This is #1 of 1 booklet for this examination English PRE-Q TERM 1 EXAMINATION 2020 Paper 2/3: Essay on Studied Novel/Drama Ys E TIME: 1 Hour TOTAL MARKS: 25 Name Form Teacher. INSTRUCTIONS TO STUDENTS This examination contains questions on the novels and dramas studied this Term. You are to complete ONE essay in response to ONE question—EITHER the general OR the passage-based question on the novel or drama you studied Your essay should demonstrate knowledge and understanding of your studied text as well as an appreciation for a range of literary conventions used by the author to create effect and meaning. Ensure that the question number you are responding to is clearly indicated at the beginning of your essay. Write your name, form, and teacher's name in the spaces provided at the top of every sheet of Grammar refill used, INFORMATION FOR STUDENTS. ‘This examination is out of 25 marks. This will be converted to a percentage for your Term 1 report.1. DRAMA: Macbeth by William Shakespeare a. Macbeth is, deep down, an honest and moral man who is shaped by the immoral influence of his wife. To what extent do you agree? oR b. Comment on how and the play. what effects Shakespeare captures the state of Macbeth’s mind at this moment in MACBETH Hang out our banners on the outward walls; The cry is still They come:' our castle's strength Will laugh a siege to scorn: here let them lie Till famine and the ague eat them up: Were they not forced with those that should be ours, We might have met them dareful, beard to beard, ‘And beat them backward home. ‘Acty of women within What is that noise? SEYTON It is the cry of women, my good lord. bxit MACBETH I have almost forgot the taste of fears; The time has been, my senses would have cool'd To hear a night-shriek; and my fell of hair Would at a dismal treatise rouse and stir As life were in't: | have supp'd full with horrors; Direness, familiar to my slaughterous thoughts Cannot once start me. Re-enter SEYTON Wherefore was that cry? SEYTON The queen, my lord, is dead. MACBETH She should have died hereafter; There would have been a time for such a word. ‘To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day To the last syllable of recorded time, And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage ‘And then is heard no more: its a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing. Enter a Messenger Thou comest to use thy tongue; thy story quicklyMessenger Gracious my lord, | should report that which I say I saw, But know not how to do it MACBETH Well, say, sir, Messenger As did stand my watch upon the hill, Mook'd toward Birnam, and anon, methought, The wood began to move. MACBETH Liar and slave! Messenger Let me endure your wrath, ift be not so: Within this three mile may you see it coming; | say, a moving grove. MACBETH If thou speak’st false, Upon the next tree shalt thou hang alive, Till famine cling thee: if thy speech be sooth, I care not if thou dost for me as much. | pull in resolution, and begin To doubt the equivocation of the fiend That lies like truth: Fear not, till Birnam wood Do come to Dunsinane:' and now a wood Comes toward Dunsinane. Arm, arm, and out! If this which he avouches does appear, There is nor flying hence nor tarrying here. | gin to be aweary of the sun, And wish the estate o' the world were now undone. Ring the alarum-bell! Blow, wind! come, wrack! At least we'll die with harness on our back Exeunt2. PROSE: The Secret River by Kate Grenville a. Comment on how the novel presents characters’ relationship to land. oR b. Discuss the significance of this moment from the novel in terms of character and action. As he stepped out to wade ashore, Thornhill elt the silence deepen. He wanted to get back into the boat and push it down the creek, away from this dense silence. He called out Oy! to hear a human sound, and the silence flowed back over the noise. Even the mosquitoes seemed to have abandoned the place. it was a relief to step onto the land. The Quicker he could see what there was to see, the quicker he could be gone again. The blacks had a few humpies around the coals of a dead campfire. They had burned around them, the way they did, so the ground was clear. A couple of empty flourbags lay about, bright against the dirt, and a bark dish where a damper had been mixed, the scraps dry and vellow. He waited, but nothing moved. Above him the birds flapped and shifted in the branches. He stooped to look into the nearest humpy. He saw nothing at firs, just shadows. Then he saw that the shadows were a man and a woman, and they were dead. A mass of shiny flies crawled and buzzed around them. The man lay on his back, arched even in death, his mouth ajar, his chin crusted where he had vomited. His eyes were open but dull with death. The woman had one hand flung out grasping at the air. He could see the lines on her yellow palm. The smell of shit was overpowering, He backed away into the light. Beyond the humpy were more bodies: another man, and a woman with a dead child still in the crook of her dead arm. Even the child had the pale stickiness around the mouth where the flies seethed. There was an unnatural clarity to everything, each twig on the ground more real than itself, the way the sunlight made a sharp copy of it out of shadow. When he heard a sound he thought it was himself, groaning. When it came again he told himself it was a bird, or a branch rubbing on another. But when it came a third time it was unmistakable: another human, alive, here with him in the clearing. His feet took him towards the sound against his will, feet in a nightmare. It was a boy, still spindly in the arms and thin in the chest, a lad no more than Dick’s age, on the ground, his knees drawn Up to his belly. From his mouth hung tendrils of the vomit that was all around his head and the lower part of his body was shiny where it had emptied itself. The boy arched his body in a spasm and groaned again. His head jerked, trying to vomit. Flies were crawling on his face and his chest where the vomit was slick. Thornhill could not think what to do, only felt the humid sun boring into his back and shoulders. He looked away from the boy, at the comfortiess forest all around. Above the gully, way up, there was the sky, that eternal hard blue, and two ducks crossing it, wing to wing. He made himself speak, to break the evil spell: Ain’t nothing | can do for you, lad. He wanted to turn his back, leave all this, let someone else come across it later. But somehow he could not. He would give the boy some water. He could at least offer that gesture. Then he could leave. The familiar details of the Hope were a comfort. The place in the bow where he kept the keg, The tap on the side that came off unless it was turned the right way. The sound of the water hitting the bottom of the pannikin. This was the world he knew. By the time he walked back up to the humpies he had convinced himself there would be nothing there. No one frozen with a fatal gripe in their guts. No lad coiled over himself, dying by inches.But the bodies were there and the boy still lay blinking at him. He had turned on his back, his knees pulled up. As Thornhill approached, his face twisted and he turned his head from side to side. Seeing the dipper of water, he licked his, lips, whispered, reached towards it Thornhill knelt beside him. Was surprised at the softness of that black hair. Under it he felt the shape of his skull, the same as his own. Gingerly he put the pannikin to the boy's lips and he drank, but even as he was drinking his body jerked, the water vomited straight back up along with strings of greenish slime. For God's sake, Thornhill shouted in fright. He had not intended it, but heard it as a kind of prayer. The boy did not move, The water did not seem to have done him any good, and he had still not closed his eyes. He made a weak movement to draw his knees up to his chest and stared at Thornhill. His eyes were glassy. Thornhill thought perhaps he was dead, but then he groaned again and a thread of mucus slid down his chin, Thornhill felt as if everything in his own body had stopped. If he moved or took a breath he would feel the poison burning away at his own guts3. PROSE: The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier ‘a. Discuss the ways in which Cormier presents the conflict between individual and society. oR b. Comment on how and with what effects Cormier presents intimidation at this moment in the novel, The summons looked like a ransom note—letters cut out of a newspaper or magazine. vigil MeEtinG tWO-THirTy. The wackiness of the note, those crazy letters, made it seem childish and ridiculous. But that same touch of the childish also gave it an air of something not quite rational, faintly threatening and mocking. That was the special quality of The Vigil, of course, and Archie Costello. ‘Thirty minutes later, Jerry stood before The Vigil in the storage room. The nearby gym was occupied by fellows either practicing basketball or boxing calisthenics and the walls echoed with thuddings, bouncings and whistles blowing, like 2 Vigil crap, grotesque sound track, Nine or ten Vigil members were present, including Carter who was getting tired of t especially when it meant he had to miss boxing, and Obie who looked forward to the meeting with pleasure, wondering how Archie would proceed. Archie sat behind the card table. The table was covered with a scarf of purple and gold—the school colors. In the exact center of the table: a box of chocolates, "Renault," Archie said softly. Instinctively, Jerry came to attention, squaring his shoulders, sucking in his stomach, and immediately disgusted with himself "Have a chocolate, Renault?" Jerry shook his head, sighing, He thought wistfully of the guys out on the football field in the sweet fresh wind, tossing the ball around before practice began. "They're good," Archie said, opening the box and taking out a chocolate. He inhaled its flavor and popped it into his mouth. He chewed slowly, deliberately, smacking his lips in exaggerated fashion. A second chocolate followed the first. And a third followed the second. His mouth was crammed with candy now and his throat rippled as he swallowed. ‘Delicious," he said. "And only two dollars a box—a bargain.” Somebody laughed. A short bark that was instantly cut off as ifa needle had been lifted from a record. “But you wouldn't know about the price, would you, Renault?” Jerry shrugged. But his heart began to beat wildly, He knew there had to be a showdown. And this was it. Archie reached for another chocolate. into his mouth, "How many boxes have you sold, Renault?" "None." "None?" Archie's gentle voice curled in surprise and wonder. He swallowed, shaking his head in mock puzzlement. Without taking his eyes from Jerry, he called, "Hey, Porter, how many boxes have you sold?" "Twenty-one." "Twenty-one?" Archie's voice was now filled with awe. "Hey, Porter, you must be one of those hustling, eager-beaver freshmen, huh?" "V'm a senior.""A senior?" More awe. "You mean to tell me you're a big-shot senior and you've still got enough spirit left to get out there and sell all those chocolates? Beautiful, Porter." The voice full of mockery,or was it? "Anybody else here sell chocolates?" A chorus of numbers filled the air as if The Vigils members were calling bids at a weird auction. “Forty-two.” “Thirty-three” “Twenty.” “Nineteen.” “Forty-five” Archie raised his hands and silence fell. Someone in the gym fell against the wall and shouted an obscenity. Obie marveled at the way Archie ran the meetings and how The Vigils quickly took his cues. Porter hadn't sold ten boxes, if any at all. Obie himself had only sold sixteen but had called out forty-five. “And you, Renault, a freshman, a new student who should be filed with the spirit of Trinity, you haven't sold any? Zero? Nothing?” His hand reached for another chocolate. Actually, he loved them. Not as good as Hershey with almonds but an acceptable substitute, “That's right,” Jerry said, his voice small, a wrong-end-of-the-telescope kind of voice. “Do you mind if | ask why?” Jerry pondered the question. What should he do? Play a game? Tell it straight? But he wasn’t sure if it would make sense ithe told it straight, especially to a room full of strangers.4. PROSE: Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones ‘a Discuss the ways in which Jones presents the role of stories in the lives of the novel's characters. oR b. Comment closely on the following passage, discussing in particular Jones’ presentation of the villagers burning Mr Watts’ possessions. We were back to waiting for the redskin soldiers, and like before, the tension rose, People squabbled. Voices were raised. Wives fought with their husbands, and vice versa. Kids were shouted at. You saw little kids squirt across yards where we Used to see roosters. ‘And one morning we saw Mr Watts pull his wife, Grace, along in that trolley. For the occasion Mr Watts had put on his. red clown’s nose. He was back to being Pop Eye, and that came as a shock — to see him slip once more into that role, but also to see how quickly we changed back to our old idea of him, When people saw him pulling Grace along it dawned on them, as a mob, that the Watts’ house had been spared. Mr Watts and Grace must still have their possessions. The proof was that stupid red clown’s nose and the cart. No one could remember seeing their things dragged to the bonfire. But then no one would have expected it either because Mr Watts ‘was white and therefore lived outside the world in which these things happened. It then occurred to people that Mr Watts might have the missing book that would save their houses, | did not join the rush on Mr Watts and Grace's house. Of course not. I did not want Mr Watts to look up and see his Matilda as part of that mob. Besides, | knew their search was a waste of time, Great Expectations was rolled up in my father’s sleeping mat hanging from the rafter above the floor where my mum slept. Never in my life, not up to that ‘moment or since, really, have | held such valuable information. Now I knew something of the moral confusion my mum had experienced. As my neighbours rushed towards Mr Watts’ house had the information that could have stopped them, but | said nothing, and did nothing. Here is how a coward thinks. If | stay inside my house | won't have to witness the ransacking of the Wattses house . | ‘won't have to know. | don’t know whether they looked for the book at the house, then, after searching far and wide for it, fell to anger and frustration. There was no way of knowing the precise nature of the mood of the mob. But when I moved to the edge of the door and looked out | saw people carrying all the possessions belonging to the Wattses. Nothing was too small, Useless appliances with cords and plugs bouncing behind in the dirt. One woman carried a plastic clothes basket. She looked like she might be interested in hanging onto that for herself. But no one took things for themselves. They dragged the larger items. Men carried some of the furniture between them like a pig about to be spit-roast. | counted one or two smiles. But, I'm glad to say, heard no cheering.| had never seen an event lke this before; | had never seen anything as vengeful as this, and yet, once again, the people went about it as if they knew what to do. No one had to tell them where to put everything, And they had many, many things. Stuff that was of value to us, but no one took anything. There were clothes. Photographs. Chairs. Ornaments made of wood. Carvings. A small table, And books. { had never seen so many books — I thought Mr Watts might have given them to us kids to read. Everything went up in flames. This bonfire was more spectacular than the last. There was more wood. We watched the flames in silence. No one tried to hide their involvement, nor did the Wattses try to put out the blaze. There were no words of anger or blame.5. PROSE: The Siege by Helen Dunmore a. Discuss how Dumore's presentation of Anna makes her a memorable character in the novel oR b. Comment on Dunmore’s presentation of Marina Petrovna's position within the Levin household at this point in the novel. ‘That night Anna lies awake, listening to Kolya’s breathing. Leningrad still bulges with children. For every evacuee sent away to the east, it seems that another arrives from the south and west, fleeing the German advance. And Kolya remains here. The room smelis of his sleep. Has she made the right decision? If Marina Petrovna wasn’t here, she would have had to send him. Anna’s working sixteen hours a day, and with her father coming out of hospital as well, in a couple of days, it would have been impossible to keep Kolya. How strange to think that it was only by chance that Marina had come here at all. Yes, she's beginning to think of her like that, dropping the patronymic even from her mind: Marina, She would never have thought she could be grateful to Marina. But day by day, steadily, Marina has earned her right to a place in their lives. She queues, she makes meals, and she even manages to keep Kolya happy too, with stories, pretend games, and drawing, while the queues slowly move forward. Marina is obsessed with food, even more so than Anna herself. She will walk halfway across the city on the chance of a bag of sugar for their store-cupboard. The sun is still shining, there is stil food in the shops, and the rations aren't too bad. Prices have shot sky-high though, and if it weren’t for Marina , Anna would no longer be able to buy sugar or fats off the ration. Eighteen roubles for a bag of sugar, can you imagine? But Marina pays it. She has money. “You mustn't spend so much, Marina. I'll never be able to pay you back’ “We are not going to be able to eat money, is all Marina will reply. She gets Kolya walking too. They set off, the pair of them, Kolya bouncing along, his black eyes glistening with excitement as Marina breaks off her story just at its most exciting point, ‘1 tell you the rest when we've walked as far as that building down there—look, the one with the brown doors’ She Points away into the distance and Kolya, instead of grizzling and dragging at her hand, as he might do with Anna, bounds forward with a squeak of pleasure. ‘Anna crushes the stir of jealousy she feels. But how quickly Kolya has transferred his attention. Not his love, no, she doesn’t believe that. But every morning he rushes to Marina as soon as Anna has finished helping him to dress. Their laughter spills out as he helps Marina to fold her blankets, push back the sofa and make the room ready for the day. There's something magnetic about Marina. Anna has to remind herself that her mother didn’t feel it. Vera wasn’t attracted, she was repelled. And she must have had her reasons. What were they? Marina bends over her shopping bag, and pulls out a jer. “Two hundred grammes of lumpfish roe!’‘Marina! What did that cost?” “keep telling you, money's not going to mean anything soon. Kolya and Marina crouch over their pot of wallpaper paste, dipping strips of newspapers and layering them on to the wire bones of Kolya's fort. ‘am | doing it really well, Marina?” ‘Really well. Look how smooth you've made that wall!” “The walls have to be high, don’t they, so the enemies can’t climb over them’ “That's right. One more layer should do it, Kolya, then we'll leave it to dry. We can start the painting tomorrow! Marina sits back on her heels, and wipes paint and newsprint off her hands. What if | drew her like this? Anna thinks. In her mind the old pose Marina took at the dacha still hangs. That's the portrait she'll finish one day, when all this is over. But perhaps it isn’t. Everything’s changed, so why shouldn’t her work change too? Perhaps it’s better to find a different way of working. Break up the portrait. Turn it into dozens of sketches, quick and fluid, charcoal on sugar paper. Instead of ‘one definition, go for her now, frowning over the wads of dirt packed under her nails. Or now, twisting to warn Kolya not to try and lift the fort yet, let the papier-mache harden. Or now, noticing Anna's stare and offering back the candour of a face which knows how to change itself into anything it wants. 406. PROSE: No Longer at Ease by Chinua Achebe a. Comment on how and with what effects Achebe examines the idea of duty in the novel. oR b. With detailed reference to the passage below, discuss Achebe’s presentation of Obi’s homecoming, Obi's homecoming was not in the end the happy event he had dreamt of. The reason was his mother. She had grown so old and frail in four years that he could hardly believe it. He had heard of her long periods of illness, but he had not ‘thought of it quite this way. Now that all the visitors had gone away and she came and hugged him and put her arms round his neck, for the second time tears rose in his eyes. Henceforth he wore her sadness round his neck like a necklace of stone. His father too was all bones, although he did not look nearly as bad as his mother. It was clear to Obi that they did not have enough good food to eat. It was scandalous, he thought, that after nearly thirty years’ service in the church his father should retire on a salary of two pounds a month, a good slice of which went back to the same church by way of, Class fees and other contributions. And he had his two last children at school, each paying school fees and church fees. (Obi and his father sat up for a long time after the others had gone to bed, in the oblong room which gave on to the outside through a large central door and two windows. This room was called pieze in Christian houses. The door and windows were shut to discourage neighbours who would have continued to stream in to see Obi-~some of them for the fourth time that day. There was a hurricane lamp beside the chair on which Obi's father sat. It was his lamp. He washed the globe himself; he would not trust anybody to do it. The lamp itself was older than Obi. The walls of the pieze had recently been given a new coat of chalk. Obi had not had a moment until now to look round for such loving tributes. The floor had also been rubbed; but what with the countless feet that had trod on it that day it was already needing another rubbing with red earth and water. His father broke the silence at length. ‘Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace according to thy word.’ "What is that, Father?" asked Obi. "Sometimes fear came upon me that | might not be spared to see your return." 'Why? You seem as strong as ever." Obi's father ignored the false compliment, pursuing his own train of thought. “Tomorrow we shall all worship at church. The pastor has agreed to make it a special service for you.’ ‘But is it necessary, Father? Is it not enough that we pray together here as we prayed this night?" ‘Itis necessary; said his father. 'It is good to pray at home but better to pray in God's house." Obi thought: 'What would happen if | stood up and said to him: "Father, | no longer believe in your God"?" He knew it was impossible for him to do it, but he just wondered what would happen if he did. He often wondered like that. A few ‘weeks ago in London he had wondered what would have happened if he had stood up and shouted to the smooth M.P. lecturing to African students on the Central African Federation: ‘Go away, you are all bloody hypocrites!’ It was not quite the same thing, though. His father believed fervently in God; the smooth M.?. was just a bloody hypocrite. "‘Did you have time to read your Bible while you were there?" There was nothing for it but to tell a lie. Sometimes a lie was kinder than the truth. Obi knew why the question had been asked. He had read his verses so badly at prayers that evening. Sometimes,’ he replied, ‘but it was the Bible written in the English language." "Yes,' said his father. 'I see.’ ‘There was a long pause in which Obi remembered with shame how he had stumbled through his portions as a child. In the first verse he had pronounced ugwu as mountain when it should be circumcision . Four or five voices had promptly corrected him, the first to register being his youngest sister, Eunice, who was eleven and in Standard Four. 12