These are original Marlbridge practice questions, not past exam questions. The passage was written by Marlbridge for this practice. Mark points are a suggested Marlbridge rubric, not an official scoring guideline. Multiple-choice questions have four options.
Passage K (written by Marlbridge).
Ilse kept the ferry timetable pinned above her desk, though the ferry had stopped running years ago. On Sundays she still walked down to the jetty with a flask of tea and stood for the full length of the old crossing, forty minutes by her watch. “It’s a habit,” she told the postman, who had asked nothing. When a surveyor came to take measurements for the new bridge, she gave him tea, watched him write “disused” on his clipboard, and said nothing at all.
Question 1 (multiple choice · core)
Which of the following is a claim that requires defence with evidence from Passage K?
- (A) The ferry timetable is pinned above Ilse’s desk.
- (B) The ferry stopped running years ago.
- (C) A surveyor writes “disused” on his clipboard.
- (D) Ilse’s Sunday routine shows that she cannot accept the loss of the ferry.
Answer and explanation
Answer: (D). It says what the detail suggests, and a reader could ask “how do you know?”.
- (A), (B) and (C) state facts that can be pointed to in the text. They are evidence, not claims.
Question 2 (multiple choice · core)
Which evidence best supports the claim “Ilse’s habits show loyalty to a way of life that has ended”?
- (A) She gave the surveyor tea
- (B) The surveyor takes measurements for the new bridge
- (C) She stands at the jetty “for the full length of the old crossing, forty minutes by her watch”
- (D) She told the postman “It’s a habit”
Answer and explanation
Answer: (C). The exact timing of the crossing, performed weekly, shows her keeping the ferry’s schedule alive.
- (A) is hospitality, which does not bear directly on the claim.
- (B) is a plot detail about the bridge, not about her loyalty.
- (D) is relevant but weaker: it is her explanation, and the narrator adds that the postman “had asked nothing”, which suggests she is defending herself. It is useful as a second piece of evidence, not the strongest.
Question 3 (multiple choice · core)
Which sentence embeds a quotation from Passage K most smoothly and accurately?
- (A) Ilse. “Stood for the full length of the old crossing.”
- (B) Ilse “stood for the full length of the old crossing”, which shows her devotion to a routine.
- (C) Ilse stands for the full length of the old crossing, “a crossing that is forty minutes by her watch”.
- (D) Ilse said, “I stand for the full length of the old crossing”.
Answer and explanation
Answer: (B). The quotation is exact, short and built into the grammar of the sentence, followed by a link.
- (A) leaves the quotation as a fragment, detached from its grammar.
- (C) misquotes: the words inside the quotation marks are not in the passage.
- (D) attributes words to Ilse that she does not say; the phrase is the narrator’s.
Question 4 (multiple choice · stretch)
Which sentence is a summary and not a claim?
- (A) On Sundays Ilse walks to the jetty, stands for forty minutes and goes home.
- (B) Ilse’s silence at the end suggests that she cannot say what the surveyor’s word means to her.
- (C) The surveyor’s “disused” shows that the world has already moved on from Ilse’s routine.
- (D) The postman’s unasked question exposes how Ilse defends her habit.
Answer and explanation
Answer: (A). It reports events and says nothing about what they suggest.
- (B), (C) and (D) each say what a detail suggests or does, so each needs defence.
Question 5 (multiple choice · stretch)
“She gave him tea, watched him write ‘disused’ on his clipboard, and said nothing at all.” Which claim is this detail best used to support?
- (A) Ilse is eager to see the new bridge built.
- (B) Ilse hides her feelings about the loss of the ferry behind politeness.
- (C) Ilse dislikes the surveyor personally.
- (D) Ilse is unaware that the ferry has stopped running.
Answer and explanation
Answer: (B). Tea and silence set polite behaviour against the loaded word “disused”.
- (A) is the opposite of what the silence suggests.
- (C) is not supported; she gives him tea.
- (D) contradicts the first sentence: she knows the ferry “had stopped running”.
Question 6 (multiple choice · core)
A student writes: “Ilse is sad.” What is the most useful way to improve this sentence for a literary-analysis paragraph?
- (A) Add a second sentence with another trait, such as “She is old.”
- (B) Replace it with a claim about what a specific detail suggests, then support it with a short quotation.
- (C) Add the word “very” before “sad”.
- (D) Retell the events of the passage in order.
Answer and explanation
Answer: (B). Moving from a trait to a claim supported by evidence is the central skill of this topic.
- (A) adds another unsupported label.
- (C) intensifies the label without evidence.
- (D) turns analysis into summary.
Question 7 (constructed response · core)
Write a claim about Ilse in Passage K and support it with two short, accurate quotations from the passage. Embed each quotation in your own sentence.
Answer and explanation
Sample response. Ilse keeps the ferry alive in her routine because she cannot accept that it has ended. Although the ferry “had stopped running years ago”, she still “stood for the full length of the old crossing, forty minutes by her watch”, which suggests that the timing of the ferry still organises her week.
Suggested Marlbridge rubric (3 points).
| Point | Awarded for |
|---|---|
| 1 | A claim that needs defence (not a fact or summary) |
| 2 | Two quotations or specific details, accurate and from the passage |
| 3 | Quotations embedded in grammatical sentences with a link to the claim |
Other defensible claims (for example, that Ilse uses the habit to avoid saying what she feels) earn full marks if the evidence supports them.
Question 8 (constructed response · stretch)
Here is a weak draft paragraph about Passage K:
Ilse is old-fashioned. She has a timetable and she goes to the jetty. The surveyor writes something. This shows she is sad.
Rewrite it as a paragraph with a claim, at least two pieces of embedded textual evidence and a link sentence.
Answer and explanation
Sample response. Ilse’s routine shows that she cannot accept that the ferry is over. She keeps the timetable “pinned above her desk” years after the ferry “had stopped running”, and on Sundays she stands at the jetty “for the full length of the old crossing”. When the surveyor writes “disused”, she says “nothing at all”, which suggests that she cannot answer the word that names what she will not admit. Each detail keeps the ferry alive in her life, even as the world marks it as finished.
Suggested Marlbridge rubric (4 points).
| Point | Awarded for |
|---|---|
| 1 | Replaces the labels with a defensible claim about Ilse’s perspective or motive |
| 2 | Uses at least two accurate details, quoted or closely paraphrased |
| 3 | Embeds quotations and uses the present tense for what the text does |
| 4 | Includes a link sentence explaining how the evidence supports the claim |
How did you do? If you missed Questions 1 to 4, reread “What a literary-analysis paragraph is made of” in the study guide. If the written questions were hard, rework Worked example 2 and use the self-assessment table. Then check the checklist.