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English 20-1

English 20-1 · Worksheets

Final exam challenge

Ten questions of mixed difficulty, covering Critical essay, Devices and language, Personal response, Poetry, Story. Print it, or work through it on screen — the answer key starts on its own page.

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Final exam challenge

English 20-1 · maddyhelps.com

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

  1. An essay that proves its thesis but only retells events in between has failed mainly because

    1. a) it used the wrong tense
    2. b) the essay was too long
    3. c) summary is not analysis, so the thesis is asserted rather than demonstrated
    4. d) the thesis was too narrow

  2. Leaving time to proofread a critical essay matters because

    1. a) markers only read the first paragraph
    2. b) length is scored separately
    3. c) handwriting is marked
    4. d) errors in grammar, spelling and punctuation are marked in their own category

  3. When a prompt supplies a short text, that text is best used as

    1. a) a starting point for the idea, not a subject to be analysed
    2. b) something to summarise in the introduction
    3. c) the main subject of your analysis
    4. d) evidence you must quote repeatedly

  4. A rhyme scheme is recorded by

    1. a) numbering the stanzas
    2. b) counting syllables per line
    3. c) assigning a letter to each new end sound
    4. d) marking stressed syllables

  5. A writer who uses a series of short, blunt sentences most likely intends to

    1. a) create urgency or abruptness
    2. b) signal a change of narrator
    3. c) slow the passage down
    4. d) suggest luxury

  6. A quotation is best integrated when it is

    1. a) given as a long block
    2. b) embedded in your own sentence and punctuated as part of it
    3. c) paraphrased instead
    4. d) dropped in as a sentence of its own

  7. The conflict of a story is

    1. a) the setting in which it takes place
    2. b) the ending of the story
    3. c) the narrator's point of view
    4. d) the struggle that drives the plot forward

  8. A flashback most often functions to

    1. a) supply earlier information that explains a character's present behaviour
    2. b) confuse the reader deliberately
    3. c) slow the story down for no particular reason
    4. d) end the story

  9. Choosing an unfamiliar form for a personal response is risky because

    1. a) a form you cannot control will obscure the idea you are developing
    2. b) it takes more words
    3. c) markers prefer essays
    4. d) unusual forms are not permitted

  10. Sound devices contribute to meaning in a poem when

    1. a) they create a regular rhyme
    2. b) they make the poem easier to memorise
    3. c) the sound of the words reinforces what the words are saying
    4. d) they are used in every line

Answer key · Final exam challenge

English 20-1 · maddyhelps.com

  1. c) summary is not analysis, so the thesis is asserted rather than demonstrated — Retelling shows what happens; analysis shows what it means and why the writer arranged it that way. This is the single most common weakness in critical essays at this level.
  2. d) errors in grammar, spelling and punctuation are marked in their own category — Matters of Correctness is assessed on its own, and the errors that cost most — tense slips, missing quotation marks, sentence fragments — are exactly the ones a five-minute read-through catches.
  3. a) a starting point for the idea, not a subject to be analysed — The personal response is not a close reading of the provided text. Analysing it in detail is the classic way to turn a personal response into the wrong assignment.
  4. c) assigning a letter to each new end sound — ABAB, AABB and ABBA are the common patterns. It is about the sounds at the ends of lines; internal rhyme is a separate effect.
  5. a) create urgency or abruptness — Syntax carries tone as surely as diction does. Long accumulating clauses do the opposite, and a shift between the two mid-passage is nearly always deliberate.
  6. b) embedded in your own sentence and punctuated as part of it — Embedding forces you to state the point the quotation supports. A quotation standing alone leaves the marker to guess why it is there.
  7. d) the struggle that drives the plot forward — Without a struggle there is no story, only a sequence of events. Naming the conflict precisely — who wants what, and what is in the way — is usually the fastest route into a text.
  8. a) supply earlier information that explains a character's present behaviour — The useful question is always why it appears where it does. A flashback placed just before a decision usually tells you what is really driving that decision.
  9. a) a form you cannot control will obscure the idea you are developing — Markers reward the idea and its development, not the novelty of the container. The best form is the one you can execute under time pressure while still thinking clearly.
  10. c) the sound of the words reinforces what the words are saying — Harsh consonants in a violent line or long vowels in a slow one make the ear agree with the sense. Pointing at sound without connecting it to meaning is the most common empty move in poetry writing.