These are original Marlbridge practice questions, not past exam questions. Passages marked “written by Marlbridge” are original; the references to Wuthering Heights (Emily Brontë, 1847) and Macbeth (Shakespeare, about 1606) concern public-domain works. The mark points are a suggested Marlbridge rubric, not an official scoring guideline. Allow about 45 minutes.
Question 1 (multiple choice · foundation)
Passage written by Marlbridge.
The lamp was already lit when Corin reached the cottage, and the door stood open, and the kettle had boiled dry. He did not call out. He knew, as one knows a step in the dark, what he would find in the back room.
The opening of this passage most clearly uses
- (A) a flashback, because it explains the past.
- (B) stream of consciousness, because it represents a continuous flow of thought.
- (C) in medias res, because it begins in the middle of a situation and withholds what has happened.
- (D) a framing narrative, because it introduces a storyteller.
Answer and explanation
Answer: (C). The passage starts at the moment of arrival, with clues (the open door, the dry kettle) and a statement of dread, while leaving the cause of the situation unexplained.
- (A) is wrong: nothing here moves back in time.
- (B) is wrong: the sentences are controlled and the thought is not an associative flow.
- (D) is wrong: there is no storyteller or listener.
Question 2 (multiple choice · core)
Passage written by Marlbridge.
That spring the old well, which had never failed, gave the water a strange taste, and Mrs Orme put it down to the thaw.
When a later chapter describes the village being stricken with sickness, the sentence above is best described as
- (A) foreshadowing, because an earlier detail anticipates a later event and gains new meaning in retrospect.
- (B) a flashback to the previous spring.
- (C) a contrast between the village and the town.
- (D) an unreliable narrator’s lie.
Answer and explanation
Answer: (A). A small, odd detail, with a character’s innocent explanation, hints at later trouble.
- (B) is wrong: the sentence is part of the narrative’s forward movement.
- (C) is wrong: no contrast between places appears.
- (D) is not supported: the narration reports Mrs Orme’s explanation and does not suggest a lie.
Question 3 (multiple choice · core)
A novel keeps the reason for a character’s exile secret until the last chapters, then reveals it in a flashback just before the final confrontation. The most likely effect of this placement is to
- (A) make the confrontation less important.
- (B) sustain curiosity and then give the confrontation its full emotional weight by supplying the missing context at the moment it matters.
- (C) show that the narrator has forgotten the past.
- (D) replace the plot with a description.
Answer and explanation
Answer: (B). Withholding information builds anticipation, and revealing it just before the climax gives the final scene its meaning.
- (A) is the reverse: a late reveal increases the importance of the confrontation.
- (C) misreads a deliberate choice as a failure of memory.
- (D) confuses a flashback, which tells past events, with description of a place or thing.
Question 4 (multiple choice · core)
Passage written by Marlbridge.
and then the kettle, I must remember the kettle, he will want tea, the last time he wanted tea he said nothing, nothing at all, and the cup rattled in its saucer, rattled and rattled, and Mother always said a house that is quiet is a house that is hiding something
The passage is best described as
- (A) foreshadowing of the narrator’s death.
- (B) a conventional chronological summary.
- (C) stream of consciousness, because it presents a flow of associated thoughts that blends present task and past memory.
- (D) objective description with no point of view.
Answer and explanation
Answer: (C). Long, loosely punctuated sentences, repetition (“nothing, nothing”, “rattled and rattled”) and associative jumps from the kettle to a memory to a remembered saying show a mind at work, and the speaker’s anxiety is the effect.
- (A) is unsupported: there is no hint of death.
- (B) is wrong: the order follows association, not chronology.
- (D) is wrong: the passage is entirely inside one character’s perspective.
Question 5 (multiple choice · core)
In a novel, a chapter describing a wedding celebration is immediately followed by a chapter describing a funeral for the groom’s father. The contrast most likely functions to
- (A) prove that the writer cannot decide on a tone.
- (B) show that weddings are less important than funerals.
- (C) introduce nuance and ambiguity by setting joy and loss side by side, so that neither can be read simply.
- (D) replace the plot with a summary of customs.
Answer and explanation
Answer: (C). A contrast between contrary events can make a text more complex: the wedding gains shadow, and the funeral gains a sense of continuity.
- (A) assumes an error where there is a deliberate contrast.
- (B) imposes a value judgement that the passage does not support.
- (D) is irrelevant: the structure does not replace the plot.
Question 6 (multiple choice · stretch)
Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights (1847) begins in 1801 with the narrator Lockwood, a tenant who visits his landlord, and only afterwards relays, through the housekeeper Nelly Dean, the history of the earlier generations. Which statement best describes the effect of this arrangement?
- (A) It makes the past irrelevant to the present.
- (B) It shows that the book is written in strict chronological order.
- (C) It starts with a puzzled outsider and delays the explanation of the past, so that the reader works out the history alongside him.
- (D) It removes all suspense because the ending is told first.
Answer and explanation
Answer: (C). The novel opens at a later point in time and then goes back. Lockwood’s confusion mirrors the reader’s, and the history is revealed in stages.
- (A) is wrong: the past is the subject of the book.
- (B) is wrong: the novel moves back from 1801.
- (D) is wrong: the opening does not tell the ending, and the delayed explanation increases curiosity.
Question 7 (written response · core)
Passage written by Marlbridge.
Meg stood at the quay with her trunk and her ticket, and she did not look at the town. It was the same quay where, at seven, she had been lifted aboard the Fenwick ferry in a borrowed coat, clutching a doll with one arm. The doll had been left in the coach on the way, and she had told no one until the ferry was far from shore, and then it had been too late.
The ferry horn sounded; Meg shouldered her trunk.
Write a paragraph of about 120 to 150 words explaining how the order of information in the passage affects the reader’s understanding of Meg.
Answer and explanation
Model response. The passage begins in the present with Meg refusing to look at the town, which raises a question about why she avoids it. The narrator then moves into a flashback, marked by “at seven”, to a childhood crossing on the same quay. The memory explains her avoidance: the quay is tied to loss, since she “had told no one until the ferry was far from shore”. The flashback does not say outright why she is leaving now, so the return to the present, “Meg shouldered her trunk”, leaves the reader with an impression of controlled determination shaped by an old, silent sorrow. The sequence makes Meg’s reserve seem not coldness but a habit formed in childhood.
Suggested Marlbridge rubric (6 points).
| Point | What earns it |
|---|---|
| 1 | Identifies the opening present-time scene and the question it raises |
| 2 | Identifies the flashback with a textual marker (“at seven”, “same quay”) |
| 3 | Explains what the flashback supplies (a link between the quay and loss) |
| 4 | Explains what is still withheld (why she leaves now) |
| 5 | States the effect on the reader’s understanding of Meg (reserve as formed in childhood, not coldness) |
| 6 | Uses precise quotation and clear analytic language rather than only naming the technique |
Question 8 (written response · core)
A short novel’s events, in the order they happen, are: (1) Ada’s father emigrates; (2) Ada grows up with her aunt; (3) Ada’s aunt dies; (4) Ada discovers her father’s letters; (5) Ada travels to meet him. The novel presents them in this order of chapters: (4), (1), (2), (3), (5).
(a) Name the technique used at the start and say what it does. (b) What is the effect of withholding event (3), the aunt’s death, until the fourth chapter?
Answer and explanation
Model response.
(a) The novel opens in medias res with event (4), Ada’s discovery of the letters, a moment of action that raises questions: whose letters? why do they matter? The chapters that follow then supply background in a series of flashbacks (1, 2, 3), so the reader learns the reasons for her reaction after seeing it.
(b) Placing the aunt’s death after her childhood but before the travel presents the death as the final loss that leaves Ada free to go. By delaying it until the fourth chapter, the novel allows the reader to see Ada’s isolation grow from background to cause, so that her decision to travel in the last chapter feels both released and compelled.
Suggested Marlbridge rubric (4 points). One point for naming in medias res (or an opening in the middle of the action followed by flashback); one for explaining that it raises questions answered later; one for recognising that the delayed information changes how the reader understands her motives; one for a clear statement of effect (for example, her decision to travel feels both free and compelled). Other readings are acceptable if tied to the order of information.
Question 9 (written response · stretch)
Choose a longer work you know well, or use Macbeth or Wuthering Heights. Identify one structural choice (a technique that interrupts chronology, or a contrast between scenes), say what information it reveals or withholds, and explain its effect on the reader’s understanding of the work. Write 120 to 150 words.
Answer and explanation
Model response (Macbeth). Shakespeare opens Macbeth with three witches chanting “Fair is foul, and foul is fair”. Before we meet Macbeth, the play has foreshadowed its central pattern of reversal, where appearance and truth exchange places. The line gives the audience an uneasy expectation that nothing will be what it seems. When later scenes show Macbeth, a loyal general, resolving on murder, and Lady Macbeth urging him to “look like the innocent flower, / But be the serpent under’t”, the opening line gains force. The audience sees each deception as part of a pattern announced at the start. Because the hint is placed before any character is known, it frames the characters’ actions as fulfilments of a tendency rather than isolated crimes.
Suggested Marlbridge rubric (4 points). One point for a named structural choice supported by a detail; one for stating what it reveals or withholds; one for explaining the effect on the reader’s anticipation or interpretation; one for linking it to a later part of the work. Any well-supported choice of work earns credit.
How did you do?
- 8 to 9 correct or well-supported answers: Move on to the Topic 6.4 study guide.
- 5 to 7: Re-read the techniques table in the study guide and redo the written questions.
- 4 or fewer: Study both worked examples again, then use the revision notes and checklist.