How we got there
Read this like a teacher at the board. We go slowly, name every number, and say why we take each step.
Explain in another language · 11
1. What is the question asking?
Read the question twice. Circle the unknown. Underline every number and unit. The paper is asking: Life of Pi, Yann Martel, English Home Language. Who is Richard Parker, and why does the name matter?
In other words — as if you have never seen this before
If you have never seen this before: Richard Parker is the Bengal tiger on the lifeboat. The name was switched with the hunter’s name on a form. In the second story he can be read as Pi’s other self. We will name a method in words, write the formula with no numbers, then substitute one line at a time.
2. What do we already know?
Novel. Pi Patel survives 227 days at sea after the ship sinks on the way from India.
3. Which method — and why this one?
Richard Parker is the Bengal tiger on the lifeboat. The name was switched with the hunter’s name on a form. In the second story he can be read as Pi’s other self.
4. Step-by-step working
01 / 05
Point
He is a tiger, about three years old, and Pi’s companion. He leaves without a goodbye in Mexico.
tigerWhy this step: We only do one job per line so a marker can follow the marks — and so you can find a slip without starting over.
02 / 05
Apply the law
The naming error is a clue that names and stories can be swapped. Part 3 invites the reader to see the tiger as Pi’s way of facing what he did to survive.
name and alter egoWhy this step: We only do one job per line so a marker can follow the marks — and so you can find a slip without starting over.
03 / 05
Sense-check
Do not say the tiger is “just a friend”. Pi trains him, fears him, and needs him in order to stay alive.
fear and needWhy this step: We only do one job per line so a marker can follow the marks — and so you can find a slip without starting over.
04 / 05
Step F — Box the answer with its unit
Richard Parker is the tiger, misnamed on a form, and also the figure Pi uses to carry the worst of the survival story.
Why this step: A number without a unit is half a mark on a Physics paper, and a marker can miss a Maths answer that is buried in working.
05 / 05
Step H — What the marker is looking for
On an NSC memo you usually earn: (1) a method mark for naming the right formula or idea in words, (2) an accuracy mark for substituting the given numbers with units, (3) an accuracy mark for the boxed answer with its unit. Write those three lines even if you are unsure of the arithmetic — blank pages score zero.
Why this step: First-timers chase the final number and leave the method blank. The memo still pays out for the idea and the substitution even when the last line is wrong.
5. The answer
Richard Parker is the tiger, misnamed on a form, and also the figure Pi uses to carry the worst of the survival story.
6. Check it like a marker
Calling him a man from the start, with no mention of the tiger, skips the story the novel actually tells first.
7. A trap first-timers fall into
First-timers often grab the first formula they remember, mix units (cm with m, minutes with seconds), or drop a minus sign. Write the formula in words first: “this equals that, because…”