Question 2: Language Practice Questions

Question 1

8 marks

This extract is from a novel set in the present day. The narrator is travelling to work on an underground train.

1Somewhere between two stations, the train gave a long metallic sigh and

stopped. The lights dimmed to the colour of weak tea and stayed there.

Nobody looked up. A man in a grey suit went on reading the same

paragraph of his newspaper, his lips moving slightly, as though he could

5read the train back into motion. Heat thickened. It pressed against the

windows, which showed nothing but our own faces, yellowed and tired,

floating over the black brick of the tunnel. Somebody's headphones

leaked a tinny, frantic drumbeat. A baby began to cry, stopped,

considered the situation, and started again with real conviction. Ten

10minutes. Fifteen. The driver's voice crackled through the speaker,

apologised for something none of us caught, and was gone.

Original passage.

Look in detail at this extract.

How does the writer use language here to describe being stuck on the stopped train?

You could include the writer's choice of:

words and phrases
language features and techniques
sentence forms.

/ 8

Question 2

8 marks

This extract is from a novel set in a small Scottish town in the 1950s.

1Mrs Abernethy kept the post office as if it were a fortress and she its

last defender. She was small, but she occupied the space behind the

counter the way a cat occupies the best chair: completely, and with no

intention of moving. Her spectacles hung on a chain against a cardigan

5the colour of porridge, and she lifted them to her eyes only when she

wished to make a point, which was often. Her voice was low and dry. She

did not raise it. She did not need to. When she counted out your change

she laid each coin on the counter separately, with a small, decisive

click, as though she were giving evidence against you. Children who came

10in for stamps left with their stamps and a vague sense of having been

forgiven for something.

Original passage.

Look in detail at this extract.

How does the writer use language here to describe Mrs Abernethy?

You could include the writer's choice of:

words and phrases
language features and techniques
sentence forms.

/ 8

Question 0

8 marks

This extract is from the opening of a short story. Miss Brill, a woman living alone in a town in France, is going out for her usual Sunday afternoon in the public gardens.

1Although it was so brilliantly fine—the blue sky powdered with gold and

great spots of light like white wine splashed over the Jardins

Publiques—Miss Brill was glad that she had decided on her fur. The air

was motionless, but when you opened your mouth there was just a faint

5chill, like a chill from a glass of iced water before you sip, and now

and again a leaf came drifting—from nowhere, from the sky. Miss Brill

put up her hand and touched her fur. Dear little thing! It was nice to

feel it again. She had taken it out of its box that afternoon, shaken

out the moth-powder, given it a good brush, and rubbed the life back

10into the dim little eyes. “What has been happening to me?” said the sad

little eyes. Oh, how sweet it was to see them snap at her again from the

red eiderdown!... But the nose, which was of some black composition,

wasn’t at all firm. It must have had a knock, somehow. Never mind—a

little dab of black sealing-wax when the time came—when it was

15absolutely necessary....

From "Miss Brill" by Katherine Mansfield (1920).

Glossary

Jardins Publiques: public gardens (French)
fur: a fur stole or wrap worn round the neck, with the animal's head and tail still attached
moth-powder: powder used to keep moths away from stored clothes
eiderdown: a thick, padded bed cover
sealing-wax: wax used to seal letters
composition: material

Look in detail at this extract.

How does the writer use language here to describe Miss Brill and her fur?

You could include the writer's choice of:

words and phrases
language features and techniques
sentence forms.

/ 8

Question 0

8 marks

This extract is from a novel. The narrator remembers a winter in his childhood when the lake near his home froze.

1By January the lake had stopped pretending to be water. It lay under the

hills like a sheet of dull pewter, scratched by skates and scattered

with the small dark bodies of leaves that had been caught when it froze.

Near the bank the ice was white and thick and full of bubbles, like

5glass that had been badly made. Further out it darkened. It became

clear, then black, then something you did not want to look into for

long. We were told never to go beyond the jetty. We went beyond the

jetty every day. And every day, somewhere under our feet, the lake made

a sound like a giant clearing its throat, a long, low, bending note that

10ran from shore to shore and left us standing very still, grinning, not

breathing.

Original passage.

Look in detail at this extract.

How does the writer use language here to describe the frozen lake?

You could include the writer's choice of:

words and phrases
language features and techniques
sentence forms.

/ 8

Question 0

8 marks

This extract is the opening of a novel, set in London in an imagined future. Winston Smith is arriving home at the block of flats where he lives.

Look in detail at this extract, from lines 6 to 18 of the source:

1The hallway smelt of boiled cabbage and old rag mats. At one end of it a

coloured poster, too large for indoor display, had been tacked to the

wall. It depicted simply an enormous face, more than a metre wide: the

face of a man of about forty-five, with a heavy black moustache and

5ruggedly handsome features. Winston made for the stairs. It was no use

trying the lift. Even at the best of times it was seldom working, and at

present the electric current was cut off during daylight hours. The flat

was seven flights up, and Winston, who was thirty-nine and had a

varicose ulcer above his right ankle, went slowly, resting several times

10on the way. On each landing, opposite the lift-shaft, the poster with

the enormous face gazed from the wall. It was one of those pictures

which are so contrived that the eyes follow you about when you move.

BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU, the caption beneath it ran.

From Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell (1949).

Glossary

contrived: cleverly designed for a purpose
varicose ulcer: a painful sore on the leg caused by swollen veins

How does the writer use language here to describe Winston's block of flats?

You could include the writer's choice of:

words and phrases
language features and techniques
sentence forms.

/ 8

Question 0

8 marks

This extract is the opening of a novel, set in London shortly before the First World War. Richard Hannay has made his fortune in southern Africa and has come to live in Britain.

Look in detail at this extract, from lines 16 to 25 of the source:

1About six o’clock I went home, dressed, dined at the Café Royal, and

turned into a music-hall. It was a silly show, all capering women and

monkey-faced men, and I did not stay long. The night was fine and clear

as I walked back to the flat I had hired near Portland Place. The crowd

5surged past me on the pavements, busy and chattering, and I envied the

people for having something to do. I gave half-a-crown to a beggar

because I saw him yawn; he was a fellow-sufferer. At Oxford Circus I

looked up into the spring sky and I made a vow. I would give the Old

Country another day to fit me into something; if nothing happened, I

10would take the next boat for the Cape.

From The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan (1915).

Glossary

Café Royal: a fashionable London restaurant
music-hall: a theatre showing comic songs, dancing and variety acts
capering: skipping and dancing about
half-a-crown: a silver coin, worth a fair amount at the time
the Cape: Cape Town, in South Africa

How does the writer use language here to describe Hannay's feelings about his life in London?

You could include the writer's choice of:

words and phrases
language features and techniques
sentence forms.

/ 8

Question 0

8 marks

This extract is from a short story. A young captain has just taken command of a sailing ship, anchored at night off the coast of Siam (now Thailand). He does not yet know the ship or its crew. Unable to sleep, he has sent his officers to bed and is keeping watch on deck alone, and he has just reassured himself that the voyage ahead is unlikely to hold any surprises.

Look in detail at this extract, from lines 20 to 32 of the source:

1The side of the ship made an opaque belt of shadow on the darkling

glassy shimmer of the sea. But I saw at once something elongated and

pale floating very close to the ladder. Before I could form a guess a

faint flash of phosphorescent light, which seemed to issue suddenly from

5the naked body of a man, flickered in the sleeping water with the

elusive, silent play of summer lightning in a night sky. With a gasp I

saw revealed to my stare a pair of feet, the long legs, a broad livid

back immersed right up to the neck in a greenish cadaverous glow. One

hand, awash, clutched the bottom rung of the ladder. He was complete but

10for the head. A headless corpse! The cigar dropped out of my gaping

mouth with a tiny plop and a short hiss quite audible in the absolute

stillness of all things under heaven. At that I suppose he raised up his

face, a dimly pale oval in the shadow of the ship’s side.

From “The Secret Sharer” by Joseph Conrad (1910).

Glossary

opaque: dark, not letting light through
darkling: growing dark
phosphorescent: glowing faintly; here, the light given off by tiny sea creatures when the water moves
elusive: hard to catch or pin down
livid: a deathly, bluish-grey colour
cadaverous: like a dead body
awash: covered with water
rung: one of the steps of a ladder

How does the writer use language here to describe what the narrator sees in the water?

You could include the writer's choice of:

words and phrases
language features and techniques
sentence forms.

/ 8

Question 0

8 marks

This extract is from a short story. Mr and Mrs White live with their grown-up son, Herbert, in a house some way out of town. The night before, a visiting soldier let them have a dried monkey’s paw which, he said, could grant three wishes, and he warned them not to use it. Half as a joke, Mr White wished for two hundred pounds, and he was frightened when the paw seemed to move in his hand.

Look in detail at this extract, from lines 1 to 15 of the source:

1In the brightness of the wintry sun next morning as it streamed over the

breakfast table he laughed at his fears. There was an air of prosaic

wholesomeness about the room which it had lacked on the previous night,

and the dirty, shrivelled little paw was pitched on the sideboard with a

5carelessness which betokened no great belief in its virtues.

“I suppose all old soldiers are the same,” said Mrs. White. “How could

wishes be granted in these days? And if they could, how could two hundred

pounds hurt you, father?”

“Might drop on his head from the sky,” said the frivolous Herbert.

10“Well, don’t break into the money before I come back,” said Herbert as he

rose from the table. “I’m afraid it’ll turn you into a mean, avaricious

man, and we shall have to disown you.”

His mother laughed, and following him to the door, watched him down the

road; and returning to the breakfast table, was very happy at the expense

15of her husband’s credulity.

From "The Monkey’s Paw" by W. W. Jacobs (1902).

Glossary

prosaic: ordinary and everyday
betokened: showed, was a sign of
avaricious: greedy for money
credulity: being too ready to believe things

How does the writer use language here to describe the family’s mood the next morning?

You could include the writer's choice of:

words and phrases
language features and techniques
sentence forms.

/ 8

Question 0

8 marks

This extract is the opening of a short story, set in a coal-mining area of the English Midlands in the early 1900s. A small engine is pulling coal trucks along the railway line late one afternoon, as the light begins to fade.

Look in detail at this extract, from lines 13 to 22 of the source:

1In the open, the smoke from the engine sank and cleaved to the rough

grass. The fields were dreary and forsaken, and in the marshy strip that

led to the whimsey, a reedy pit-pond, the fowls had already abandoned

their run among the alders, to roost in the tarred fowl-house. The

5pit-bank loomed up beyond the pond, flames like red sores licking its

ashy sides, in the afternoon’s stagnant light. Just beyond rose the

tapering chimneys and the clumsy black headstocks of Brinsley Colliery.

The two wheels were spinning fast up against the sky, and the

winding-engine rapped out its little spasms. The miners were being

10turned up.

From "Odour of Chrysanthemums" by D. H. Lawrence (1914).

Glossary

cleaved: clung
whimsey: an old mine shaft (here, one flooded to make a pond)
pit-bank: a heap of waste from the coal mine
headstocks: the frame above a mine shaft that holds the winding wheels
colliery: a coal mine
winding-engine: the engine that raises and lowers the lift in the mine shaft
turned up: brought up to the surface at the end of their shift

How does the writer use language here to describe the colliery and the land around it?

You could include the writer's choice of:

words and phrases
language features and techniques
sentence forms.

/ 8

Question 0

8 marks

This extract is from a short story written in the early twentieth century. It is the morning of a garden party at the Sheridan family’s large house. Laura, one of the daughters of the family, has just finished a telephone call. Jose is her sister; Sadie, Hans and the cook are servants.

Look in detail at this extract, from lines 1 to 12 of the source:

1Laura put back the receiver, flung her arms over her head, took a deep

breath, stretched and let them fall. “Huh,” she sighed, and the moment

after the sigh she sat up quickly. She was still, listening. All the

doors in the house seemed to be open. The house was alive with soft,

5quick steps and running voices. The green baize door that led to the

kitchen regions swung open and shut with a muffled thud. And now there

came a long, chuckling absurd sound. It was the heavy piano being moved

on its stiff castors. But the air! If you stopped to notice, was the air

always like this? Little faint winds were playing chase, in at the tops

10of the windows, out at the doors. And there were two tiny spots of sun,

one on the inkpot, one on a silver photograph frame, playing too. It was

quite warm. A warm little silver star. She could have kissed it.

From “The Garden Party” by Katherine Mansfield (1922).

Glossary

receiver: the part of a telephone you hold to your ear
baize: a thick woollen cloth; a door covered in green baize separated the family’s rooms from the servants’ kitchen
castors: small wheels fixed to the legs of furniture

How does the writer use language here to describe the house on the morning of the party?

You could include the writer's choice of:

words and phrases
language features and techniques
sentence forms.

/ 8

Question 0

8 marks

This extract is the ending of a short story. Framton Nuttel, a nervous man who has come to the countryside for a rest cure, is visiting Mrs Sappleton, whom he has never met. While he waits for her to come downstairs, her fifteen-year-old niece points to a large French window, left wide open on an October afternoon, and begins to tell him about a tragedy in her aunt’s life.

Look in detail at this extract, from lines 16 to 28 of the source:

1She broke off with a little shudder. It was a relief to Framton when the

aunt bustled into the room with a whirl of apologies for being late in

making her appearance.

“I hope you don’t mind the open window,” said Mrs. Sappleton briskly;

5“my husband and brothers will be home directly from shooting, and they

always come in this way.”

She rattled on cheerfully about the shooting and the scarcity of birds,

and the prospects for duck in the winter. To Framton it was all purely

horrible. He made a desperate but only partially successful effort to

10turn the talk on to a less ghastly topic; he was conscious that his

hostess was giving him only a fragment of her attention, and her eyes

were constantly straying past him to the open window and the lawn

beyond.

From “The Open Window” by Saki (1914).

Glossary

bustled: moved in a busy, hurried way
scarcity: shortage
duck: here, wild ducks to be shot for sport

How does the writer use language here to describe Framton’s meeting with Mrs Sappleton?

You could include the writer’s choice of:

words and phrases
language features and techniques
sentence forms.

/ 8

Question 0

8 marks

This extract is from the middle of a short story, set high in the Andes mountains of South America. Nunez, a mountain guide, has fallen a great distance down a mountainside during the night but has survived. In the morning he looks for a way out of the gorge where he has landed.

Look in detail at this extract, from lines 4 to 15 of the source:

1They were very strange to his eyes, and indeed the whole aspect of that

valley became, as he regarded it, queerer and more unfamiliar. The houses

of the central village were quite unlike the casual and higgledy-piggledy

agglomeration of the mountain villages he knew; they stood in a

5continuous row on either side of a central street of astonishing

cleanness; here and there their particoloured facade was pierced by a

door, and not a solitary window broke their even frontage. They were

particoloured with extraordinary irregularity, smeared with a sort of

plaster that was sometimes grey, sometimes drab, sometimes slate-coloured

10or dark brown; and it was the sight of this wild plastering first brought

the word “blind” into the thoughts of the explorer. “The good man who did

that,” he thought, “must have been as blind as a bat.”

From The Country of the Blind by H. G. Wells (1904).

Glossary

higgledy-piggledy: jumbled and untidy
agglomeration: a mass of things heaped together
particoloured: in several different colours
facade / frontage: the front of a building or a row of buildings
drab: dull, light brownish-grey

How does the writer use language here to describe the village?

You could include the writer's choice of:

words and phrases
language features and techniques
sentence forms.

/ 8

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Question 2: Language Practice Questions

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