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IB Past Papers

IB English Sample Paper
Paper 1

He tried to make her understand. 'This was an exceptional case. It wasn't just a question of somebody being killed. Do you realize that the past, starting from yesterday, has been actually abolished? If it survives anywhere, it's in a few solid objects with no words attached to them, like that lump of glass there. Already we know almost literally nothing about the Revolution and the years before the Revolution. Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book has been rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street and building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And that process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right. I know, of course, that the past is falsified, but it would never be possible for me to prove it, even when I did the falsification myself. After the thing is done, no evidence ever remains. The only evidence is inside my own mind, and I don't know with any certainty that any other human being shares my memories. Just in that one instance, in my whole life, I did possess actual concrete evidence after the event -- years after it.'

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- 1984, George Orwell

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​(a) How does the passage reflect Orwell’s critique of totalitarianism?

​(b) How does Orwell explore truth and memory? Compare with another text.

(c) How does Orwell’s syntax and sentence structure create urgency and paranoia?

​(d) In what ways is history manipulated for power in 1984 and another novel?