3 minute read
Progress Test 2
What is a narrator?
Insert the correct phrase in each of the following sentences. Choose from:
[1] first person third person intrusive unreliable naive
a) A
b) An
c) A
d) A
e) An narrative is any story told by someone in the story, using ‘I’. [1]
narrator is one the reader may not be able to trust.
narrative is one told by someone outside the story. [1]
[1]
narrator is one who does not always understand what is going on. [1]
narrator gives a commentary or opinion on what is happening. [1]
Look at this writing task.
‘Children’s play areas are a safety risk and should be closed down.’ Write an article for a national newspaper, presenting an argument about this topic. [3]
a) What is the purpose, audience and form for this piece of writing?
b) What will you need to use to separate your different points? [1]
c) What type of connectives will you need in this piece of writing?
Write a plan for this writing task. Some ideas have been included to get you started. [3]
No Play areas are vital for children to socialise and have fun. Yes Children are regularly injured playing on items such as climbing frames and slides.
[2]
5
Read the student response below.
There have resently been claims from different pressure groups that childrens play areas should be closed down. It has been suggested that they pose a risk to children’s safety, although their are valid viewpoints on both sides, closing down such parks seems an extreme measure. Play areas provide to vital functions in the lives of young people they are a place to have fun and a place to socialise. While children must be kept safe, they must not spend their lives indoors and alone. Children develope by interacting with other children through acts of play, whether collaborative or competetive. Closing down areas that allow these activitys would damage the lives of children across the nation.
Using your plan, add another paragraph to continue the student’s response.
6
[5]
Reread the student response given in question 5. The content is good but the accuracy and organisation could be improved. Annotate the text with your corrections. Think about: • paragraphing • punctuation • spelling • grammar. [10]
Read this extract from Silas Marner by George Eliot, written in 1861 but set fifty years earlier. Then answer the questions that follow.
In this extract the writer describes the village in which her story takes place.
It was an important-looking village, with a fine old church and large churchyard in the heart of it, and two or three large brick-and-stone homesteads, with well-walled orchards and ornamental weathercocks, standing close upon the road, and lifting more imposing fronts than the rectory,1 which peeped from among the trees on the other side of the churchyard: – a village which showed at once the summits of its social life, and told the practised eye that there was no great park and manor-house in the vicinity, but that there were several chiefs in Raveloe who could farm badly quite at their ease, drawing enough money in those war times,2 to live in a rollicking fashion, and keep a jolly Christmas, Whitsun and Easter tide.
1 The name of a house where the rector or vicar lives 2 Britain was at war with France from 1793 to 1815
List four things that can be seen in the village.
[4]
Explain what is meant by the following phrases and how they give the reader an impression of life in the village.
b) ‘more imposing fronts than the rectory’ [2]
This is a third person narrative. Explain the effect of using the third person here.
c) ‘a rollicking fashion’
[2]
[2]
10 George Eliot has also been described as an intrusive narrator. How is this demonstrated in the given extract? Support your answer with details from the text.
11 Which of these statements do you think expresses the writer’s attitude to the village?
[4] Tick two.
a) She describes the village with affection but does not think it is perfect.
b) She loves the village and admires all the people who live there.
c) She wants us to think the village is a terrible place to live.
d) She uses irony to show that not everyone is hard-working or virtuous. [2]
12 How does the writer use language to show that religion is not as important as it might be to the people of Raveloe? Use details from the text in your answer.
[4]
13 How does the writer use language to convey the importance of the farmers of Raveloe?
[4]
