter-view: the artilleryman's ideas, however poorly realised in practice, do at least attempt to imagine a rational, long-term response to the invasion, which arguably makes him more constructive in intention than the curate
- qualify: a reader might argue the two figures are not simply equally flawed but represent two different Victorian institutions, organised religion and the military, both of which Wells suggests prove inadequate against an entirely new kind of threat
- context: Wells wrote at a time when both church authority and military strength were widely respected sources of confidence, so presenting representatives of each as ultimately unable to cope invites readers to question those institutions' real value in a crisis
- candidates might also weigh the narrator's own role as a more balanced, self-aware alternative to both men, since his willingness to reflect critically on his own actions contrasts with the curate's self-pity and the artilleryman's bluster

Question 11

Level 4 (25-30): Compelling, critical response: sustained, sophisticated exploration of human insignificance and imperial critique across the whole novel; judicious, precisely selected references; perceptive analysis of Wells's methods with consistently precise subject terminology; contextual understanding woven fully into the argument.
Level 3 (17-24): Critical, exploratory response: exploratory, critical engagement with the theme sustained across the novel; judicious range of references; analyses effects of Wells's methods with precise subject terminology; contextual factors integrated fully where relevant.
Level 2 (9-16): Detailed, well-structured response: consistently clear, detailed engagement with the theme; well-chosen range of references; explains effects of Wells's methods with subject terminology used accurately; understanding of relevant context clearly shown.
Level 1 (1-8): Simple or clear response: simple or clear engagement with the theme with some relevant reference; some comment on Wells's methods with limited or accurate use of subject terminology; some or little awareness of context.
Indicative content:
- the novel repeatedly places humanity in the position of a weaker, observed species, most explicitly through the narrator's early comparison between the Martians' view of humans and the way humans have historically viewed animals or so-called lesser peoples
- humanity's most advanced weapons and its social and political institutions collapse rapidly against the Martians' superior technology, undermining any comfortable sense of human control over its own destiny
- the deliberate choice of recognisable, ordinary English settings, rather than a distant or fictional country, forces contemporary readers to imagine themselves as a colonised or conquered population, reversing their usual assumptions about imperial power
- humanity's eventual survival, brought about by ordinary earthly bacteria rather than by human action, strength or intelligence, reinforces the idea that human survival was ultimately a matter of biological chance rather than human significance or virtue
- Wells's structure, moving between the narrator's account and his brother's account, widens the destruction beyond a single perspective, presenting the collapse of human authority as total and society wide rather than an isolated incident
- context: writing at a time of British imperial confidence, and with earlier interests in the fate of colonised and vanished peoples, Wells uses the invasion to invite an uncomfortable comparison between Martian conquest and Britain's own imperial record
- a strong response might argue the novel's ending, in which humanity resumes ordinary life largely unchanged in its assumptions, suggests Wells is sceptical that the experience of insignificance will actually change how humans understand their own power in the world
- candidates may also consider the narrator's own admission that his understanding of events remains partial and limited, which reinforces the theme of insignificance at the level of narrative perspective as well as plot

Literature: The War of the Worlds (H.G. Wells) - Worksheets, Questions and Revision