Candidates were expected to discuss:

• The theme of racial discrimination and the experiences of African Americans in a white-dominated society.
• Character identification of the narrator.

• The underground accommodation: It is a brightly lit Harlem basement with 1369 light bulbs. It is a warm hole. The narrator describes where he lives underground as the coal cellar of whites-only building in a section of the basement that was closed-off and forgotten during the nineteenth century.
• Background to decision to live underground
• The narrator arrives in New York after his expulsion from college.
• He begins to struggle to understand his place in the world.
• He meets a group of activists, the Brotherhood, and is given a new name, suggesting a change in his identity.
• He is accused by Brother Wrestrum of using the Brotherhood as a platform for his personal development.
• He is sent to downtown Harlem to mobilize women.
• He becomes disillusioned by the Brotherhood’s tepid response to Brother Tod Clifton’s killing by the police.
• He organises a funeral for Clifton and is queried by Brother Jack for not getting permission.
• He is sent back to Brother Hambro to teach him the new Brotherhood strategy and, he is to completely stay out of Harlem.
• He is mistaken for Rinehart and chased into a manhole by Ras, the Exhorter.

• Significance of the narrator’s living underground: his living underground advances the plot, affords him the opportunity to review his experience of racism and his search for identity in America, signals a new beginning and a rediscovery of himself, explicates his rejection of the notion that he is invisible.

Most candidates gave shallow answers.