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A Christmas Carol Practice Questions

Question 1

40 marks

Read the following extract from Stave 1, ‘Marley’s Ghost’, and then answer the question that follows.

At this point in the novel, the narrator introduces Scrooge, whose business partner Jacob Marley has been dead for seven years.

1Scrooge never painted out Old Marley’s name. There it stood, years
afterwards, above the warehouse door: Scrooge and Marley. The firm
was known as Scrooge and Marley. Sometimes people new to the
business called Scrooge Scrooge, and sometimes Marley, but he
5answered to both names. It was all the same to him.
Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grind-stone, Scrooge! a
squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old
sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck
out generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an
10oyster. The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his
pointed nose, shrivelled his cheek, stiffened his gait; made his
eyes red, his thin lips blue; and spoke out shrewdly in his grating
voice. A frosty rime was on his head, and on his eyebrows, and his
wiry chin. He carried his own low temperature always about with him;
15he iced his office in the dog-days; and didn’t thaw it one degree at
Christmas.
External heat and cold had little influence on Scrooge. No warmth
could warm, no wintry weather chill him. No wind that blew was
bitterer than he, no falling snow was more intent upon its purpose,
20no pelting rain less open to entreaty. Foul weather didn’t know
where to have him. The heaviest rain, and snow, and hail, and sleet,
could boast of the advantage over him in only one respect. They
often “came down” handsomely, and Scrooge never did.
Nobody ever stopped him in the street to say, with gladsome looks,
25“My dear Scrooge, how are you? When will you come to see me?” No
beggars implored him to bestow a trifle, no children asked him what
it was o’clock, no man or woman ever once in all his life inquired
the way to such and such a place, of Scrooge. Even the blind men’s
dogs appeared to know him; and when they saw him coming on, would
30tug their owners into doorways and up courts; and then would wag
their tails as though they said, “No eye at all is better than an
evil eye, dark master!”
But what did Scrooge care! It was the very thing he liked. To edge
his way along the crowded paths of life, warning all human sympathy
35to keep its distance, was what the knowing ones call “nuts” to
Scrooge.

From A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, Stave 1.

(a)

Explore how Dickens presents Scrooge’s character in this extract.

Give examples from the extract to support your ideas.

(20)

(b)

In this extract, Scrooge chooses to keep away from other people.

Explain how Dickens portrays isolation elsewhere in the novel.

In your answer you must consider:

  • who is isolated
  • how isolation affects those involved.

(20)

Question 2

40 marks

Read the following extract from Stave 1, ‘Marley’s Ghost’, and then answer the question that follows.

At this point in the novel, the ghost of Scrooge’s dead partner, Jacob Marley, is explaining why he must wander the world in chains.

1The Ghost, on hearing this, set up another cry, and clanked its
chain so hideously in the dead silence of the night, that the Ward
would have been justified in indicting it for a nuisance.
“Oh! captive, bound, and double-ironed,” cried the phantom, “not to
5know, that ages of incessant labour by immortal creatures, for this
earth must pass into eternity before the good of which it is
susceptible is all developed. Not to know that any Christian spirit
working kindly in its little sphere, whatever it may be, will find
its mortal life too short for its vast means of usefulness. Not to
10know that no space of regret can make amends for one life’s
opportunity misused! Yet such was I! Oh! such was I!”
“But you were always a good man of business, Jacob,” faltered
Scrooge, who now began to apply this to himself.
“Business!” cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again. “Mankind was
15my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy,
forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. The dealings
of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of
my business!”
It held up its chain at arm’s length, as if that were the cause of
20all its unavailing grief, and flung it heavily upon the ground
again.
“At this time of the rolling year,” the spectre said, “I suffer
most. Why did I walk through crowds of fellow-beings with my eyes
turned down, and never raise them to that blessed Star which led the
25Wise Men to a poor abode! Were there no poor homes to which its
light would have conducted me!”
Scrooge was very much dismayed to hear the spectre going on at this
rate, and began to quake exceedingly.
“Hear me!” cried the Ghost. “My time is nearly gone.”
30“I will,” said Scrooge. “But don’t be hard upon me! Don’t be
flowery, Jacob! Pray!”
“How it is that I appear before you in a shape that you can see, I
may not tell. I have sat invisible beside you many and many a day.”
It was not an agreeable idea. Scrooge shivered, and wiped the
35perspiration from his brow.
“That is no light part of my penance,” pursued the Ghost. “I am here
to-night to warn you, that you have yet a chance and hope of
escaping my fate. A chance and hope of my procuring, Ebenezer.”

From A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, Stave 1.

(a)

Explore how Dickens presents Marley’s Ghost in this extract.

Give examples from the extract to support your ideas.

(20)

(b)

In this extract, Marley regrets that he did not help other people when he was alive.

Explain how Dickens portrays responsibility for others elsewhere in the novel.

In your answer you must consider:

  • who takes responsibility for others and who does not
  • the effects this has on those involved.

(20)

Question 3

40 marks

Read the following extract from Stave 2, ‘The First of the Three Spirits’, and then answer the question that follows.

At this point in the novel, the first of the three spirits has appeared beside Scrooge’s bed in the middle of the night.

1It was a strange figure—like a child: yet not so like a child as
like an old man, viewed through some supernatural medium, which gave
him the appearance of having receded from the view, and being
diminished to a child’s proportions. Its hair, which hung about its
5neck and down its back, was white as if with age; and yet the face
had not a wrinkle in it, and the tenderest bloom was on the skin.
The arms were very long and muscular; the hands the same, as if its
hold were of uncommon strength. Its legs and feet, most delicately
formed, were, like those upper members, bare. It wore a tunic of the
10purest white; and round its waist was bound a lustrous belt, the
sheen of which was beautiful. It held a branch of fresh green holly
in its hand; and, in singular contradiction of that wintry emblem,
had its dress trimmed with summer flowers. But the strangest thing
about it was, that from the crown of its head there sprung a bright
15clear jet of light, by which all this was visible; and which was
doubtless the occasion of its using, in its duller moments, a great
extinguisher for a cap, which it now held under its arm.
Even this, though, when Scrooge looked at it with increasing
steadiness, was not its strangest quality. For as its belt sparkled
20and glittered now in one part and now in another, and what was light
one instant, at another time was dark, so the figure itself
fluctuated in its distinctness: being now a thing with one arm, now
with one leg, now with twenty legs, now a pair of legs without a
head, now a head without a body: of which dissolving parts, no
25outline would be visible in the dense gloom wherein they melted
away. And in the very wonder of this, it would be itself again;
distinct and clear as ever.
“Are you the Spirit, sir, whose coming was foretold to me?” asked
Scrooge.
30“I am!”
The voice was soft and gentle. Singularly low, as if instead of
being so close beside him, it were at a distance.
“Who, and what are you?” Scrooge demanded.
“I am the Ghost of Christmas Past.”
35“Long Past?” inquired Scrooge: observant of its dwarfish stature.
“No. Your past.”

From A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, Stave 2.

(a)

Explore how Dickens presents the Ghost of Christmas Past in this extract.

Give examples from the extract to support your ideas.

(20)

(b)

In this extract, a strange supernatural visitor appears to Scrooge.

Explain how Dickens uses the supernatural elsewhere in the novel.

In your answer you must consider:

  • the supernatural events and characters that are shown
  • how they affect Scrooge.

(20)

Question 4

40 marks

Read the following extract from Stave 2, ‘The First of the Three Spirits’, and then answer the question that follows.

At this point in the novel, the Ghost of Christmas Past has shown Scrooge the Christmas Eve party given by his old employer, Mr Fezziwig.

1When the clock struck eleven, this domestic ball broke up. Mr. and
Mrs. Fezziwig took their stations, one on either side of the door,
and shaking hands with every person individually as he or she went
out, wished him or her a Merry Christmas. When everybody had retired
5but the two ’prentices, they did the same to them; and thus the
cheerful voices died away, and the lads were left to their beds;
which were under a counter in the back-shop.
During the whole of this time, Scrooge had acted like a man out of
his wits. His heart and soul were in the scene, and with his former
10self. He corroborated everything, remembered everything, enjoyed
everything, and underwent the strangest agitation. It was not until
now, when the bright faces of his former self and Dick were turned
from them, that he remembered the Ghost, and became conscious that
it was looking full upon him, while the light upon its head burnt
15very clear.
“A small matter,” said the Ghost, “to make these silly folks so full
of gratitude.”
“Small!” echoed Scrooge.
The Spirit signed to him to listen to the two apprentices, who were
20pouring out their hearts in praise of Fezziwig: and when he had done
so, said,
“Why! Is it not? He has spent but a few pounds of your mortal money:
three or four perhaps. Is that so much that he deserves this
praise?”
25“It isn’t that,” said Scrooge, heated by the remark, and speaking
unconsciously like his former, not his latter, self. “It isn’t that,
Spirit. He has the power to render us happy or unhappy; to make our
service light or burdensome; a pleasure or a toil. Say that his
power lies in words and looks; in things so slight and insignificant
30that it is impossible to add and count ’em up: what then? The
happiness he gives, is quite as great as if it cost a fortune.”
He felt the Spirit’s glance, and stopped.
“What is the matter?” asked the Ghost.
“Nothing particular,” said Scrooge.
35“Something, I think?” the Ghost insisted.
“No,” said Scrooge, “No. I should like to be able to say a word or
two to my clerk just now. That’s all.”

From A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, Stave 2.

(a)

Explore how Dickens presents Scrooge’s thoughts and feelings about Fezziwig in this extract.

Give examples from the extract to support your ideas.

(20)

(b)

In this extract, Fezziwig shares the spirit of Christmas with the people who work for him.

Explain how Dickens portrays the spirit of Christmas elsewhere in the novel.

In your answer you must consider:

  • how different characters celebrate Christmas
  • what the spirit of Christmas means to them.

(20)

Question 5

40 marks

Read the following extract from Stave 2, ‘The First of the Three Spirits’, and then answer the question that follows.

At this point in the novel, the Ghost of Christmas Past shows Scrooge a scene from his early adult life, sitting with Belle, the young woman he was engaged to marry.

1“My time grows short,” observed the Spirit. “Quick!”
This was not addressed to Scrooge, or to any one whom he could see,
but it produced an immediate effect. For again Scrooge saw himself.
He was older now; a man in the prime of life. His face had not the
5harsh and rigid lines of later years; but it had begun to wear the
signs of care and avarice. There was an eager, greedy, restless
motion in the eye, which showed the passion that had taken root, and
where the shadow of the growing tree would fall.
He was not alone, but sat by the side of a fair young girl in a
10mourning-dress: in whose eyes there were tears, which sparkled in
the light that shone out of the Ghost of Christmas Past.
“It matters little,” she said, softly. “To you, very little. Another
idol has displaced me; and if it can cheer and comfort you in time
to come, as I would have tried to do, I have no just cause to
15grieve.”
“What Idol has displaced you?” he rejoined.
“A golden one.”
“This is the even-handed dealing of the world!” he said. “There is
nothing on which it is so hard as poverty; and there is nothing it
20professes to condemn with such severity as the pursuit of wealth!”
“You fear the world too much,” she answered, gently. “All your other
hopes have merged into the hope of being beyond the chance of its
sordid reproach. I have seen your nobler aspirations fall off one by
one, until the master-passion, Gain, engrosses you. Have I not?”
25“What then?” he retorted. “Even if I have grown so much wiser, what
then? I am not changed towards you.”
She shook her head.
“Am I?”
“Our contract is an old one. It was made when we were both poor and
30content to be so, until, in good season, we could improve our
worldly fortune by our patient industry. You are changed. When it
was made, you were another man.”
“I was a boy,” he said impatiently.
“Your own feeling tells you that you were not what you are,” she
35returned. “I am. That which promised happiness when we were one in
heart, is fraught with misery now that we are two. How often and how
keenly I have thought of this, I will not say. It is enough that I
have thought of it, and can release you.”

From A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, Stave 2.

(a)

Explore how Dickens presents Scrooge’s relationship with Belle in this extract.

Give examples from the extract to support your ideas.

(20)

(b)

In this extract, Belle says that money has become more important to Scrooge than she is.

Explain how Dickens portrays greed elsewhere in the novel.

In your answer you must consider:

  • where greed is shown
  • the effects greed has on characters.

(20)

Question 6

40 marks

Read the following extract from Stave 3, ‘The Second of the Three Spirits’, and then answer the question that follows.

At this point in the novel, the Ghost of Christmas Present has taken Scrooge to the home of his clerk, Bob Cratchit, on Christmas Day.

1So Martha hid herself, and in came little Bob, the father, with at
least three feet of comforter exclusive of the fringe, hanging down
before him; and his threadbare clothes darned up and brushed, to
look seasonable; and Tiny Tim upon his shoulder. Alas for Tiny Tim,
5he bore a little crutch, and had his limbs supported by an iron
frame!
“Why, where’s our Martha?” cried Bob Cratchit, looking round.
“Not coming,” said Mrs. Cratchit.
“Not coming!” said Bob, with a sudden declension in his high
10spirits; for he had been Tim’s blood horse all the way from church,
and had come home rampant. “Not coming upon Christmas Day!”
Martha didn’t like to see him disappointed, if it were only in joke;
so she came out prematurely from behind the closet door, and ran
into his arms, while the two young Cratchits hustled Tiny Tim, and
15bore him off into the wash-house, that he might hear the pudding
singing in the copper.
“And how did little Tim behave?” asked Mrs. Cratchit, when she had
rallied Bob on his credulity, and Bob had hugged his daughter to his
heart’s content.
20“As good as gold,” said Bob, “and better. Somehow he gets
thoughtful, sitting by himself so much, and thinks the strangest
things you ever heard. He told me, coming home, that he hoped the
people saw him in the church, because he was a cripple, and it might
be pleasant to them to remember upon Christmas Day, who made lame
25beggars walk, and blind men see.”
Bob’s voice was tremulous when he told them this, and trembled more
when he said that Tiny Tim was growing strong and hearty.
His active little crutch was heard upon the floor, and back came
Tiny Tim before another word was spoken, escorted by his brother and
30sister to his stool before the fire; and while Bob, turning up his
cuffs—as if, poor fellow, they were capable of being made more
shabby—compounded some hot mixture in a jug with gin and lemons, and
stirred it round and round and put it on the hob to simmer; Master
Peter, and the two ubiquitous young Cratchits went to fetch the
35goose, with which they soon returned in high procession.

From A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, Stave 3.

(a)

Explore how Dickens presents the Cratchit family in this extract.

Give examples from the extract to support your ideas.

(20)

(b)

In this extract, the Cratchits show their love for one another.

Explain how Dickens portrays family elsewhere in the novel.

In your answer you must consider:

  • the different families that are shown
  • why family is important to the characters.

(20)

Question 7

40 marks

Read the following extract from Stave 4, ‘The Last of the Spirits’, and then answer the question that follows.

At this point in the novel, the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come has taken Scrooge to a poor part of London, where three people have come to sell things to a dealer.

1They left the busy scene, and went into an obscure part of the town,
where Scrooge had never penetrated before, although he recognised
its situation, and its bad repute. The ways were foul and narrow;
the shops and houses wretched; the people half-naked, drunken,
5slipshod, ugly. Alleys and archways, like so many cesspools,
disgorged their offences of smell, and dirt, and life, upon the
straggling streets; and the whole quarter reeked with crime, with
filth, and misery.
Far in this den of infamous resort, there was a low-browed, beetling
10shop, below a pent-house roof, where iron, old rags, bottles, bones,
and greasy offal, were bought. Upon the floor within, were piled up
heaps of rusty keys, nails, chains, hinges, files, scales, weights,
and refuse iron of all kinds. Secrets that few would like to
scrutinise were bred and hidden in mountains of unseemly rags,
15masses of corrupted fat, and sepulchres of bones. Sitting in among
the wares he dealt in, by a charcoal stove, made of old bricks, was
a grey-haired rascal, nearly seventy years of age; who had screened
himself from the cold air without, by a frousy curtaining of
miscellaneous tatters, hung upon a line; and smoked his pipe in all
20the luxury of calm retirement.
Scrooge and the Phantom came into the presence of this man, just as
a woman with a heavy bundle slunk into the shop. But she had
scarcely entered, when another woman, similarly laden, came in too;
and she was closely followed by a man in faded black, who was no
25less startled by the sight of them, than they had been upon the
recognition of each other. After a short period of blank
astonishment, in which the old man with the pipe had joined them,
they all three burst into a laugh.
“Let the charwoman alone to be the first!” cried she who had entered
30first. “Let the laundress alone to be the second; and let the
undertaker’s man alone to be the third. Look here, old Joe, here’s a
chance! If we haven’t all three met here without meaning it!”
“You couldn’t have met in a better place,” said old Joe, removing
his pipe from his mouth. “Come into the parlour. You were made free
35of it long ago, you know; and the other two an’t strangers. Stop
till I shut the door of the shop. Ah! How it skreeks! There an’t
such a rusty bit of metal in the place as its own hinges, I believe;
and I’m sure there’s no such old bones here, as mine. Ha, ha! We’re
all suitable to our calling, we’re well matched. Come into the
40parlour. Come into the parlour.”

From A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, Stave 4.

(a)

Explore how Dickens presents the atmosphere of this part of London in this extract.

Give examples from the extract to support your ideas.

(20)

(b)

In this extract, Dickens describes a poor and wretched part of London.

Explain how Dickens portrays poverty elsewhere in the novel.

In your answer you must consider:

  • what poverty is shown
  • how poverty affects those involved.

(20)

Question 8

40 marks

Read the following extract from Stave 5, ‘The End of It’, and then answer the question that follows.

At this point in the novel, it is the morning after Christmas Day and Bob Cratchit has arrived late for work.

1“Hallo!” growled Scrooge, in his accustomed voice, as near as he
could feign it. “What do you mean by coming here at this time of
day?”
“I am very sorry, sir,” said Bob. “I am behind my time.”
5“You are?” repeated Scrooge. “Yes. I think you are. Step this way,
sir, if you please.”
“It’s only once a year, sir,” pleaded Bob, appearing from the Tank.
“It shall not be repeated. I was making rather merry yesterday,
sir.”
10“Now, I’ll tell you what, my friend,” said Scrooge, “I am not going
to stand this sort of thing any longer. And therefore,” he
continued, leaping from his stool, and giving Bob such a dig in the
waistcoat that he staggered back into the Tank again; “and therefore
I am about to raise your salary!”
15Bob trembled, and got a little nearer to the ruler. He had a
momentary idea of knocking Scrooge down with it, holding him, and
calling to the people in the court for help and a strait-waistcoat.
“A merry Christmas, Bob!” said Scrooge, with an earnestness that
could not be mistaken, as he clapped him on the back. “A merrier
20Christmas, Bob, my good fellow, than I have given you, for many a
year! I’ll raise your salary, and endeavour to assist your
struggling family, and we will discuss your affairs this very
afternoon, over a Christmas bowl of smoking bishop, Bob! Make up the
fires, and buy another coal-scuttle before you dot another i, Bob
25Cratchit!”
Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely
more; and to Tiny Tim, who did NOT die, he was a second father. He
became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the
good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in
30the good old world. Some people laughed to see the alteration in
him, but he let them laugh, and little heeded them; for he was wise
enough to know that nothing ever happened on this globe, for good,
at which some people did not have their fill of laughter in the
outset; and knowing that such as these would be blind anyway, he
35thought it quite as well that they should wrinkle up their eyes in
grins, as have the malady in less attractive forms. His own heart
laughed: and that was quite enough for him.

From A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, Stave 5.

(a)

Explore how Dickens presents Scrooge’s relationship with Bob Cratchit in this extract.

Give examples from the extract to support your ideas.

(20)

(b)

In this extract, Scrooge has become a generous and kind man.

Explain the development of Scrooge’s character elsewhere in the novel.

In your answer you must consider:

  • how Scrooge changes
  • what causes these changes.

(20)