These are original Marlbridge practice questions, not past exam questions. Any passage not credited to a named public-domain author was written by Marlbridge for practice; quotations from named authors are public-domain texts quoted briefly. The rubrics are a suggested Marlbridge rubric to help you check your own work; they are not an official scoring guideline. There is no calculator. Try each question before opening its answer.
Question 1 (multiple choice · foundation)
A local radio station broadcasts an appeal for blankets after a fire leaves twelve families homeless. Which pairing correctly identifies the exigence and the purpose?
- (A) Exigence: to collect blankets. Purpose: the fire.
- (B) Exigence: the fire that left twelve families homeless. Purpose: to persuade listeners to donate blankets.
- (C) Exigence: listeners’ kindness. Purpose: to talk about fires.
- (D) Exigence: the radio station’s schedule. Purpose: to report the news.
Answer and explanation
Answer: (B). The fire is the event that prompts the appeal. The goal, what the station wants listeners to do, is to donate blankets.
- (A) is wrong: reverses the two. Collecting blankets is a goal, and the fire is the trigger.
- (C) is wrong: listeners’ kindness is not what prompted the appeal, and talking about fires is a topic.
- (D) is wrong: the schedule does not prompt this appeal, and reporting the news is not the specific goal.
Question 2 (multiple choice · foundation)
Which statement of purpose is the strongest?
- (A) To discuss recycling
- (B) To write about the town’s bins
- (C) To say that recycling is important
- (D) To persuade residents to separate glass from other rubbish by showing how much contaminated waste is rejected each month
Answer and explanation
Answer: (D). It has a verb (persuade), a target (residents), a specific action and a way of achieving it. A strong purpose names the effect on the audience.
- (A) is wrong: names a topic with a vague verb.
- (B) is wrong: names a topic and does not say what the writer wants.
- (C) is wrong: states a message but not what the audience should do or think as a result.
Question 3 (multiple choice · core)
Read this passage, written by Marlbridge: “Yesterday the school board announced that Year 10 exams will move from June to March. I teach Year 10 mathematics, and I can tell you that our students will have covered barely two-thirds of the syllabus by March. Parents, please come to the open meeting on Thursday and ask the board to reconsider.” Which sentence of the passage most clearly signals the exigence?
- (A) “Yesterday the school board announced that Year 10 exams will move from June to March.”
- (B) “I teach Year 10 mathematics, and I can tell you…”
- (C) “Parents, please come to the open meeting on Thursday…”
- (D) “…barely two-thirds of the syllabus by March.”
Answer and explanation
Answer: (A). The announcement is the event that prompted the writing.
- (B) is wrong: establishes the writer’s credibility, a feature of the writer component.
- (C) is wrong: states the action the writer wants, which is the purpose.
- (D) is wrong: is evidence for the writer’s concern, not the trigger.
Question 4 (multiple choice · core)
In the passage in Question 3, which is the primary purpose?
- (A) To inform parents of a change to exam dates
- (B) To establish that the writer teaches mathematics
- (C) To persuade parents to attend the open meeting and ask the board to reconsider
- (D) To criticise the school board’s schedule in general
Answer and explanation
Answer: (C). The final sentence names the action sought, and the earlier sentences supply reasons for it. The passage is built to move readers to act.
- (A) is wrong: the announcement is background to the writer’s request. Parents may already know the dates.
- (B) is wrong: this is a means of building credibility, not the aim of the passage.
- (D) is wrong: the criticism is limited to one decision and serves the request.
Question 5 (multiple choice · core)
A speaker says: “We gather this week, as we do every year, to remember the founders of our town.” Which is the most likely exigence?
- (A) A dispute over the town’s budget
- (B) A new law about town founders
- (C) An annual commemoration of the town’s founders
- (D) The speaker’s wish to be popular
Answer and explanation
Answer: (C). “As we do every year” shows a recurring occasion, which is the trigger. An exigence can be a scheduled event as well as a crisis.
- (A) is wrong: nothing in the sentence suggests a dispute.
- (B) is wrong: no law is mentioned.
- (D) is wrong: inferring motives not supported by the text is not identifying an exigence.
Question 6 (constructed response · core)
Read this passage, written by Marlbridge.
Last night’s council meeting ran past ten, and the only item that mattered was the one nobody wanted to discuss: the leaking roof of the Harbour Hall. Since March the Hall has cancelled thirty-one bookings. I have run the Harbour Hall choir for nine years, and if we lose the Hall we lose the one room in this town big enough for us to sing together. I am asking every reader to write to their councillor before Friday.
(a) State the exigence. (b) State the primary purpose as a verb plus a target. (c) Identify one secondary purpose or tone effect and quote a phrase that shows it.
Answer and explanation
Model answer. (a) The council’s meeting and its failure to tackle the leaking roof of the Harbour Hall, which has already caused thirty-one cancellations. (b) To persuade readers to write to their councillors before Friday so that the council funds the repair. (c) A secondary purpose is to build sympathy for the choir and the Hall as shared community space, shown by “the one room in this town big enough for us to sing together” and the writer’s nine years of service.
Suggested Marlbridge rubric (5 points)
| Points | What earns it |
|---|---|
| 1 | Exigence identified as the meeting or the leaking roof and the problem it creates, not the writer’s goal. |
| 1 | Purpose written with a verb and a target audience (readers) and an action (write to councillors). |
| 1 | Purpose is specific: mentions the deadline or the funding of repair. |
| 1 | A secondary purpose or tone effect is named correctly. |
| 1 | A quoted or closely paraphrased phrase supports the secondary purpose. |
Question 7 (constructed response · core)
A student writes: “The exigence of this passage is to get people to write to their councillors, and the purpose is that the Hall’s roof leaks.” Explain what is wrong and correct it.
Answer and explanation
Model answer. The student has swapped the two terms. The leaking roof (and the council’s reluctance to address it) is what prompted the writing, so it is the exigence. Getting readers to write to their councillors is what the writer wants to accomplish, so it is the purpose. Corrected: “The exigence is the council’s neglect of the Harbour Hall’s leaking roof. The purpose is to persuade readers to write to their councillors before Friday.”
Suggested Marlbridge rubric (4 points)
| Points | What earns it |
|---|---|
| 1 | Identifies that the terms are reversed. |
| 1 | Explains the exigence as a trigger that already exists. |
| 1 | Explains the purpose as a desired effect on the audience. |
| 1 | Provides a corrected pair that is specific to the passage. |
Question 8 (constructed response · stretch)
In 1852 Frederick Douglass delivered an address at an Independence Day commemoration in Rochester, New York, in which he asked: “What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July?” (a) Explain how the occasion works as an exigence. (b) State his purpose. (c) Explain how the question serves that purpose.
Answer and explanation
Model answer. (a) The invitation to speak at a gathering to mark the national holiday of liberty is the occasion that prompts the address. It creates a setting where the audience is already thinking about freedom. (b) His purpose is to make an audience that celebrates liberty confront the fact of slavery and to move them to oppose it. (c) The question turns the audience’s own celebration against them: it asks them to see the holiday from the position of the enslaved, where it exposes a contradiction. The question works because it is asked on that occasion.
Suggested Marlbridge rubric (5 points)
| Points | What earns it |
|---|---|
| 1 | Identifies the invitation or holiday occasion as the exigence. |
| 1 | Explains why the occasion matters to the argument (it provides the audience’s frame of liberty). |
| 1 | States a purpose as an effect on the audience (confront, move to oppose), not a topic. |
| 1 | Explains how the question specifically addresses the audience. |
| 1 | Keeps exigence and purpose distinct throughout. |
How did you do?
Count the multiple-choice questions you got right and compare your written answers with the rubric points. For anything you missed, reread the matching section of the study guide, then tick off the topic checklist.