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English 10-1

English 10-1 · Worksheets

Close reading

Ten questions of mixed difficulty, covering Close reading. Print it, or work through it on screen — the answer key starts on its own page.

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Close reading

English 10-1 · maddyhelps.com

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Circle the best answer for each question. Show your work in the space provided.

  1. The strongest evidence for a claim about a character's state of mind is

    1. a) the title
    2. b) a summary of the plot
    3. c) the reader's own experience
    4. d) a specific detail of what the character does or says

  2. A text written for an expert audience is most likely to

    1. a) avoid all technical terms
    2. b) use specialised vocabulary without explaining it
    3. c) use more images
    4. d) be shorter

  3. Identifying a text's audience matters because

    1. a) it fixes the tone
    2. b) it explains why the writer made the choices they did
    3. c) it determines the genre
    4. d) it tells you when it was written

  4. The purpose of a text is

    1. a) what it is trying to do — inform, persuade, entertain or provoke
    2. b) how long it is
    3. c) who wrote it
    4. d) where it was published

  5. Describing a room as cramped, dim and airless rather than small, shaded and still mainly establishes

    1. a) a formal register
    2. b) a negative tone, through connotation
    3. c) the room's exact size
    4. d) the narrator's age

  6. Tone is

    1. a) the main idea
    2. b) the writer's or speaker's attitude towards the subject
    3. c) the setting
    4. d) the feeling created in the reader

  7. A reader who claims a narrator is unreliable must show

    1. a) that events are out of order
    2. b) that the narrator is young
    3. c) that the narrator uses first person
    4. d) a gap between what the narrator says and what the text lets the reader see

  8. An inference is

    1. a) a direct quotation
    2. b) a conclusion drawn from evidence in the text plus reasoning
    3. c) a guess with no support
    4. d) the writer's stated opinion

  9. Diction means a writer's

    1. a) punctuation
    2. b) choice of words
    3. c) sentence length
    4. d) paragraph order

  10. Mood differs from tone in that mood is

    1. a) the writer's attitude
    2. b) the atmosphere the text creates in the reader
    3. c) the sequence of events
    4. d) the word choice

Answer key · Close reading

English 10-1 · maddyhelps.com

  1. d) a specific detail of what the character does or says — A summary shows you read it. A quoted gesture shows you can point at where the meaning lives, which is what earns the mark.
  2. b) use specialised vocabulary without explaining it — What a writer assumes the reader already knows is one of the clearest signals of audience. Explaining a term is evidence the audience is general; not explaining it is evidence they are not.
  3. b) it explains why the writer made the choices they did — Analysis is about explaining choices. Knowing who a piece was written for turns “the writer uses simple language” into “the writer strips out jargon because the reader will not have met it”.
  4. a) what it is trying to do — inform, persuade, entertain or provoke — Purpose and audience decide almost every choice a writer makes, from vocabulary to structure. Working them out early makes the rest of the analysis easier.
  5. b) a negative tone, through connotation — Both sets describe the same room. The first carries discomfort in its associations, and that judgement is the writer's attitude showing through.
  6. b) the writer's or speaker's attitude towards the subject — Tone belongs to the speaker and mood belongs to you. They often match, but a text can take a light tone about a grim subject — and that gap is usually the point.
  7. d) a gap between what the narrator says and what the text lets the reader see — First person is not unreliability by itself. The evidence is a discrepancy — details reported without being understood, or a self-account the events quietly contradict.
  8. b) a conclusion drawn from evidence in the text plus reasoning — An inference has two halves: something the text gives you, and the reasoning that gets you from it to your conclusion. If you cannot point at the evidence, a marker cannot give credit for it.
  9. b) choice of words — Diction is the most reliable evidence for tone. Naming a word as formal, colloquial or clinical says far more than calling a passage descriptive.
  10. b) the atmosphere the text creates in the reader — Fog, silence and a failing light create a mood without telling you what the narrator thinks. Confusing the two is the most common terminology error at this level.