This lesson is taught out loud.

A teacher will read it to you, and the page will keep up. You will be asked things — take your time answering. Headphones are better, but everything is written on screen too.

The Lost World · Arthur Conan Doyle

Chapter 3 The Expedition Is Chosen

Novel pages 16–22 · Egyptian Baccalaureate, 2nd Year

The story so far · after Chapter 2, Professor Challenger’s Secret

Challenger threw Malone out of his house, and Malone refused to press charges because he knew he had lied to get in. That earned him a second chance. Challenger showed him three things: Maple White’s sketchbook with a drawing like a stegosaurus, a damaged photograph of a winged shape, and a piece of a pterodactyl’s wing. Separately each could be explained away; together they could not. Malone left believing him, and was told about a lecture at the Zoological Institute.

Chapter 3 · The Expedition Is Chosen

The lecture hall of the Zoological Institute was crowded. Professor Challenger sat near the front, impossible to miss because of his great black beard and powerful build. At first the lecture was calm. The speaker described how life had changed over millions of years. Then he mentioned stories of prehistoric creatures surviving in remote regions. There was laughter from part of the audience. Challenger stood at once. “There is nothing amusing about evidence,” he said loudly.

Another man stood at almost the same time. He was tall, thin, and sun-browned, with calm blue eyes. “Lord John Roxton,” he said. “I know the Amazon country and have traveled there before.” Everyone recognized the name. Lord John was famous as an explorer, sportsman, and hunter. Challenger immediately proposed that Summerlee, Roxton, and I should form the investigating party. The motion was accepted. In a few astonishing minutes, my future had changed completely.

Outside the hall Lord John caught up with me. “So we are to be traveling companions, Mr Malone. Come to my rooms. We should get to know one another.” His home was full of maps, books, equipment, and trophies from earlier journeys. Yet he spoke without showing off. He wanted to know whether I could shoot, climb, swim, and keep calm under pressure. “I can learn what I do not know,” I told him. “Good answer. South America is not a place for a man who thinks he already knows everything.”

Lord John told me that during one of his earlier journeys, he had become involved in a serious dispute with a powerful rubber-trading group led by a man named Pedro Lopez. Local workers were being treated unfairly and forced to work under terrible conditions. Lord John helped them escape from the group’s control and brought an end to Lopez’s influence in the area. “It made me some loyal friends,” he said, “and some dangerous enemies. But I know the rivers, the language used by many local traders and guides, and the kind of men we may need. That could keep us alive.”

Our written instructions from Challenger were to be opened at Manaos at exactly noon on 15 July. The envelope remained sealed during the journey. At last the day arrived. We sat around a table in a shaded house outside Manaos. Lord John placed his watch beside the envelope. “Noon,” he said, and cut it open. Inside was a single sheet of paper. It was blank. Summerlee stared at it. “This is ridiculous.”

Before anyone could answer, a deep familiar voice came from the doorway. “On the contrary, Professor Summerlee. It is perfectly sensible.” Professor Challenger walked into the room. He had secretly traveled to Brazil and planned to guide us himself. No written directions, he explained, could be as reliable as his own memory. He had kept his decision private because he did not want arguments, reporters, or curious travelers following him. Summerlee looked horrified. “You mean I must spend the whole journey with you?” — “The scientific value of my company will more than compensate for any personal discomfort,” Challenger replied. Lord John laughed. “Then our team is complete.”

Challenger spread a map across the table, though the final destination was not marked. “We leave tomorrow,” he said. “From this point onwards, we are going into a country that very few outsiders have seen. Later we will go beyond even that.” I looked around the table at the four of us - Challenger, Summerlee, Lord John, and myself. We were different in age, character, and purpose. Yet we now shared one question. Was there truly a lost world waiting beyond the Amazon?

The four lines to keep from this chapter

“Let him tell us where they are and provide proof that can be tested.” — Summerlee is not being difficult. That is the whole of science in five words, and it is the thing Challenger has refused to supply for two years.

“I wanted to say that I was doing it for her, but I remembered her earlier words. A brave act done only to win approval was not true courage.” — the clearest moment of change in the first half of the novel. In Chapter 1 that standard was set for him and he walked past it. Here nobody reminds him.

“I do not remember deciding to stand.” — the answer to question 7 is in his own sentence. And “I can learn what I do not know”, which is what Roxton actually values — and the opposite of how Malone got into Challenger’s study.

“I respected his honesty. He might be skeptical, but he was willing to risk a long journey to discover the truth.” — the answer to JRE question 2, printed in the chapter. And “There is nothing amusing about evidence.”

The expedition · what each member is for

Question 5 and JRE 1 are about this — and so are three questions on the final paper. Each card names the one it answers.

Professor Challenger — The knowledge

Brings: He is the only person alive who knows where the plateau is — the blank sheet proves it, because the route exists nowhere but in his memory.

Risks: His pride and temper have already cost him two years of being disbelieved, and he is impossible to travel with. Summerlee is horrified at the prospect.

On the final paper: Final paper Q12 — evaluate Challenger as a leader.

The point the chapter makes itself: “We were different in age, character, and purpose. Yet we now shared one question.” The team is not strong because its members are similar. It is strong because each one covers a gap the others have.

In the exam · When a question offers you “or both”

It looks like this: “Was it courageous, impulsive, or both?” — and in Chapter 1, “Does it show maturity, impulsiveness, or both?”

Always: answer both, and spend the answer showing which part is which. The marks are not for choosing a side; the question has already told you that both are available. Name the evidence for each half separately — here, a public volunteer for real danger (courageous) against “I do not remember deciding to stand” (impulsive). Once is a question; this is the second time the book has asked it about the same character, so treat it as a pattern.

1 · Chapter Summative — eight questions

No key is printed in the book, so each answer carries the sentence it was decided from.

1. Explain — Explain why Professor Summerlee agrees to test Challenger’s claims in person.

Because he has just demanded proof that can be tested, and Challenger dares him to do the testing himself. Refusing would have made his own demand meaningless. He goes as a sceptic, not a believer: he wants the claim settled by looking rather than by argument, and he is willing to be proved wrong.

“let him tell us where they are and provide proof that can be tested.” … Summerlee lifted his chin. “Yes.”

2. Explain — How do Malone and Lord John Roxton become members of the expedition?

Challenger says Summerlee cannot travel alone and asks for younger volunteers. Malone stands almost without deciding to and names himself and his newspaper. Roxton stands at almost the same moment, offering his knowledge of the Amazon. Challenger proposes the three of them as the investigating party and the motion is accepted.

“I do not remember deciding to stand. One moment I was seated; the next I was on my feet.”

3. Explain — Explain why Challenger sends a blank sheet of paper and then appears in Manaos himself.

Because no written directions could be as reliable as his own memory, and because a written route could be copied, argued over, or followed by reporters and curious travellers. Coming himself keeps the location secret while still letting the committee reach it — and it also means he sees the plateau proved with his own party present.

“No written directions, he explained, could be as reliable as his own memory.”

4. Analyze — Analyze the contrast between Challenger and Summerlee. How might their different personalities affect the expedition?

Challenger is certain, loud and physically forceful; Summerlee is thin, sharp-voiced and doubtful of everything. The danger is constant argument — Summerlee is horrified at travelling with him at all. But the contrast is also the expedition’s greatest strength: certainty without doubt is just assertion, and doubt without certainty would never have set out. Their disagreement is what makes the journey a test rather than a demonstration.

“You mean I must spend the whole journey with you?” — “The scientific value of my company will more than compensate for any personal discomfort.”

5. Analyze — How do the four main members of the expedition bring different strengths to the team?

Challenger brings the knowledge — he alone knows the route, which is why the envelope was blank. Summerlee brings the doubt, which is what will make any proof believable. Roxton brings practical skill and the country itself: the rivers, the languages, and judgement about men. Malone brings the record, since the novel is his account, plus youth and a willingness to learn. Zambo and the Indigenous boatmen bring the means to travel at all. Each covers a gap the others have.

“We were different in age, character, and purpose. Yet we now shared one question.”

6. Analyze — Analyze how Malone’s final conversation with Gladys shows a change in his motivation.

In Chapter 1 he wanted danger in order to win her, and she warned him that a brave act done to impress someone is not real courage. Here he is on the point of claiming exactly that credit — and stops himself, unprompted, because he remembers her words. He says only “I hope I can make good use of it.” He is no longer going for her; he is going because he has decided to. Note also that her eyes brighten at the danger rather than at him, which suggests the person he was trying to impress was never quite the point.

“I wanted to say that I was doing it for her, but I remembered her earlier words.”

7. Evaluate — Evaluate Malone’s decision to volunteer publicly. Was it courageous, impulsive, or both?

Both — and the marks are in separating them. Courageous: he offered himself for a journey described as difficult and dangerous, in front of a hall full of witnesses, which makes it very hard to withdraw. Impulsive: he did not decide at all, and says so — “I do not remember deciding to stand.” The public setting cuts both ways: it commits him, which is brave, and it means the decision was made by a room rather than by him. Compare Chapter 1, question 7 — the book is asking about the same trait twice.

“One moment I was seated; the next I was on my feet.”

8. Evaluate — Evaluate Challenger’s decision to hide his plan to join the expedition. Was his secrecy sensible or unnecessary?

Sensible in effect, unnecessary in manner. Sensible: a written route could have been copied or followed, and he had already been publicly accused of fraud, so keeping the location in his own memory protected both the place and his claim. Unnecessary: he could simply have told the committee he intended to come, which would have cost him nothing and spared a theatrical scene that made Summerlee — the one man he needs to convince — look ridiculous in front of the others. The secrecy served the expedition; the drama served only Challenger.

“He had kept his decision private because he did not want arguments, reporters, or curious travelers following him.”

Novel · Chapter 3 · JRE question 1

Spend about 6 minutes

2.1

Justify your answer with clear reasoning, and refer to details about at least two team members.

Was forming a team with such different personalities a wise decision?

[4]

The mark weights shown are teaching weights, worked out from the textbook’s own task types and its Justify–Reason–Evidence structure. They show you how a full answer is built and what an examiner is looking for. They are not a published ministry mark scheme.

The spine · everything up to Chapter 3

The final assessment asks for evidence from at least three different chapters. This is where you collect it — nothing beyond Chapter 3 is shown, so nothing is spoiled.

Evidence versus belief

Feeds: Novel Summative Q10 — trace this from Challenger’s first claims to the living pterodactyl in London.

Ch 1Challenger has photographs, sketches and “a few pieces of evidence” — and refuses to say where they came from. McArdle: “Most people think he is either mistaken or lying. Find out which.” The novel opens on a claim nobody can check.

Ch 2The novel’s clearest statement of how evidence works: “One item alone might have been explained away. Together they were much harder to dismiss.” Three independent things — a dead man’s drawing, a damaged photograph, a piece of bone — pointing the same way. And Challenger’s answer to belief: “I do not believe. I know.”

Ch 3Summerlee states the scientific standard in one line: “provide proof that can be tested.” Challenger’s answer is not more argument but an invitation to come and look — which is what finally moves the claim from untestable to testable. “There is nothing amusing about evidence.”

What courage actually is

Feeds: Novel Summative JRE Q1 — can Malone be described as a hero by the end?

Ch 1Two definitions collide in one conversation. Malone’s: do something brave so Gladys will have me. Gladys’s: “He acts because courage is part of his character.” The whole novel is the distance between those two.

Ch 2Malone’s first act that matches Gladys’s definition, and nobody is watching Gladys. Bleeding on the steps with a witness and a policeman, he tells the truth against his own interest: “It was partly my fault. I will not press charges.” He does it because it is right, not to impress anyone — which is exactly what she said courage was.

Ch 3Now he applies her standard to himself, unprompted: “I wanted to say that I was doing it for her, but I remembered her earlier words. A brave act done only to win approval was not true courage.” In Chapter 1 the standard was set for him. Here he enforces it on himself, and gives up the credit.

London against the unknown

Feeds: Novel Summative Q9 — how the contrast develops the novel’s ideas about courage, discovery and identity.

Ch 1“London suddenly seemed too safe.” Safety is the problem, not the goal — which is the reversal the whole book is built on.

Ch 2The reversal begins: “As I stepped into the London street, the ordinary traffic seemed suddenly unreal.” The known world starts to look like the strange one.

Ch 3London is left behind for good, and Challenger measures the distance in stages: “we are going into a country that very few outsiders have seen. Later we will go beyond even that.” Two frontiers, not one.

Whether the expedition needs everyone

Feeds: Novel Summative JRE Q3 — is teamwork the main reason the expedition succeeds?

Ch 3The team is assembled, and the novel makes a point of how unlike each other they are: “We were different in age, character, and purpose. Yet we now shared one question.” Challenger has the knowledge, Summerlee the doubt, Roxton the practical skill and the Amazon, Malone the record — and Zambo and the river men the means to get there at all.

Key Terms used in this chapter

From the novel’s own glossary on page 76. Only the words this chapter used are shown.

prehistoric — belonging to the time before written history

expedition — an organized journey made for a special purpose, especially exploration or research

Carried forward from Chapter 3

• The team exists, and each member covers a gap the others have. Three questions on the final paper come from this.
• Summerlee’s “Yes” — the sceptic came, which is the only reason the eventual proof will be worth anything.
• Malone gives up the credit. Your first hard evidence of how his motivation changes across the novel.
• Zambo — named in the final assessment. Not background.

Keep reading — this lesson marks itself done automatically.