From lines 30 to 51 of Text One, explain how the writer and his uncle managed to stay alive during the nights they spent at Piedra Ancha. You may support yo...

Notes for examiners

This question asks for explanation rather than simple retrieval. Five distinct points about how the two men survived the nights at the rock shelter are needed, one mark each, to a maximum of [5]. Brief quotation is invited but is not compulsory, and a long quotation with no comment attached to it does not earn the mark. Credit is for identifying a survival measure and making clear what it achieved.

The creditable points in lines 30 to 51

1. They use the landscape itself for cover, sheltering under "a wall of rock with an overhang like a shelf", which keeps the falling snow off them. [1]
2. They turn their cargo into a windbreak, having "stacked the salt sacks into a low wall to close off the wind". Shelter from the wind matters more than shelter from cold air alone, because moving air strips heat away far faster. [1]
3. They bring the animals in close, having "brought the mules in tight against the rock", so that the mules block the weather and add their own body heat. [1]
4. They sit on ground the animals have already warmed, since they "sat between their legs where the ground was warm", which stops the frozen earth drawing heat out from below. [1]
5. The writer takes warmth directly from La Vieja when she lies down: "I put my back against her ribs and felt them move". [1]
6. Fuel runs out on the second night, since "we had burned the crate and the sacking and had nothing left to burn", which is why the remaining measures matter so much. [1]
7. The writer understands how cold defeats a person by degrees: "It works inwards, patiently", taking fingers, then feet, then judgement. [1]
8. He loses feeling and can no longer register touch: "I stopped being able to feel the buckle of my belt". [1]
9. He is twice tempted by a fatal idea, that if he "walked south I would be at Las Peras within the hour, which was a lie", and he recognises it as false even as he stands up. [1]
10. His uncle physically stops him leaving both times, since he "took hold of my coat both times and sat me down without a word". [1]
11. The uncle keeps them occupied on purpose: "He kept us alive with jobs". [1]
12. The tasks are deliberately repetitive and simple, such as being made to "count the mules by touch" and to "chew the hard salt bread until my jaw ached". [1]
13. Their value lies in structure rather than usefulness, because "it was a task and it had an end". [1]

Any five of these secure full marks.

Separating what is stated from what must be inferred

The text states the practical measures directly: the overhang, the wall of salt sacks, the mules brought in tight, the warm ground, the exhausted fuel. Those need only accurate reporting. The second half of the answer depends on inference. The writer never says that the cold was making him irrational, so a strong script has to work that out from the details in sequence: he cannot feel his belt buckle, he twice becomes convinced of something he simultaneously knows is untrue, and his uncle silently sits him back down. Read together, these show that the cold was affecting his judgement, and that the uncle's grip was a survival measure rather than an act of impatience. The same is true of the jobs. Counting six mules that are all within reach is pointless as work, and the writer says so; its purpose is to hold attention and give the night a shape, which is why it kept them alive.

Examination takeaway: when a question asks how somebody survived, group the answer into physical measures and mental ones. Scripts that offer five variations on keeping warm leave marks unclaimed.