These are original Marlbridge practice questions, not past exam questions. The public-domain poem in Questions 1 to 5 is Emily Dickinson, “Because I could not stop for Death” (written about 1863; published 1890 as “The Chariot”); its text is printed in the study guide and the key lines are quoted below. The poem in Questions 6 to 8 is an original Marlbridge poem. The marks in the rubrics are a suggested Marlbridge rubric, not an official scoring guideline. Answer every question before opening its answer.
Question 1 (multiple choice · foundation)
A student’s claim is: “Dickinson presents Death as a courteous escort.” Which piece of evidence is most relevant?
- (A) “We passed the school where children played”
- (B) “He kindly stopped for me”
- (C) “The roof was scarcely visible”
- (D) “Since then ’t is centuries”
Answer and explanation
Answer: (B). “Kindly” directly shows Death’s courtesy.
- (A) belongs to a claim about the journey through life.
- (C) belongs to a claim about the grave.
- (D) belongs to a claim about time.
Question 2 (multiple choice · core)
Which is the best way to quote the first two lines inside a sentence?
- (A) The poem says. He kindly stopped for me.
- (B) Death, who “kindly stopped for me”, is presented as a courteous host.
- (C) Dickinson wrote about Death stopping kindly in the first line of her poem about death.
- (D) “Because I could not stop for Death, / He kindly stopped for me; / The carriage held but just ourselves / And Immortality.” This shows death.
Answer and explanation
Answer: (B). It quotes a short accurate phrase and integrates it into the sentence.
- (A) drops the quotation in with no quotation marks or integration.
- (C) paraphrases and does not quote.
- (D) copies a whole stanza and ends with a vague comment.
Question 3 (multiple choice · core)
Which quotation shows a line break correctly?
- (A) “The carriage held but just ourselves And Immortality”
- (B) “The carriage held but just ourselves / And Immortality”
- (C) “The carriage held but just ourselves, / and immortality.”
- (D) “The carriage held, but just ourselves / And immortality”
Answer and explanation
Answer: (B). It copies the words and capitals exactly and marks the break with a slash.
- (A) runs two lines together without a sign of the break.
- (C) and (D) alter capitals or punctuation.
Question 4 (multiple choice · core)
A student writes: “Dickinson uses personification. This is shown in line 2.” What is the main weakness?
- (A) The student has quoted too much.
- (B) The student has named a device without quoting the words or explaining their effect.
- (C) The student used the present tense.
- (D) The student wrote about the wrong poem.
Answer and explanation
Answer: (B). Naming a device is not evidence; the words and commentary are.
- (A) Nothing is quoted.
- (C) Present tense is conventional.
- (D) The topic is right; the treatment is thin.
Question 5 (multiple choice · stretch)
Which sentence is the best transition between a paragraph about Death’s courtesy and one about the journey’s stages?
- (A) “Also, there are other things in the poem.”
- (B) “If the first two stanzas make death polite, the following stanzas make it passage: each ‘We passed’ marks a stage of life left behind.”
- (C) “The poem is by Emily Dickinson.”
- (D) “Next paragraph.”
Answer and explanation
Answer: (B). It links the previous claim to the next and names the evidence (“We passed”).
- (A) is vague.
- (C) gives a fact.
- (D) is a label, not a transition.
Question 6 (short answer · core)
Read this original Marlbridge poem, “The Lamplighter’s Round”.
At dusk he goes the length of Orchard Row with his long pole and his small blue flame, lifting each glass lid like a sleeper’s eyelid and waking the street one lamp at a time.
Nobody thanks him; the windows are busy with supper and the quarrels of supper. He does not mind. He knows the order of things, which post is slow to catch, which leaks its light.
At the far end, where the road gives up and the fields begin, he stops and listens. Behind him, the whole row burns. Before him the dark he has no pole long enough for.
The claim is: “The poem presents the lamplighter’s work as unthanked care.” Choose two pieces of evidence, quote them accurately and state the purpose of each. (4 points)
Answer and explanation
Sample response. (1) “Nobody thanks him; the windows are busy / with supper and the quarrels of supper” illustrates the lack of thanks and sets his quiet task against the household noise. (2) “He knows the order of things, / which post is slow to catch, which leaks its light” amplifies his care by showing a close knowledge that nobody notices.
Suggested Marlbridge rubric (4 points).
| Point | Awarded for |
|---|---|
| 1 | First quotation accurate and relevant (line breaks marked) |
| 2 | Purpose of the first stated precisely |
| 3 | Second quotation accurate and relevant |
| 4 | Purpose of the second stated, and the two linked to the claim |
Other relevant evidence is acceptable, for example “waking the street one lamp at a time”.
Question 7 (short answer · core)
Revise this paragraph so that it has a topic sentence, integrated quotations and transitions. Keep it under 90 words.
The lamplighter lights lamps. “Like a sleeper’s eyelid.” Nobody says thanks. He does not mind. This is about work. The last stanza is about the dark.
Answer and explanation
Sample response (written by Marlbridge). The poem presents the lamplighter’s work as tender and unthanked. He lifts each lid “like a sleeper’s eyelid”, a simile that makes the street seem a sleeper he gently wakes. Yet “Nobody thanks him”, because the windows are “busy / with supper and the quarrels of supper”, and the repetition of “supper” makes the household’s noise a wall of ordinary life. His acceptance (“He does not mind”) therefore prepares the final stanza, where his care meets its limit.
Suggested Marlbridge rubric (4 points).
| Point | Awarded for |
|---|---|
| 1 | A topic sentence that makes a claim |
| 2 | Accurate, integrated quotations (with line breaks marked) |
| 3 | Transitions that show relationships (“Yet”, “therefore”) |
| 4 | Commentary that explains the effect and links to the claim |
Question 8 (essay · stretch)
Write a complete essay (about 40 minutes) analysing how the poet uses imagery, figurative language and structure to present the lamplighter’s work in “The Lamplighter’s Round”.
Answer and explanation
Sample high-quality response (written by Marlbridge).
The poem presents the lamplighter’s work as quiet, unthanked care, and its movement from small devoted actions to a final image of the dark he cannot reach shows that devotion is valuable because it knows its limit.
The first stanza makes the work gentle. The lamplighter lifts “each glass lid like a sleeper’s eyelid”, a simile that turns the lamp into an eye and the street into someone sleeping, so lighting becomes waking, not mere duty. The “small blue flame” and the “long pole” give the task a human scale: he is not a power but a careful hand. The final line, “waking the street one lamp at a time”, ends the stanza on patient repetition, as if the task were made of countless small acts.
The second stanza sets this gentleness against indifference. “Nobody thanks him; the windows are busy / with supper and the quarrels of supper.” The repeated “supper” makes the household’s noise heavy and closed, and “quarrels” suggests a world too occupied to look up. Yet the lamplighter “does not mind”, and the next line shows why: “He knows the order of things, / which post is slow to catch, which leaks its light.” His reward is knowledge, close and personal, and the personification of the posts, which are slow or leaking, treats the street as a community of small characters in his charge.
The final stanza changes the poem’s direction. The road “gives up” and the fields begin, a personification that shows the limit of the street’s care. “Behind him, the whole row burns” completes his work in a single image of light, but the last line, “the dark he has no pole long enough for”, is the poem’s turn. The pole that was a tool in the first stanza becomes a measure of limits.
The poem therefore moves from action to acceptance: the lamplighter’s light reaches exactly as far as his pole, and the poem honours the care that stops where it must.
Suggested Marlbridge rubric (6 points, modelled on the three strands of the exam essay).
| Strand | Points | Awarded for |
|---|---|---|
| Thesis | 1 | A defensible interpretation that answers the prompt |
| Evidence and commentary | 4 | Accurate, integrated evidence for each claim (1); commentary on device and effect (1); a line of reasoning that follows the poem’s movement and builds (1); links back to the thesis (1) |
| Sophistication | 1 | A complication handled within the argument (here, the turn from care to limit) |
For self-assessment, give no credit for naming a device without quoting it, or for commentary that repeats the quotation.
How did you do?
Count your correct multiple-choice answers (out of 5) and your rubric points (out of 14). If you missed questions 1 to 5, reread “Quoting poetry” and “Composition: coherence from sentence to essay” in the study guide. If your written scores were low, redo Question 7 with a topic sentence first and one transition in every second sentence. Then try the checklist.