Language Paper 1 Practice – Year 10

Name: _____________________________________________ Date: ______________________________

Read the chapter extract “Small Worlds” from H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald.

1. Identify a word or phrase from the first paragraph that suggests the same idea as the words underlined.
a. The goshawks breast feathers were thick with thin wavy lines, of a white snowy shade. (2)

b. The writer felt as though the falconers were specifically made for schools like Eton and Oxford. (1)

c. The writer expressed that she had awkward feelings meeting the men, despite her desire to become a
falconer herself. (2)

2. Using your own words, explain what the writer means by each of the words underlined, in this section of
paragraph two:
We walked in dark winter light over fields furred with new wheat. Vast
flocks of fieldfares netted the sky, turning it to something strangely like a
sixteenth-century sleeve sewn with pearls. It was cold. My feet grew heavy
with clay. And twenty minutes after we’d set out, it happened – the thing I
expected, but for which I was entirely unprepared.

a) Vast:
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b) Netted in the sky:
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c) Entirely unprepared:
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3. Use one example from the text below to explain how the writer felt uneasy witnessing the goshawk killing a
pheasant. (3)
A goshawk killed a pheasant. It was a short, brutal dive from an oak into a mess of wet hedge; a brief,
muffled crash, sticks breaking, wings flapping, men running, and a dead bird placed reverently in a
hawking bag. I stood some way off. Bit my lip. Felt emotions I hadn’t names for. For a while I didn’t want
to look at the men and their hawks anymore and my eyes slipped to the white panels of cut light in the
branches behind them. Then I walked to the hedge where the hawk had made her kill.

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4. Re-read paragraphs 2 and 4.

• Paragraph 2 begins “We walked in dark winter light...”

• Paragraph 4 begins “These men didn’t seem annoyed…”

Explain how the writer uses language to convey meaning and to create effect in these paragraphs. Choose three
examples of words or phrases from each paragraph to support your answer. Your choices should include the
use of imagery.

Write about 200 to 300 words.

Up to 15 marks are available for the content of your answer.

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