Eduqas – English Language – Dinosaurs – Component 2

19th and 21st Century Non-Fiction Reading and Transactional/Persuasive Writing

2 hours

SECTION A: 40 marks

Answer all the following questions.

Read the guidebook passage, ‘Geology and Inhabitants of the Ancient World’.

1 1       a)  What were the extinct animals first selected for the models described as? [1]

b)  What did Mr. Waterhouse Hawkins first prepare from the outline of the animal?[1]

c)  What was taken as the standard for calculating the proportions of the full‑size model?                                                                                                                 [1]

1 2       How does the writer try to show that the construction of the dinosaur models was a careful and scientific process?

You should comment on:

• what is said
• the use of language, tone and structure                                                                 [10]

You must refer to the text to support your comments, using relevant subject terminology where appropriate.

To answer the following questions you will need to read the article Extinct Monsters.

1 3       a)  What were the large bones of the Megalosaurus’ limbs described as?             [1]

b)  What feature of some of the vertebrae helped the creature move quickly?       [1]

c)  Give one piece of evidence to show how Megalosaurs hunted.                        [1]

1 4       “The article shows that Victorian writers blended scientific evidence with dramatic imagination.”

To what extent do you agree with this view?

You should comment on:

• what is said
• how it is said                                                                                                            [10]

You must refer to the text to support your comments.

To answer the following questions you must use both texts.

1 5       Using information from both texts, explain briefly how the writers show the importance of evidence when studying dinosaurs.                                                       [4]

1 6       Both of these texts are about attempts to understand prehistoric creatures.

Compare:

• the impressions the writers create of dinosaurs
• how the writers create these impressions                                                  [10]

You must use the text to support your comments and make it clear which text you are referring to.

SECTION B: 40 marks

Answer Question 2 1 and Question 2 2 .

In this section you will be assessed for the quality of your writing skills.

For each question, 12 marks are awarded for communication and organisation; 8 marks are awarded for vocabulary, sentence structure, punctuation and spelling.

Think about the purpose and audience for your writing.

You should aim to write about 300–400 words for each task.

2 1       You have been asked to write an article for your school/college magazine with the title:

‘Do dinosaur models still matter?’

Write your article.                                                                                                     [20]

2 2       A letter has appeared in a local newspaper suggesting that young people should have to visit at least one museum each year as part of their education.

Write a letter to the local newspaper giving your views on this suggestion.         [20]

Resource Material

This extract is adapted from a Victorian guidebook passage explaining how the Crystal Palace “dinosaur” restorations were constructed from fossil evidence.

Geology and Inhabitants of the Ancient World

Before entering upon a description of the restorations of the Extinct Animals, placed on the Geological Islands in the great Lake, a brief account may be premised of the principles and procedures adopted in carrying out this attempt to present a view of part of the animal creation of former periods in the earth’s history.

Those extinct animals were first selected of which the entire, or nearly entire, skeleton had been exhumed in a fossil state. To accurate drawings of these skeletons an outline of the form of the entire animal was added, according to the proportions and relations of the skin and adjacent soft parts to the superficial parts of the skeleton, as yielded by those parts in the nearest allied living animals. From such an outline of the exterior, Mr. Waterhouse Hawkins prepared at once a miniature model form in clay.

This model was rigorously tested in regard to all its proportions with those exhibited by the bones and joints of the skeleton of the fossil animal, and the required alterations and modifications were successively made, after repeated examinations and comparisons, until the result proved satisfactory.

The next step was to make a copy in clay of the proof model, of the natural size of the extinct animal: the largest known fossil bone, or part, of such animal being taken as the standard according to which the proportions of the rest of the body were calculated agreeably with those of the best preserved and most perfect skeleton. The model of the full size of the extinct animal having been thus prepared, and corrected by renewed comparisons with the original fossil remains, a mould of it was prepared, and a cast taken from this mould, in the material of which the restorations, now exposed to view, are composed.

This extract is adapted from a late-Victorian popular science description of the carnivorous dinosaur Megalosaurus.

Extinct Monsters: A Popular Account of Some of the Larger Forms of Ancient Animal Life

The genus Megalosaurus—now rendered classic through the labours of Professors Buckland, Phillips, and Owen—may be regarded as the type of the carnivorous Dinosaurs; and it affords an excellent and instructive instance of the gradual restoration of the skeleton of a new monster from more or less fragmentary remains. The large bones of the limbs of these formidable flesh-eating monsters were hollow, and many of the vertebræ, as well as some of those of the feet, contained cavities, or were otherwise lightened in order to give the creature a greater power of rapid movement.

It is not very difficult to imagine a Megalosaur lying in wait for his prey (perhaps a slender, harmless little mammal of the ant-eater type) with his hind limbs bent under his body, so as to bring the heels to the ground, and then with one terrific bound from those long legs springing on to the prey, and holding the mammal tight in its clawed fore limbs, as a cat might hold a mouse. Then the sabre-like teeth would be brought into action by the powerful jaws, and soon the flesh and bones of the victim would be gone!

During the early part of the Mesozoic era, Dinosaurs flourished vigorously in America, developing a great variety of forms and sizes. The Triassic Sandstone of the Connecticut Valley has long been famous for its fossil footprints, especially the so-called “bird-tracks,” which are generally supposed to have been made by birds, the tracks of which they certainly appear to resemble. But a careful investigation of nearly all the specimens yet discovered has convinced Professor Marsh that these fossil impressions were not made by birds. Most of the three-toed tracks, he thinks, were made by Dinosaurs, who usually walked upon their hind feet alone, and only occasionally put to the ground their small fore limbs.