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Question 3: Language Practice Questions

Question 1

12 marks

In 1851 Charles Dickens wrote a magazine article about the small, old-fashioned seaside town in Kent where he spent his summers. Sitting at his window early one morning, he decides to "sketch" the scene in words.

1The place seems to respond. Sky, sea, beach, and village, lie as still
before us as if they were sitting for the picture. It is dead low-water.
A ripple plays among the ripening corn upon the cliff, as if it were
faintly trying from recollection to imitate the sea; and the world of
5butterflies hovering over the crop of radish-seed are as restless in
their little way as the gulls are in their larger manner when the wind
blows. But the ocean lies winking in the sunlight like a drowsy lion—its
glassy waters scarcely curve upon the shore—the fishing-boats in the
tiny harbour are all stranded in the mud—our two colliers (our
10watering-place has a maritime trade employing that amount of shipping)
have not an inch of water within a quarter of a mile of them, and turn,
exhausted, on their sides, like faint fish of an antediluvian species.
Rusty cables and chains, ropes and rings, undermost parts of posts and
piles and confused timber-defences against the waves, lie strewn about,
15in a brown litter of tangled sea-weed and fallen cliff which looks as if
a family of giants had been making tea here for ages, and had observed
an untidy custom of throwing their tea-leaves on the shore.

From "Our English Watering-place" by Charles Dickens (1851), collected in Reprinted Pieces (1858)

Glossary: dead low-water: the lowest point of the tide · colliers: ships that carry coal · antediluvian: extremely ancient (from before Noah's flood in the Bible) · piles: wooden posts driven into the beach

You now need to refer only to the extract above.

How does the writer use language to describe the seashore at low tide?

There are no bullet points: write about words and phrases, language features and techniques, and sentence forms.

Question 2

12 marks

Mary Kingsley explored West Africa in the 1890s, travelling with a group of local guides and porters. Here she is walking ahead of them through the forest, following a faint path.

1Presently I came to a place where it went out, but appeared again on the
other side of a clump of underbush fairly distinctly. I made a short cut
for it and the next news was I was in a heap, on a lot of spikes, some
fifteen feet or so below ground level, at the bottom of a bag-shaped
5game pit. It is at these times you realise the blessing of a good thick
skirt. Had I paid heed to the advice of many people in England, who
ought to have known better, and did not do it themselves, and adopted
masculine garments, I should have been spiked to the bone, and done for.
Whereas, save for a good many bruises, here I was with the fulness of my
10skirt tucked under me, sitting on nine ebony spikes some twelve inches
long, in comparative comfort, howling lustily to be hauled out.

From Travels in West Africa by Mary H. Kingsley (1897)

Glossary: it went out: the path disappeared · underbush: undergrowth · game pit: a hole dug and lined with spikes to trap animals · adopted masculine garments: worn men's clothes, such as trousers · done for: killed · ebony: a very hard black wood · lustily: loudly and energetically

You now need to refer only to the extract above.

How does the writer use language to describe her fall into the game pit?

There are no bullet points: write about words and phrases, language features and techniques, and sentence forms.

Question 3

12 marks

Source B

In 1860 the novelist Charles Dickens wrote a magazine essay about a time, some years earlier, when he could not sleep and walked the streets of London all through the night.

1Some years ago, a temporary inability to sleep, referable to a
distressing impression, caused me to walk about the streets all night,
for a series of several nights. The disorder might have taken a long
time to conquer, if it had been faintly experimented on in bed; but, it
5was soon defeated by the brisk treatment of getting up directly after
lying down, and going out, and coming home tired at sunrise.
In the course of those nights, I finished my education in a fair amateur
experience of houselessness. My principal object being to get through
the night, the pursuit of it brought me into sympathetic relations with
10people who have no other object every night in the year.
The restlessness of a great city, and the way in which it tumbles and
tosses before it can get to sleep, formed one of the first
entertainments offered to the contemplation of us houseless people. It
lasted about two hours. We lost a great deal of companionship when the
15late public-houses turned their lamps out, and when the potmen thrust
the last brawling drunkards into the street; but stray vehicles and
stray people were left us, after that.
At length these flickering sparks would die away, worn out—the last
veritable sparks of waking life trailed from some late pieman or
20hot-potato man—and London would sink to rest. And then the yearning of
the houseless mind would be for any sign of company, any lighted place,
any movement, anything suggestive of any one being up—nay, even so much
as awake, for the houseless eye looked out for lights in windows.
Walking the streets under the pattering rain, Houselessness would walk
25and walk and walk, seeing nothing but the interminable tangle of
streets, save at a corner, here and there, two policemen in
conversation, or the sergeant or inspector looking after his men.
When a church clock strikes, on houseless ears in the dead of the night,
it may be at first mistaken for company and hailed as such. But, as the
30spreading circles of vibration, which you may perceive at such a time
with great clearness, go opening out, for ever and ever afterwards
widening perhaps (as the philosopher has suggested) in eternal space,
the mistake is rectified and the sense of loneliness is profounder.
Once—it was after leaving the Abbey and turning my face north—I came to
35the great steps of St. Martin’s church as the clock was striking Three.
Suddenly, a thing that in a moment more I should have trodden upon
without seeing, rose up at my feet with a cry of loneliness and
houselessness, struck out of it by the bell, the like of which I never
heard. We then stood face to face looking at one another, frightened by
40one another. The creature was like a beetle-browed hair-lipped youth of
twenty, and it had a loose bundle of rags on, which it held together
with one of its hands. It shivered from head to foot, and its teeth
chattered, and as it stared at me—persecutor, devil, ghost, whatever it
thought me—it made with its whining mouth as if it were snapping at me,
45like a worried dog. Intending to give this ugly object money, I put out
my hand to stay it—for it recoiled as it whined and snapped—and laid my
hand upon its shoulder. Instantly, it twisted out of its garment, like
the young man in the New Testament, and left me standing alone with its
rags in my hands.

From "Night Walks" by Charles Dickens (1860), collected in The Uncommercial Traveller.

Glossary

  • referable to a distressing impression: caused by something upsetting
  • faintly experimented on in bed: treated half-heartedly by staying in bed
  • houselessness: having no home
  • contemplation: thoughtful watching
  • potmen: men who served and cleared up in public houses (pubs)
  • veritable: real
  • pieman: a street seller of hot pies
  • nay: no, indeed
  • Houselessness: Dickens's name for himself as a homeless night walker
  • interminable: endless
  • save: except
  • the philosopher: a thinker of the time who suggested that a sound never completely dies away
  • rectified: corrected
  • profounder: deeper
  • the Abbey: Westminster Abbey
  • beetle-browed: with heavy, overhanging eyebrows
  • hair-lipped: with a split upper lip (an old term, now considered offensive)
  • stay: stop, hold back
  • the young man in the New Testament: in the Bible, a young man escapes being seized by slipping out of the cloth he is wearing and running away

You now need to refer only to Source B, from lines 34 to 49.

How does the writer use language to describe the youth he meets on the steps of the church?

There are no bullet points: write about words and phrases, language features and techniques, and sentence forms.

Question 4

12 marks

Source B

In 1864 the art critic John Ruskin gave a lecture in Manchester about the place of women in society, later printed in his book Sesame and Lilies. In this part of the lecture he speaks to parents about how their daughters should be educated.

1I believe, then, with this exception, that a girl’s education should be
nearly, in its course and material of study, the same as a boy’s; but
quite differently directed. A woman, in any rank of life, ought to know
whatever her husband is likely to know, but to know it in a different way.
5His command of it should be foundational and progressive; hers, general
and accomplished for daily and helpful use. Not but that it would often be
wiser in men to learn things in a womanly sort of way, for present use,
and to seek for the discipline and training of their mental powers in such
branches of study as will be afterwards fittest for social service; but,
10speaking broadly, a man ought to know any language or science he learns,
thoroughly—while a woman ought to know the same language, or science, only
so far as may enable her to sympathise in her husband’s pleasures, and in
those of his best friends.
And if she can have access to a good library of old and classical books,
15there need be no choosing at all. Keep the modern magazine and novel out
of your girl’s way: turn her loose into the old library every wet day, and
let her alone. She will find what is good for her; you cannot: for there
is just this difference between the making of a girl’s character and a
boy’s—you may chisel a boy into shape, as you would a rock, or hammer him
20into it, if he be of a better kind, as you would a piece of bronze. But
you cannot hammer a girl into anything. She grows as a flower does,—she
will wither without sun; she will decay in her sheath, as a narcissus
will, if you do not give her air enough; she may fall, and defile her head
in dust, if you leave her without help at some moments of her life; but
25you cannot fetter her; she must take her own fair form and way, if she
take any, and in mind as in body, must have always
“Her household motions light and free
And steps of virgin liberty.”
Let her loose in the library, I say, as you do a fawn in a field. It knows
30the bad weeds twenty times better than you; and the good ones too, and
will eat some bitter and prickly ones, good for it, which you had not the
slightest thought would have been so.
And not only in the material and in the course, but yet more earnestly in
the spirit of it, let a girl’s education be as serious as a boy’s. You
35bring up your girls as if they were meant for sideboard ornaments, and
then complain of their frivolity.
But what teachers do you give your girls, and what reverence do you show
to the teachers you have chosen? Is a girl likely to think her own
conduct, or her own intellect, of much importance, when you trust the
40entire formation of her character, moral and intellectual, to a person
whom you let your servants treat with less respect than they do your
housekeeper (as if the soul of your child were a less charge than jams and
groceries), and whom you yourself think you confer an honour upon by
letting her sometimes sit in the drawing-room in the evening?

From "Of Queens' Gardens", a lecture by John Ruskin (1864), published in Sesame and Lilies (1865).

Glossary

  • with this exception: Ruskin has just said that the one subject girls should not study is theology (religious teaching)
  • directed: aimed, used for a purpose
  • foundational and progressive: deep, and always building further
  • accomplished: polished, good enough to use in company
  • Not but that: though it is true that
  • sympathise in: share in, understand
  • classical: ancient Greek and Roman, or long admired
  • sheath: the leaf that wraps a flower bud
  • narcissus: a flower like a daffodil
  • defile: make dirty, disgrace
  • fetter: chain up
  • household motions: movements about the home (Ruskin is quoting a poem by Wordsworth)
  • virgin liberty: the freedom of a young, innocent girl
  • earnestly: seriously, sincerely
  • sideboard ornaments: decorations to be put on display on a piece of dining-room furniture
  • frivolity: silliness, lack of seriousness
  • reverence: deep respect
  • a person: a governess, a woman paid to teach girls at home
  • a less charge: a less important responsibility
  • confer an honour upon: do a great favour to
  • drawing-room: the best sitting room, where the family received guests

You now need to refer only to Source B, from lines 17 to 32.

How does the writer use language to describe how a girl grows and learns?

There are no bullet points: write about words and phrases, language features and techniques, and sentence forms.

Question 5

12 marks

Source B

Matthew Scott looked after Jumbo, a famous African elephant at London Zoo, for more than twenty years. In 1882 Jumbo was sold to the American showman P. T. Barnum, and Scott travelled with him to the United States. In 1885 Scott published this account of Jumbo's life.

1When I first saw Jumbo I met him on the coast of France. He was about
being brought from that country to England for medical care—to your humble
servant, the animals’ physician. A more deplorable, diseased, and rotten
creature never walked God’s earth, to my knowledge. However, I received
5Jumbo as I have received many other of God’s creatures that other people
have given up for “a bad job.” I received him kindly, took him tenderly
over the Channel, and lodged him in a comfortable, clean bed in my stable.
I undertook to be his doctor, his nurse, and general servant.
Once when I was riding him around in the Zoölogical Gardens, in London,
10sitting on his neck, with about a dozen children on a panier-saddle across
his broad back, we were proceeding down the path. I was engaged talking to
the dozen “little folk” who occupied his back, and encouraging them to sit
very quietly and not fall off, when all at once Master Jumbo came to a
standstill for some cause or other. I shouted to him to go along, but for
15once he did not obey the order. As I turned round to see what was the
matter, there was a lady running over the grass-plot on to the path,
screaming and shouting, “Oh, my poor child! my child, my child! oh, he
will be killed, he will be killed!” Well, I looked down from my elevation
and saw Jumbo deliberately and coolly putting his trunk around the body of
20an infant that escaped its mother’s apron-strings and had run and fallen
in front of Jumbo. Jumbo is a very careful walker, and always looks where
he is going, and, like some others of God’s creatures, is rather slow in
his movements, but both very sure footed and thoughtful. He just stopped
right there, gently picked up the child by the waist with his trunk, and
25laid it on the green grass beside its screaming mother, more tenderly than
the mother afterward took up the frightened child in her excitement.
Jumbo never gets excited when he is attending to children. He might get
mad once in a while, when some drunken fool tries to prick him with pins
stuck in a cake, or otherwise fool him.
30When the English public was informed of Jumbo’s intended departure loud
protests were raised. The feeling was intense, and the people were so
earnest and determined that Jumbo should not leave England, that a
proposition was made to raise by subscription from the masses, a
sufficient sum of money to buy him from the Zoölogical Society.
35In the dawn of a fine spring morning we started on our journey to the New
World. The box was drawn by sixteen horses, and the weight was as much as
they could draw. Thousands followed Jumbo to the river-bank, expressing
their regrets at his departure. The grief of the children was really
sorrowful.
40My heart has often been pained when I have seen these struggling crowds
crying out for a peep at the finest and most intelligent animal the world
has ever seen, and when I have led him forth down the road to the depot my
heart was made glad and thankful that Jumbo was appreciated, praised, and
shouted for. Sometimes it was a perfect ovation. The people with upturned
45faces would look on, and with flowing handkerchiefs and throats almost
rent with effort they would call out, “Here’s Jumbo! here’s Jumbo!”
“Hello, Jumbo!” “Welcome, Jumbo! you’re a greater wonder than what we
expected, Jumbo.” “Good-by, dear old Jumbo!” “We shan’t see you again,
Jumbo!”

From "Jumbo's Biography" by Matthew Scott, published with his Autobiography of Matthew Scott, Jumbo's Keeper (1885).

Glossary

  • He was about being brought: he was about to be brought
  • your humble servant: the writer means himself
  • physician: doctor
  • deplorable: in a shockingly bad state
  • Zoölogical Gardens: London Zoo
  • panier-saddle: a saddle with seats hanging down on each side
  • Master Jumbo: a playful title, as if Jumbo were a young boy
  • elevation: high position
  • apron-strings: the ties of an apron; the child had run away from its mother
  • subscription: collecting money from many people
  • the masses: ordinary people
  • the New World: America
  • depot: railway station
  • ovation: burst of applause and cheering
  • rent: torn
  • Good-by: goodbye

You now need to refer only to Source B, from lines 9 to 26.

How does the writer use language to describe Jumbo?

There are no bullet points: write about words and phrases, language features and techniques, and sentence forms.

Question 6

12 marks

Source B

In the winter of 1860 the American doctor and explorer Isaac Israel Hayes was based on a ship frozen into the ice off the coast of Greenland. In October he led five of his men on a short sledge journey up onto the great ice sheet that covers the island's interior, to study it. In this extract from his book, written after his return, he describes the fourth day of the journey and what followed. Temperatures are in degrees Fahrenheit.

1The temperature had fallen to 30° below zero, and a fierce gale of wind
meeting us in the face, drove us into our tent for shelter, and, after
resting there for a few hours, compelled our return. I had, however,
accomplished the principal purpose of my journey, and had not in any
5case intended to proceed more than one day further, at this critical
period of the year.
My party had not yet become sufficiently inured to exposure at such low
temperatures to enable them to bear it without risk. They were all more
or less touched with the frost, and the faces of two of them had been
10so often frozen that they had become very painful and much swollen, and
their feet being constantly cold, I was fearful of some serious
accident if we did not speedily seek safety at a lower level. The men
complained bitterly, and could not sleep. One of them seemed likely to
give up altogether, and I was compelled to send him into the open air
15to save himself from perishing by a vigorous walk.
The storm steadily increased in force, and, the temperature falling
lower and lower, we were all at length forced to quit the tent, and in
active exercise strive to prevent ourselves from freezing. To face the
wind was not possible, and shelter was nowhere to be found upon the
20unbroken plain. There was but one direction in which we could move, and
that was with our backs to the gale. Much as I should have liked to
continue the journey one day more, it was clear to me that longer delay
would not alone endanger the lives of one or two members of my party,
but would wholly defeat the purposes of the expedition by the
25destruction of all of us.
Our situation at this camp was as sublime as it was dangerous. We had
attained an altitude of five thousand feet above the level of the sea,
and we were seventy miles from the coast, in the midst of a vast frozen
sahara, immeasurable to the human eye. There was neither hill,
30mountain, nor gorge anywhere in view. We had completely sunk the strip
of land which lies between the mer de glace and the sea; and no object
met the eye but our feeble tent, which bent to the storm. Fitful clouds
swept over the face of the full-orbed moon, which, descending toward
the horizon, glimmered through the drifting snow that whirled out of
35the illimitable distance, and scudded over the icy plain;—to the eye,
in undulating lines of downy softness; to the flesh, in showers of
piercing darts.
Our only safety was in flight; and like a ship driven before a tempest
which she cannot withstand, and which has threatened her ruin, we
40turned our backs to the gale; and, hastening down the slope, we ran to
save our lives.
The latter part of the journey was made wholly by moonlight. Sheets of
drifting snow swept over the white-crested hills like insubstantial
spirits flitting wildly through the night. These told that the gale yet
45howled above; but in our lowly shelter the air was still as a cave in
the midst of winds. No cloud obscured the broad archway of the skies.
The gentle stars, robed in the drapery of night, rejoiced to behold
their forms in the smooth mirror of the lake. The glacier threw back
the chilly moonbeams.

From The Open Polar Sea by Isaac Israel Hayes (1867).

Glossary

  • 30° below zero: thirty degrees below zero Fahrenheit, about -34°C
  • principal: main
  • inured: hardened by experience
  • touched with the frost: suffering from frostbite
  • speedily: quickly
  • perishing: dying
  • quit: leave
  • sublime: so vast or grand that it fills you with awe
  • attained an altitude: reached a height
  • sahara: desert (from the Sahara Desert)
  • sunk: travelled so far that something has dropped out of sight below the horizon
  • mer de glace: "sea of ice" (French): the ice sheet
  • Fitful: coming and going irregularly
  • full-orbed: full and round
  • illimitable: endless
  • scudded: raced along
  • undulating: rising and falling like waves
  • tempest: violent storm
  • insubstantial: without a solid body, ghostly
  • archway of the skies: the curved dome of the sky
  • drapery: loose, flowing cloth

You now need to refer only to Source B, from lines 26 to 41.

How does the writer use language to describe the ice sheet and the storm?

There are no bullet points: write about words and phrases, language features and techniques, and sentence forms.

Question 7

12 marks

Source B

In January 1842 the novelist Charles Dickens and his wife sailed from Liverpool to America on a steamship carrying passengers and mail. In this extract from his book about his travels, he describes the crossing of the Atlantic Ocean in winter.

1It is the third morning. I am awakened out of my sleep by a dismal
shriek from my wife, who demands to know whether there’s any danger. I
rouse myself, and look out of bed. The water-jug is plunging and leaping
like a lively dolphin; all the smaller articles are afloat, except my
5shoes, which are stranded on a carpet-bag, high and dry, like a couple
of coal-barges. Suddenly I see them spring into the air, and behold the
looking-glass, which is nailed to the wall, sticking fast upon the
ceiling. At the same time the door entirely disappears, and a new one is
opened in the floor. Then I begin to comprehend that the state-room is
10standing on its head.
Before it is possible to make any arrangement at all compatible with
this novel state of things, the ship rights. Before one can say ‘Thank
Heaven!’ she wrongs again. Before one can cry she is wrong, she seems to
have started forward, and to be a creature actually running of its own
15accord, with broken knees and failing legs, through every variety of
hole and pitfall, and stumbling constantly. Before one can so much as
wonder, she takes a high leap into the air. Before she has well done
that, she takes a deep dive into the water. Before she has gained the
surface, she throws a summerset. The instant she is on her legs, she
20rushes backward. And so she goes on staggering, heaving, wrestling,
leaping, diving, jumping, pitching, throbbing, rolling, and rocking: and
going through all these movements, sometimes by turns, and sometimes
altogether: until one feels disposed to roar for mercy.
A steward passes. ‘Steward!’ ‘Sir?’ ‘What is the matter? what do you
25call this?’ ‘Rather a heavy sea on, sir, and a head-wind.’
A head-wind! Imagine a human face upon the vessel’s prow, with fifteen
thousand Samsons in one bent upon driving her back, and hitting her
exactly between the eyes whenever she attempts to advance an inch.
Imagine the ship herself, with every pulse and artery of her huge body
30swollen and bursting under this maltreatment, sworn to go on or die.
Imagine the wind howling, the sea roaring, the rain beating: all in
furious array against her. Picture the sky both dark and wild, and the
clouds, in fearful sympathy with the waves, making another ocean in the
air. Add to all this, the clattering on deck and down below; the tread
35of hurried feet; the loud hoarse shouts of seamen; the gurgling in and
out of water through the scuppers; with, every now and then, the
striking of a heavy sea upon the planks above, with the deep, dead,
heavy sound of thunder heard within a vault;—and there is the head-wind
of that January morning.
40I say nothing of what may be called the domestic noises of the ship:
such as the breaking of glass and crockery, the tumbling down of
stewards, the gambols, overhead, of loose casks and truant dozens of
bottled porter, and the very remarkable and far from exhilarating sounds
raised in their various state-rooms by the seventy passengers who were
45too ill to get up to breakfast. I say nothing of them: for although I
lay listening to this concert for three or four days, I don’t think I
heard it for more than a quarter of a minute, at the expiration of which
term, I lay down again, excessively sea-sick.

From "The Passage Out", a chapter of American Notes by Charles Dickens (1842).

Glossary

  • carpet-bag: a travelling bag made of carpet-like cloth
  • coal-barges: flat-bottomed boats that carry coal along rivers and canals
  • looking-glass: mirror
  • state-room: a private cabin on a ship
  • compatible with: suited to
  • summerset: somersault
  • disposed to: inclined to, ready to
  • head-wind: a wind blowing straight against the direction a ship is travelling
  • prow: the pointed front of a ship
  • Samsons: Samson is a man of enormous strength in the Bible
  • array: battle formation
  • scuppers: openings in the side of a ship that let water drain off the deck
  • vault: an underground room or tomb with an arched roof
  • gambols: playful leaps and skips
  • truant: escaped, wandering where they should not be
  • porter: a dark beer
  • at the expiration of which term: at the end of which time

You now need to refer only to Source B, from lines 26 to 39.

How does the writer use language to describe the storm?

There are no bullet points: write about words and phrases, language features and techniques, and sentence forms.

Question 8

12 marks

Source B

In 1874, while Parliament was considering a bill to give some women the vote, the historian Goldwin Smith wrote a magazine article arguing against it. It was reprinted as a pamphlet the following year, at the request of some Members of Parliament. In this extract he sets out some of his views.

1The Bill for removing the Electoral Disabilities of Women has received
less attention than the subject deserves. A good deal of personal
pressure has been applied in favour of the Bill, and there are probably
not a few among its pledged supporters who are far from seeing clearly
5all the consequences of their vote. The very foundations of society are
touched when change is proposed in the relations of the sexes.
The main factors of the relation between the sexes have hitherto been,
and probably still are, natural affection; the man’s need of a helpmate,
the woman’s need of a protector and provider, especially when she
10becomes a mother; and the common interest of parents in their children.
If the woman has had her sorrows at home, the man has had his wars and
his rough struggles with nature abroad, and with the sweat of his brow
he has reclaimed the earth, and made it a habitation for his partner as
well as for himself. If the woman has had her disabilities, she has also
15had her privileges.
But law, after all, though the fact may be rough and unwelcome, rests at
bottom on the force of the community, and the force of the community is
male. Force, as civilization advances, is more guided by reason and open
recourse to it becomes less frequent; but the general consciousness that
20the force is there, in the last resort, is still the foundation of
government, representative as well as other kinds. No woman can imagine
that her sex can execute, or in case of rebellion re-assert the law; for
that they must look entirely to the men.
It is alleged that female influence would mitigate the violence of party
25politics. But what ground have we, in reason or experience, for
believing that women, if introduced into the political arena, would be
less violent than men? Hitherto they have been free from political
vices, because they have generally taken no part in politics, just as
home has been an asylum from political rancour because political
30division has not been introduced between man and wife. But the chances
are that, being more excitable, and having, with more warmth and
generosity of temperament, less power of self-control, women would, when
once engaged in party struggles, be not less, but more violent than men.
That party politics require mitigation, and perhaps something more, may
35be readily admitted; but we are not likely to make the cauldron boil
less fiercely by flinging into it female character and Home.
That Home would escape disturbance it is surely difficult to believe. A
man and his wife taking opposite sides in politics would be brought into
direct and public collision, especially if they happened to be active
40politicians, about a subject of the most exciting kind. Would the
harmony of most households bear the strain? Would not a husband who
cared for his own happiness be apt to say that if his wife wanted it she
might have the vote, but that there should be only one vote between
them?
45Nothing, however, to the writer, could seem clearer than that the Female
Suffrage movement, both in England and in the United States was not the
spontaneous uprising of the sex against wrong, but an artificial
agitation, the chief authors of which were ladies anxious to take part
in public life.

From "Female Suffrage" by Goldwin Smith, first published in Macmillan's Magazine (1874) and reprinted as a pamphlet (1875).

Glossary

  • Bill for removing the Electoral Disabilities of Women: a proposed law to let some women vote in elections for Parliament
  • pledged supporters: Members of Parliament who had promised to vote for it
  • the relations of the sexes: the way men and women live alongside each other
  • hitherto: until now
  • helpmate: a helpful partner, usually meaning a wife
  • reclaimed the earth: made wild land fit to farm and live on
  • habitation: a home, a place to live
  • disabilities: here, things the law did not allow her to do
  • at bottom: fundamentally, in the end
  • the general consciousness: everyone's awareness
  • in the last resort: if everything else fails
  • execute: here, enforce, carry out
  • re-assert: restore, by force if necessary
  • alleged: claimed
  • mitigate: make less severe
  • party politics: the contest between political parties
  • arena: a place where fights or contests are held
  • vices: bad habits, moral faults
  • asylum: a place of safety
  • rancour: bitter, lasting resentment
  • temperament: nature, character
  • cauldron: a large pot for boiling things over a fire
  • collision: clash
  • apt: likely
  • Female Suffrage: votes for women
  • spontaneous: natural, not planned
  • agitation: a campaign to stir up public feeling

You now need to refer only to Source B, from lines 24 to 36.

How does the writer use language to describe what he thinks would happen if women took part in politics?

There are no bullet points: write about words and phrases, language features and techniques, and sentence forms.

Question 9

12 marks

Source B

In 1861 Isabella Beeton published a very large book of advice on running a household, full of recipes and instructions for Victorian housewives. In these passages she writes about tea: its history, how to buy it and how to make it.

1The beverage called tea has now become almost a necessary of life.
Previous to the middle of the 17th century it was not used in England,
and it was wholly unknown to the Greeks and Romans. Pepys says, in his
Diary,—“September 25th, 1661.—I sent for a cup of tea (a China drink),
5of which I had never drunk before.” Two years later it was so rare a
commodity in England, that the English East-India Company bought 2 lbs.
2 oz. of it, as a present for his majesty. In 1666 it was sold in London
for sixty shillings a pound. From that date the consumption has gone on
increasing from 5,000 lbs. to 50,000,000 lbs.
10The cultivation of the plant requires great care. Teas of the finest
flavour consist of the youngest leaves; and as these are gathered at
four different periods of the year, the younger the leaves the higher
flavoured the tea, and the scarcer, and consequently the dearer, the
article.
15In the purchase of tea, that should be chosen which possesses an
agreeable odour and is as whole as possible, in order that the leaf may
be easily examined. The greatest care should be taken that it has not
been exposed to the air, which destroys its flavour.
There is very little art in making good tea; if the water is boiling,
20and there is no sparing of the fragrant leaf, the beverage will almost
invariably be good. The old-fashioned plan of allowing a teaspoonful to
each person, and one over, is still practised. Warm the teapot with
boiling water; let it remain for two or three minutes for the vessel to
become thoroughly hot, then pour it away. Put in the tea, pour in from
251/2 to 3/4 pint of boiling water, close the lid, and let it stand for
the tea to draw from 5 to 10 minutes; then fill up the pot with water.
The tea will be quite spoiled unless made with water that is actually
‘boiling’, as the leaves will not open, and the flavour not be extracted
from them; the beverage will consequently be colourless and
30tasteless,—in fact, nothing but tepid water. Where there is a very large
party to make tea for, it is a good plan to have two teapots instead of
putting a large quantity of tea into one pot; the tea, besides, will go
farther. When the infusion has been once completed, the addition of
fresh tea adds very little to the strength; so, when more is required,
35have the pot emptied of the old leaves, scalded, and fresh tea made in
the usual manner. Economists say that a few grains of carbonate of soda,
added before the boiling water is poured on the tea, assist to draw out
the goodness: if the water is very hard, perhaps it is a good plan, as
the soda softens it; but care must be taken to use this ingredient
40sparingly, as it is liable to give the tea a soapy taste if added in too
large a quantity. For mixed tea, the usual proportion is four spoonfuls
of black to one of green; more of the latter when the flavour is very
much liked; but strong green tea is highly pernicious, and should never
be partaken of too freely.

From The Book of Household Management by Isabella Beeton (1861), often known as "Mrs Beeton".

Glossary

  • beverage: drink
  • a necessary of life: something people cannot do without
  • Pepys: Samuel Pepys, a man who kept a famous diary in the 1660s
  • commodity: product that is bought and sold
  • East-India Company: a powerful British trading company that brought goods, including tea, from Asia
  • his majesty: the king, Charles II
  • sixty shillings: three pounds, a very large sum of money at the time
  • lbs.: pounds in weight (one pound is about 450 grams)
  • cultivation: growing
  • the article: the product
  • odour: smell
  • invariably: always
  • one over: one extra
  • draw: brew, so that the flavour comes out of the leaves
  • tepid: lukewarm
  • infusion: brewing
  • scalded: rinsed with boiling water
  • Economists: here, people who are careful to run a household cheaply
  • carbonate of soda: a chemical powder that softens water
  • pernicious: harmful
  • partaken of: drunk

You now need to refer only to Source B, from lines 19 to 33.

How does the writer use language to describe the right and wrong ways of making tea?

There are no bullet points: write about words and phrases, language features and techniques, and sentence forms.

Question 10

12 marks

Source B

In the middle of the nineteenth century the journalist Henry Mayhew investigated the lives of London's poor. Here he describes a night at the Asylum for the Houseless Poor, a charity shelter in the City of London that opened its doors to homeless people in freezing weather.

1The Asylum for the Houseless Poor of London is opened only when the
thermometer reaches freezing-point, and offers nothing but dry bread and
warm shelter to such as avail themselves of its charity.
To this place swarm, as the bitter winter’s night comes on, some
5half-thousand penniless and homeless wanderers.
The Asylum for the Houseless is at once the beggar’s hotel, the tramp’s
town-house, the outcast’s haven of refuge—the last dwelling, indeed, on
the road to ruin.
It is a terrible thing, indeed, to look down upon that squalid crowd
10from one of the upper windows of the institution. There they stand
shivering in the snow, with their thin, cobwebby garments hanging in
tatters about them. Many are without shirts; with their bare skin
showing through the rents and gaps of their clothes, like the hide of a
dog with the mange. Some have their greasy coats and trousers tied round
15their wrists and ankles with string, to prevent the piercing wind from
blowing up them. A few are without shoes; and these keep one foot only
to the ground, while the bare flesh that has had to tramp through the
snow is blue and livid-looking as half-cooked meat.
It is a sullenly silent crowd, without any of the riot and rude frolic
20which generally ensue upon any gathering in the London streets; for the
only sounds heard are the squealing of the beggar infants, or the
wrangling of the vagrant boys for the front ranks, together with a
continued succession of hoarse coughs, that seem to answer each other
like the bleating of a flock of sheep.
25To each person is given half-a-pound of the best bread on coming in at
night, and a like quantity on going out in the morning; and children,
even if they be at the breast, have the same, which goes to swell the
mother’s allowance.
Around the fierce stove, in the centre of the ward, there is generally
30gathered a group of the houseless wanderers, the crimson rays tinting
the cluster of haggard faces with a bright lurid light that colours the
skin as red as wine. One and all are stretching forth their hands, as if
to let the delicious heat soak into their half-numbed limbs. They seem
positively greedy of the warmth, drawing up their sleeves and trousers
35so that their naked legs and arms may present a larger surface to the
fire.
It is a marvellously pathetic scene. Here is a herd of the most wretched
and friendless people in the world, lying down close to the earth as
sheep; here are some two centuries of outcasts, whose days are an
40unvarying round of suffering, enjoying the only moments when they are
free from pain and care—life being to them but one long painful
operation as it were, and sleep the chloroform which, for the time
being, renders them insensible.
It is hard for smug-faced respectability to acknowledge these
45dirt-caked, erring wretches as brothers, and yet, if from those to whom
little is given little is expected, surely, after the atonement of their
long suffering, they will make as good angels as the best of us.

From London Labour and the London Poor, Volume 3, by Henry Mayhew (1861).

Glossary

  • avail themselves of: make use of
  • half-thousand: five hundred
  • outcast: a person rejected by society
  • haven: safe place
  • squalid: filthy and wretched
  • institution: the shelter
  • cobwebby: thin and full of holes, like a cobweb
  • rents: rips
  • mange: a skin disease that makes an animal's fur fall out in patches
  • livid: bluish, the colour of a bruise
  • sullenly: gloomily
  • rude frolic: rough fun
  • ensue upon: follow
  • the front ranks: the front rows of the queue
  • at the breast: still being breastfed
  • lurid: glaring, unnaturally bright
  • haggard: worn out and thin-faced
  • two centuries: two hundred
  • chloroform: a drug once used to put patients to sleep during operations
  • insensible: unable to feel anything
  • smug-faced respectability: comfortable, self-satisfied, respectable people
  • erring: who have done wrong
  • if from those to whom little is given little is expected: an echo of the Bible: people who have been given little in life should not be judged harshly
  • atonement: making up for wrongdoing

You now need to refer only to Source B, from lines 9 to 24.

How does the writer use language to describe the crowd waiting outside the Asylum?

There are no bullet points: write about words and phrases, language features and techniques, and sentence forms.