These are original Marlbridge practice questions, not past exam questions. Passages marked “written by Marlbridge” are original; the one line from Shakespeare’s Hamlet (about 1600) is in the public domain. The mark points are a suggested Marlbridge rubric to help you check your own work, not an official scoring guideline. Allow about 45 minutes and write your own answer before opening each answer box.
Question 1 (multiple choice · foundation)
Passage written by Marlbridge.
When the roast arrived blackened, Mrs Lyle laughed aloud and declared it the best joke of the season. Miss Prentice, seated opposite, said nothing at all, but folded her napkin into smaller and smaller squares until the plates were removed.
The contrast between the two women most strongly suggests that
- (A) Mrs Lyle and Miss Prentice dislike one another.
- (B) Mrs Lyle is at ease with a social mishap, while Miss Prentice is tense and self-conscious about it.
- (C) the cook is to blame for the accident.
- (D) Miss Prentice is more polite than Mrs Lyle.
Answer and explanation
Answer: (B). The two women share the same moment, the ruined dinner. Mrs Lyle “laughed aloud”, which shows ease; Miss Prentice “said nothing” and folds her napkin “smaller and smaller”, which signals mounting tension.
- (A) goes beyond the text. Nothing in the passage shows any feeling between the women.
- (C) is a plot detail that the passage does not address, and it does not explain the contrast.
- (D) judges politeness, but silence and a folded napkin are signs of anxiety here, not courtesy, and the passage presents Mrs Lyle’s laughter as warmth rather than rudeness.
Question 2 (multiple choice · core)
In Act 4 of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Laertes returns to avenge his murdered father and cries, “To hell, allegiance! vows, to the blackest devil!” How does this moment most likely function in relation to Hamlet?
- (A) It makes Laertes the play’s principal villain.
- (B) It shows that Laertes and Hamlet share the same attitude towards revenge.
- (C) It proves that Hamlet’s delay is cowardice.
- (D) It contrasts Laertes’ immediate, unrestrained response to a father’s death with Hamlet’s hesitation, and so highlights Hamlet’s delay.
Answer and explanation
Answer: (D). Laertes is in a position very like Hamlet’s, a son whose father has been killed, and he reacts at once and fiercely. That makes Hamlet’s slowness stand out and invites the audience to ask what it means.
- (A) confuses a foil with a villain. Laertes is a foil here; in the plot he is also an instrument of Claudius, but the question asks about the function of the contrast.
- (B) reverses the point: the contrast is that their responses differ.
- (C) is too strong. A foil raises a question about Hamlet’s delay, but it does not settle it, and the play offers other explanations, such as caution, conscience or uncertainty.
Question 3 (multiple choice · core)
Passage written by Marlbridge. Two villagers speak of the new curate.
Farmer Gale: “He has never once refused a wedding at the old rates, and he does not preach past the half hour.”
Mr Hurd, the schoolmaster: “He lends the children books from his own shelf and will not abide the farmers’ boys being kept home at harvest.”
Which statement best describes what the two descriptions reveal?
- (A) Farmer Gale is lying, because the curate would not behave in this way.
- (B) The curate is inconsistent, since he behaves differently for each man.
- (C) Each speaker reveals something about the curate and also about his own priorities.
- (D) Mr Hurd is the more reliable speaker because he is educated.
Answer and explanation
Answer: (C). Gale notices cost and convenience (the “old rates”, the “half hour”); Hurd notices learning and schooling. Their remarks tell us the curate is accommodating in practical matters and committed to education, and they also tell us what each speaker cares about.
- (A) assumes dishonesty with no textual support. The two statements are compatible.
- (B) mistakes different perspectives for inconsistency in the curate. Each man is describing a different area of his conduct.
- (D) judges reliability by education, which is not a textual reason. Nothing in the passage ranks the speakers.
Question 4 (multiple choice · core)
Setting written by Marlbridge. In a sea novel, Captain Rowe orders the ship to hold her course by the chart as a storm closes in, while his mate, Dunn, who has been watching the sky for an hour, begs him to turn back. Which of the following is the strongest claim about the function of this contrast?
- (A) Rowe and Dunn are very different people.
- (B) By having Rowe trust the chart and Dunn trust his own observation in the same storm, the writer shows two competing sources of authority and sets up the novel’s question about whom a crew should obey.
- (C) Rowe is the antagonist of the novel.
- (D) Dunn is a better sailor than Rowe.
Answer and explanation
Answer: (B). It names the shared situation, the point of difference, what each response shows and the larger question the contrast raises.
- (A) states a difference but says nothing about what it reveals or why it matters.
- (C) assigns a plot role without showing what the contrast shows. Antagonist and foil are different ideas.
- (D) makes a judgement that the passage does not support. It also ends the interpretation instead of developing it.
Question 5 (multiple choice · core)
A student writes: “Rhoda is a foil to Ines because Rhoda is poor and Ines is rich.” What is the most important weakness of this claim?
- (A) It names a difference without saying what the difference reveals or why the writer sets the characters together.
- (B) It uses the word “foil”, which should be avoided.
- (C) It should say that Rhoda is the protagonist.
- (D) It should include a quotation from the end of the work, not the beginning.
Answer and explanation
Answer: (A). A foil analysis is complete only when it explains what the contrast brings out in each character and why that matters in the work.
- (B) is wrong: “foil” is the correct term for a contrast device.
- (C) adds a plot role that has nothing to do with the weakness.
- (D) invents a rule about where evidence comes from. Evidence may come from anywhere in the text that supports the claim.
Question 6 (multiple choice · foundation)
In which situation would two characters make the most effective foils?
- (A) Two characters from different centuries who never meet.
- (B) A hero and a villain who fight at the end.
- (C) Two sisters who respond differently to the same bereavement.
- (D) Two friends who always agree with each other.
Answer and explanation
Answer: (C). Shared ground, the same bereavement, makes the difference in response easy to see and interpret.
- (A) has no shared situation, so there is little to compare directly.
- (B) describes opposition in the plot, not necessarily contrast of character. A hero and villain can be foils, but a fight alone does not make them so.
- (D) offers no contrast.
Question 7 (written response · core)
Passage written by Marlbridge.
When the news came that the mistress had died, Hester set down the tray, wiped her hands twice upon her apron, and asked who would see to the funeral. Joan sat down upon the stairs where she stood and wept without any sound, the dishcloth still in her fist.
Write a paragraph of about 120 to 150 words explaining how Hester and Joan function as contrasting characters. Use at least two short quotations.
Answer and explanation
Model response. The narrator places Hester and Joan in the same moment of loss in order to contrast two ways of meeting grief. Hester “set down the tray, wiped her hands twice”, and her first words are practical: she “asked who would see to the funeral”. Her grief is channelled into duty, and the repeated wiping suggests control that is not quite easy. Joan, by contrast, “sat down upon the stairs where she stood and wept without any sound”, with “the dishcloth still in her fist”. She stops in the middle of her work and clings to the tool of her work, which suggests that her feeling overwhelms her routine. Together the servants show that the household’s loyalty can take the form of order or of sorrow, and the pairing invites the reader to value both rather than to choose one.
Suggested Marlbridge rubric (6 points).
| Point | What earns it |
|---|---|
| 1 | Identifies the shared situation (the news of the mistress’s death) |
| 2 | Describes Hester’s response with a quoted detail |
| 3 | Describes Joan’s response with a quoted detail |
| 4 | Explains what each response reveals (control and duty; overwhelming feeling) |
| 5 | Explains the function: what the pairing lets the reader see about grief or loyalty |
| 6 | Shows nuance or a controlled, clear line of reasoning rather than a list of differences |
Other readings are acceptable if the details support them, for example that Hester’s wiping suggests suppressed distress.
Question 8 (written response · core)
Passage written by Marlbridge. Two people describe Captain Vane, the master of a coastal trader.
A boatman: “Captain Vane never once asked what the fish were fetching. He asked after the widows’ catch.”
A magistrate: “Vane has not paid his tithe, nor entered a church, in three years.”
In three to five sentences, explain what each description reveals about Captain Vane and about the speaker, and what the writer gains by giving both.
Answer and explanation
Model response. The boatman portrays Vane as compassionate: by asking “after the widows’ catch” rather than the price of fish, he puts vulnerable people before profit. This reveals that the boatman values generosity and sees Vane through the eyes of the working community. The magistrate describes Vane as a lawbreaker who has not “paid his tithe” or entered a church, which shows that the magistrate measures a man by obedience to institutions. By giving both, the writer presents Vane as a figure about whom reasonable observers disagree, so that the reader must weigh private kindness against public non-conformity and cannot rely on one voice.
Suggested Marlbridge rubric (4 points).
| Point | What earns it |
|---|---|
| 1 | Accurately reads the boatman’s detail as evidence of Vane’s compassion or priorities |
| 2 | Accurately reads the magistrate’s detail as evidence of Vane’s non-conformity |
| 3 | Says what each speaker’s perspective reveals about the speaker (values, position) |
| 4 | Explains the writer’s gain: a fuller, more complex or contested picture of Vane |
Question 9 (written response · stretch)
Choose a longer work you know well, or use Hamlet. Complete the four steps of the contrast frame for one pair of characters: shared ground, point of difference, what it shows, function in the work. Then write one sentence that could serve as the claim of a paragraph.
Answer and explanation
Model response (Hamlet).
- Shared ground: Hamlet and Fortinbras are both princes whose fathers have died and whose honour is at stake.
- Point of difference: Fortinbras acts decisively, marching an army to claim land, even for a tiny reward; Hamlet delays.
- What it shows: Fortinbras shows action without much reflection; Hamlet shows reflection that stalls action. Hamlet himself reads the contrast as a reproach, in the speech beginning “How all occasions do inform against me”.
- Function: The contrast opens a question about the cost of thought and the nature of honour, and prepares for the play’s final change in Hamlet.
- Claim sentence: “By setting Hamlet beside a prince who will ‘find quarrel in a straw’, Shakespeare makes Hamlet’s reflection look both like a weakness and like a conscience, and so keeps the play’s central question open.”
Suggested Marlbridge rubric (4 points). One point each for a genuinely shared situation; a precise point of difference supported by a detail; an explanation of what the contrast shows about each character; a claim sentence that states function rather than simply difference. Any well-supported pair from a longer work earns credit.
How did you do?
- 8 to 9 correct or well-supported answers: Move on to the Topic 6.2 study guide.
- 5 to 7: Re-read the contrast frame in the study guide, then redo the written questions.
- 4 or fewer: Work through the guide’s two worked examples again and use the revision notes and the checklist to find the weak spots.