These are original Marlbridge practice questions, not past exam questions. Passages marked “written by Marlbridge” are original; the lines from Kate Chopin’s The Story of an Hour (1894) and Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Young Goodman Brown (1835) are public domain. The mark points are a suggested Marlbridge rubric, not an official scoring guideline. Allow about 45 minutes.
Question 1 (multiple choice · core)
Passage written by Marlbridge.
For years Mr Orr had refused, on principle, to lend his neighbour so much as a spade. On the morning of the flood he carried every tool he owned across the lane and set them down at the neighbour’s gate without a word.
The change in Mr Orr is best explained as
- (A) a gradual change caused by years of friendship.
- (B) a flashback to an earlier time.
- (C) evidence that Mr Orr has not really changed.
- (D) a sudden change prompted by altered circumstances, in which the crisis overrides a principle and reveals a value of solidarity.
Answer and explanation
Answer: (D). The flood is a change in circumstances, and Mr Orr’s action reverses his long-held refusal. The silence, “without a word”, suggests that the act is a response to the situation, not the result of a conversation.
- (A) conflicts with the text: it presents a long refusal, not friendship.
- (B) is wrong: the passage moves forward from “for years” to “the morning of the flood”.
- (C) ignores the reversal of behaviour.
Question 2 (multiple choice · core)
Passage written by Marlbridge.
She had been counting the stitches, as she had counted them every evening of that long marriage, and the thought came entire, quiet as a coin dropping: she did not want to go back.
This moment is best described as
- (A) an epiphany: a sudden realisation that is likely to be tied to the central conflict and to lead to action.
- (B) a gradual change over many years.
- (C) a flashback to her wedding.
- (D) a description of her sewing technique.
Answer and explanation
Answer: (A). The thought “came entire”, suddenly, against the background of a habitual activity, and it reframes the marriage. Such a moment normally relates to the story’s central conflict and may lead the character to act.
- (B) contradicts “came entire”, which marks suddenness.
- (C) is wrong: no memory of an earlier time is narrated.
- (D) mistakes the setting of the realisation for its content.
Question 3 (multiple choice · core)
Passage written by Marlbridge.
Despite the family’s pleading and the sale of the house, old Mr Pell kept to his chair by the window and to his formal manners, calling each removal man “sir”.
What is the most likely function of Mr Pell’s remaining unchanged?
- (A) It shows that the writer has failed to develop the character.
- (B) It shows the pressure that failed to move him and reveals a dignity or rigidity that persists even when the world around him is dismantled.
- (C) It proves that the family’s pleading was sincere.
- (D) It is only a description of his chair.
Answer and explanation
Answer: (B). The story sets heavy pressure (pleading, sale of the house) against his unchanged habits, which tells the reader about his values and perhaps about the cost of holding to them.
- (A) assumes that a lack of change is a weakness in writing.
- (C) is an unsupported inference about the family.
- (D) ignores the evident contrast between his stillness and the removal of the house.
Question 4 (multiple choice · core)
Passage written by Marlbridge.
When Ada rose to speak, the committee became absorbed in its papers, as one body.
What does the committee’s behaviour most likely reveal?
- (A) The committee is bored by paperwork.
- (B) Ada has said something false.
- (C) The committee acts as a single character whose collective inattention expresses an attitude of dismissal towards Ada.
- (D) The papers are important.
Answer and explanation
Answer: (C). “As one body” treats the group as a single actor, and the shared gesture of looking away signals a collective attitude.
- (A) takes the action at face value, ignoring the timing, “when Ada rose”.
- (B) has no support: we do not know what Ada says.
- (D) misses the point that the papers are being used as a pretext.
Question 5 (multiple choice · core)
In Kate Chopin’s The Story of an Hour (1894), which detail best shows that Mrs Mallard’s change is a sudden epiphany?
- (A) “She said it over and over under her breath: ‘free, free, free!’”
- (B) “great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband’s death”
- (C) “She wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister’s arms.”
- (D) The detail that her husband’s friend Richards was in the newspaper office when the railroad disaster was reported.
Answer and explanation
Answer: (A). The repeated word “free” and the narrator’s attention to her whispering mark a sudden new perception, an epiphany tied to the central conflict between marriage and selfhood.
- (B) shows the household’s expectation of fragility, not her change.
- (C) shows her conventional first reaction to the news, before the epiphany.
- (D) is a plot detail about how the news arrived.
Question 6 (multiple choice · stretch)
Hawthorne’s Young Goodman Brown (1835) ends by describing Brown, after his night in the forest, as “a stern, a sad, a darkly meditative, a distrustful, if not a desperate man”. This description most strongly suggests
- (A) that Brown has returned to his earlier cheerfulness.
- (B) that Brown has become a leader of the village.
- (C) that nothing has happened to Brown.
- (D) a lasting change in his attitude towards his community, from trust to suspicion and gloom.
Answer and explanation
Answer: (D). The stacked adjectives and the qualifying “if not” phrases register a change in outlook that the narrator treats as profound and lasting.
- (A) contradicts “stern” and “sad”.
- (B) has no textual basis.
- (C) contradicts the description of altered character.
Question 7 (written response · core)
Passage written by Marlbridge.
In March, Harriet apologised to the baker for the mistakes in the bill. In June she checked the bill and said nothing. By September she was correcting the baker’s arithmetic, and he, grinning, thanked her.
Write a paragraph of about 120 to 150 words explaining how the narrator shows Harriet’s change and what the change may reveal.
Answer and explanation
Model response. The narrator shows Harriet’s change gradually, through three dated moments. In March she “apologised to the baker for the mistakes in the bill”, which suggests a person who assumes that she is at fault. In June she “checked the bill and said nothing”, an intermediate stage in which she is attentive but silent. By September she is “correcting the baker’s arithmetic”, and his grinning thanks show that her new confidence is accepted. The shift from apology to correction suggests growing self-trust, and the baker’s response suggests a relationship that has become more equal. The sequence of months makes the change feel earned, and it implies that Harriet’s change in circumstances or confidence has altered how she is treated.
Suggested Marlbridge rubric (6 points).
| Point | What earns it |
|---|---|
| 1 | Identifies the change as gradual, using the dated structure |
| 2 | Uses the March detail (“apologised”) with interpretation |
| 3 | Uses the June detail (“checked … said nothing”) as an intermediate stage |
| 4 | Uses the September detail and the baker’s response |
| 5 | Explains what the change reveals (growing self-trust, a more equal relationship) |
| 6 | Uses precise quotation and clear analytic language |
Question 8 (written response · core)
Passage written by Marlbridge.
The regiment sang. Private Dale kept his mouth closed, moving his lips like a man in church. When the song ended, the sergeant, who had been watching, said nothing, and the silence went down the line like a verdict.
In three or four sentences, explain what the passage reveals about Dale’s relationship with the regiment.
Answer and explanation
Model response. Dale is set apart from the regiment: while the group sings as one, he only “moved his lips like a man in church”, a performance of belonging without commitment. The sergeant’s silence, which “went down the line like a verdict”, shows the group as a collective judge: the regiment notices Dale’s non-participation and withholds approval. The passage reveals a tension between Dale’s private reluctance and the group’s demand for conformity, and the simile of a “verdict” suggests that exclusion carries real weight.
Suggested Marlbridge rubric (4 points). One point for noting Dale’s separation from the group with evidence; one for identifying the regiment as a collective character that judges; one for interpreting the simile “like a verdict”; one for stating what the relationship reveals (conformity against private reluctance, exclusion as punishment).
Question 9 (written response · stretch)
Choose a short story you know well, or use Chopin’s The Story of an Hour or Hawthorne’s Young Goodman Brown. Use the five-step frame (before, pressure, turn, after, function) in brief notes, then write one sentence that could serve as the claim of a paragraph.
Answer and explanation
Model response (Young Goodman Brown).
- Before: Brown sets out at sunset, leaving his wife Faith, confident in the goodness of his village.
- Pressure: In the forest he meets figures from the village who seem to share an evil he had not suspected, which tests his trust.
- Turn: The change is sudden, in the night of the forest, but its effects are lasting.
- After: He returns “a stern, a sad, a darkly meditative” man who cannot trust his neighbours or his wife.
- Function: The change shows how loss of trust in a community can be more destructive than any single act.
- Claim sentence: “By sending Brown into the forest as a confident believer and returning him as a suspicious, gloomy man, Hawthorne makes the story a study of how one night’s doubt can poison a lifetime’s trust.”
Suggested Marlbridge rubric (4 points). One point for a precise before and after with evidence; one for naming the pressure; one for saying whether the change is gradual or sudden and what marks it; one for a claim sentence that states function. Any well-supported story earns credit.
How did you do?
- 8 to 9 correct or well-supported answers: Move on to the Topic 7.2 study guide.
- 5 to 7: Re-read the five-step frame in the study guide and redo the written questions.
- 4 or fewer: Work through both worked examples again, then use the revision notes and checklist.