Close Reading Practice Questions

1. Close Reading PracticeQuestions S3 (Mrs Woods’ good-looking class!)

2. Word Choice 1. The lift was waiting for him, the doors invitingly open. By now Wexford had lost all his inhibitions about it. He stepped inside and pressed he ground-floor button. The door closed with a whisper and sank with a sigh. Q: Quote two separate words which emphasise how quietly the lift works. [2 1 0]

3. Answer “Whisper” “Sigh” Both suggest quietness.

4. Word Choice 2. A tremor of panic touched one corner of his brain Q: Which word in this sentence is most effective in suggesting fear? Give a reason for your answer. (Q+C) [2 1 0]

5. Answer “Panic” It suggests the amount of fear – loss of control

6. Word Choice 3. And he showed us an artist’s impression of the beast – so different from that of my imagination – grey green, with a tiny head and gigantic switchback vertebrae, placidly eating weed in a lake. Q: Which words in the description of the artist’s impression of a brontosaurus underline the contrast between a ‘real’ brontosaurus and the one in the picture? [2 0]

7. Answer “So different”

8. Word Choice 4. There was a little leather seat, like extra seats in a taxi, folded into the wall. Wexford pulled it down. It creaked when he sat on it. Glancing about him with simulated ease, he assessed the volume of the lift. Q; Which expression in these lines tells you that he was really worried although he was pretending that he was calm? [2 0]

9. Answer “simulated” means not real, pretent or to act.

10. Word Choice 5. The brontosaurus, I learned, was an animal that had drowned in the Flood, being too big for Noah to ship aboard the Ark. I pictured a shaggy lumbering creature with claws and fangs and a malicious green light in its eyes. Sometimes the brontosaurus would crash through he bedroom wall and wake me from my sleep. Q: Show how the author’s choice of words makes a particularly effective picture of this animal. [2 1 0]

11. Answer “Shaggy lumbering” – implies heavy and clumsy “Claws and fangs” – implies vicious/savage

12. Structure Questions … She stood still and listened. A faint sound. A scythe being drawn against a sharpening-stone. A blade being honed on something hard. She turned round, sucking her mitten, trying to figure out which direction the sound was coming from. Blades scything, blades hissing, coming closer. Where had she heard that sound before? Then she knew. Q1: What TWO features of structure does the writer use to convey the sound the girl hears? [2 1 0] Q2: Why has the writer chosen to write in this way? [2 1 0]

13. Answer 1.The use of a rhetorical question that make you think back into the story. The use of lots of commas, that slowly build up the different things she hears 2. Builds tension and suspense Involves the reader more in her anxiety

14. Structure In the so-called Dark Ages witchcraft was considered no more than a misdemeanour, warranting the equivalent of community service; yet in the ‘enlightened’ Renaissance, the fires burned across Europe (except in England where witchcraft was a hanging offence).Q: Why has the writer used inverted commas around the word ‘enlightened’? [2 0]

15. Answer “Enlightened” – not the writer’s words. It is a title the people of the renaissance period have given themselves – they view themselves as enlightened, but are not

16. Structure To the sea, and the sand and rocks that receive it, belong the images you carry with you when you pass on to he woody slopes of the glen, and the barley fields. Q: Explain how the structure of the sentence emphasises the importance of the sea. [2 0]

17. Answer Inversion? The reference to the sea is at the beginning of the sentence The sea is clearly the subject of the sentence because it appears first

18. Structure The driver opened the back door of the taxi and my ‘aunt’, as we referred to her – really my mother’s aunt’s daughter – divested herself of the travelling rugs. Q: What is the function of the dashes used in this sentence? [2 0]

19. Answer Parenthesis – extra information is being given in an informal way.

20. Link Sentences But it is the seas, not the houses or people that dominates the beach front. Q: Explain how this sentence is an effective link between the earlier part of the passage and the final two paragraphs. [2 1 0]

21. Answer • “not the houses or people” • Refers back to the idea of what is along the beachfront. • “the sea” • Refers forward to the importance of the sea at the beachfront. • “But” is the conjunction.

22. Link Sentence Yet this violent, uncared-for, desecrated place looks out on the longest, widest and most beautiful of all the reaches of the Thames. Q: Show how the word ‘yet’ makes an important turning-point in the writer’s line of thought. [2 1 0]

23. Answer • “…desecrated place” • Refers back to the description of the untidy area. • “Most beautiful of all reaches” • Refers forward to positive descriptions of the river. • “Yet” is the conjunctive (linking word)