These are original Marlbridge practice questions, not past exam questions. Passages are short extracts from public-domain works (author, title and date given) or an original prose passage written by Marlbridge, labelled as such. Mark points are a suggested Marlbridge rubric, not an official scoring guideline. Questions 1 to 6 are multiple choice; Questions 7 and 8 are written responses. Allow about 50 minutes. No calculator is needed.
Question 1 (multiple choice · foundation)
A character wants to leave her village for a career but feels bound by duty to care for her father. What kind of conflict is this, mainly?
- (A) Social only, because villages are social.
- (B) Not a conflict, because nobody is fighting.
- (C) Circumstantial only, because the village is the cause.
- (D) Internal, because the two pulls are inside one character.
Answer and explanation
Answer: (D). Duty and desire pull against each other in one character, which is the definition of an internal conflict. (It may also have social features, but the central struggle is inside her.)
- (A) and (C) name features of the setting, not the core opposition.
- (B) is wrong: conflict does not require fighting; a struggle between two pulls is enough.
Question 2 (multiple choice · core)
In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818), the creature tells Victor: “I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel, whom thou drivest from joy for no misdeed.” What does this statement do to the conflict between them?
- (A) It resolves the conflict peacefully.
- (B) It frames the conflict as a dispute about a maker’s responsibility, giving the creature a moral argument and unsettling the reader’s sense of who is the monster.
- (C) It introduces a new character.
- (D) It shows the creature intends to forgive Victor.
Answer and explanation
Answer: (B). The allusion to Adam and the fallen angel claims that Victor owes care to what he made and has wronged him. This turns an apparent monster hunt into a debate about responsibility.
- (A) is contradicted by Victor’s reply: “we are enemies”.
- (C) is wrong; both characters are already present.
- (D) is wrong; the creature is accusing, not forgiving.
Question 3 (multiple choice · core)
At the end of Frankenstein, Walton reports that the creature “was soon borne away by the waves and lost in darkness and distance.” What is the most likely effect of this ending on an interpretation of the conflict?
- (A) It leaves the central moral question open, because the reader sees the creature vanish but not the end he promises, so the argument about responsibility remains unfinished.
- (B) It proves that the whole story was invented by Walton.
- (C) It shows that the creature has become a hero.
- (D) It confirms that the creature has been defeated.
Answer and explanation
Answer: (A). The last image is of disappearance, not of a verified end. The conflict is partly released (Victor is dead) but not morally closed.
- (B) has no textual basis.
- (C) misreads the creature’s disappearance as triumph.
- (D) is contradicted by the open ending.
Question 4 (multiple choice · core)
In Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations (1861), Herbert tells Pip that Miss Havisham’s intended husband “most heartlessly broke the marriage off”, and that she “afterwards stopped all the clocks”. The event itself is never shown. What is the effect of leaving it unseen?
- (A) The reader should ignore the event.
- (B) The novel is incomplete.
- (C) Miss Havisham is not an important character.
- (D) The event’s force is felt through its consequences (the stopped clocks, Estella’s training), so a conflict that was never shown governs the present.
Answer and explanation
Answer: (D). The unseen past event produces present conflict: it shapes Miss Havisham’s world and her use of Estella. The reader infers its force from the traces.
- (A) is wrong: the event is essential to the novel’s conflicts.
- (B) misreads a deliberate choice as a gap.
- (C) is wrong: she is central to Pip’s story.
Question 5 (multiple choice · core)
Read this passage, written by Marlbridge.
Ada never spoke of the quarrel, and the house kept its silence for her. The letter lay on the mantel, unopened, its corner gone soft from being picked up and put down. Her daughter, home for the week, noticed that the second bedroom was aired every Friday, and that the good cups were set by the window though no one called. “Who is it for?” she asked. “Nobody,” said Ada, and straightened a cup that did not need it. “Mind the post.” The postman’s step was on the path; both women listened, and neither moved.
Which statement best identifies the conflict and what is unseen?
- (A) The conflict is internal, between Ada’s pride and her wish for reconciliation, and it results from a quarrel that is never narrated and an absent person who is never shown.
- (B) The conflict is between Ada and the postman.
- (C) The conflict is between Ada and her daughter over the cups.
- (D) There is no conflict because nothing happens.
Answer and explanation
Answer: (A). The unopened letter, the aired room and the good cups show a wish for reconciliation held back by pride. The quarrel and the absent person are unseen, yet they produce the present tension.
- (B) misidentifies a bystander as the opposing force.
- (C) takes a surface exchange for the real opposition.
- (D) overlooks that the stillness is full of unresolved struggle.
Question 6 (multiple choice · stretch)
Which description of catharsis is most accurate?
- (A) The final sentence of a novel.
- (B) The emotional release that follows when built-up tension or a central conflict is resolved.
- (C) A character’s change of name.
- (D) The moment a conflict begins.
Answer and explanation
Answer: (B). Catharsis is an emotional release after tension. It often follows a climax and may accompany a tragic as well as a happy ending.
- (A) and (C) are unrelated to the concept.
- (D) describes an inciting event.
Question 7 (written response · core)
Write a paragraph of about 150 words explaining the function of the conflict between Victor and the creature in Frankenstein. Include what each side stands for, what is at stake, and one short quotation.
Answer and explanation
Sample response (written by Marlbridge). The conflict between Victor and his creature stages a dispute about responsibility. The creature stands for the claim that a maker owes care to what he makes: “I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel”. Victor stands for the desire to disown the result of his ambition, and his reply, “we are enemies”, refuses the creature’s claim. For the creature, what is at stake is belonging; for Victor, safety and reputation; for the reader, the question of who is to blame for the destruction that follows. Because the creature argues eloquently while Victor refuses to listen, the conflict unsettles the reader’s sense of who the monster is. Each refusal escalates the violence and deepens Victor’s guilt, so the conflict drives the plot while also developing the novel’s argument about creation and accountability.
Suggested Marlbridge rubric (4 points)
| Point | What earns it |
|---|---|
| 1 | Identifies the opposing forces and what each stands for. |
| 2 | Says what is at stake for the characters and the reader. |
| 3 | Uses at least one accurate quotation. |
| 4 | Explains the function: how the conflict drives the plot and develops the work’s meaning. |
Question 8 (written response · stretch)
Using the passage about Ada (Question 5), write a paragraph of about 150 words explaining how conflict, including what is unseen, shapes the passage. Refer to specific details.
Answer and explanation
Sample response (written by Marlbridge). The passage builds its conflict from what it does not show. The quarrel is never narrated, and the absent person is never named, yet both press on every detail. The letter on the mantel, “unopened” and “soft” from handling, shows a wish to read it that Ada’s pride forbids, and the aired room and “good cups” set by the window prepare for a visit she will not admit to expecting. Her answer to her daughter, “Nobody”, denies what her actions affirm. The final image, in which “both women listened, and neither moved”, extends the internal conflict to the interpersonal: the daughter has sensed it but cannot speak, and Ada cannot act. The passage leaves the conflict unresolved, so the reader is held in the same suspended wait as the characters.
Suggested Marlbridge rubric (4 points)
| Point | What earns it |
|---|---|
| 1 | Identifies the conflict (pride versus wish to reconcile) and its kind. |
| 2 | Explains the role of the unseen (quarrel, absent person). |
| 3 | Uses at least two accurate details or quotations. |
| 4 | Explains the effect of the unresolved ending (suspense, suspended wait). |
How did you do?
- Questions 1 to 6 correct: move to the 9.5 study guide.
- Missed 1 or 6: reread the kinds of conflict and the definition of catharsis in the study guide.
- Missed 2, 3 or 4: practise naming what each side stands for and what is unseen.
- Written responses below 3 points: write what is at stake for each side before you write about function.