Use this diagnostic to find which Unit 2 topics to revisit: at least one short question per topic, two for most.
These are original Marlbridge practice questions, not past exam questions. Both poems were written by Marlbridge for this practice. The diagnostic is not calibrated and gives no predicted score. Multiple-choice questions have four options, as in the exam.
How to take it. Allow 30 minutes. Read each poem twice, answer everything before opening any answer, and write the two constructed responses in full sentences.
Poem AG (written by Marlbridge), “Platform”.
The board says delayed, and then says nothing,
a blank where the promise was.
We stand as people stand who have been told
to wait by someone who has left.
You check your watch. I check the sky.
Neither of us checks the other.But the train, when it comes, is only a train,
ordinary and late and lit,
and we get on it, and for a mile
we are strangers who happen to be going the same way.
Poem AH (written by Marlbridge), “The Locked Room”.
My father’s silence was a house with many rooms:
the one for football, the one for weather,
the locked one at the end of the hall
that we walked past, quickly, like a draught.
Question 1 (multiple choice · 2.1)
“You check your watch. I check the sky.” The speaker’s choice of what to report most directly suggests that the speaker
- (A) notices how each person is occupied with something other than the other
- (B) is angry with the person addressed
- (C) is giving instructions to the person addressed
- (D) wants to leave the platform alone
Answer and explanation
Answer: (A). The two actions run in parallel and lead to “Neither of us checks the other”, so the speaker’s attention is on the gap between them.
- (B) is not shown; the tone is observant, not angry.
- (C) is wrong because there are no commands.
- (D) is unsupported; the speaker says “we get on it”.
If you missed this: Topic 2.1 study guide.
Question 2 (multiple choice · 2.1)
The final line, “we are strangers who happen to be going the same way”, most clearly reveals that the speaker
- (A) regards the relationship with the person addressed as having become distant
- (B) has just met the person addressed
- (C) has decided to end the journey
- (D) is speaking to a crowd
Answer and explanation
Answer: (A). “Strangers” is used of two people who stand together, which presents a closeness that has turned into distance.
- (B) misreads “strangers” literally, although the “We” and “you” suggest an existing relationship.
- (C) is not supported.
- (D) is wrong because “you” is one person.
If you missed this: Topic 2.1 study guide.
Question 3 (multiple choice · 2.2)
The stanza break between the two stanzas of Poem AG most directly separates
- (A) waiting at the platform from the arrival and boarding of the train
- (B) the speaker’s past from the speaker’s future
- (C) a question from its answer
- (D) a description of the train from a description of the station
Answer and explanation
Answer: (A). The first stanza is the wait; the second is the arrival (“when it comes”) and the journey.
- (B) is wrong because both stanzas are in the same time frame.
- (C) is wrong because there is no question.
- (D) misdescribes the stanzas.
If you missed this: Topic 2.2 study guide.
Question 4 (multiple choice · 2.3)
The word “But” at the start of the second stanza most directly signals
- (A) a shift from the tense, empty waiting to the ordinariness of the arrival
- (B) an argument between the speakers
- (C) the end of the journey
- (D) a change of speaker
Answer and explanation
Answer: (A). “But” turns from the blank board and silence to a train that is “only a train”.
- (B) is not shown.
- (C) is wrong; the journey begins after the break.
- (D) is wrong; the speaker is the same.
If you missed this: Topic 2.3 study guide.
Question 5 (multiple choice · 2.3)
In the second stanza, “only a train, / ordinary and late and lit” contrasts most directly with the first stanza’s “a blank where the promise was” in terms of
- (A) imagery: something plain and present against something empty and promised
- (B) setting: a city against the country
- (C) point of view: the first person against the third
- (D) time: the past against the future
Answer and explanation
Answer: (A). A “blank where the promise was” is an image of absence; “ordinary and late and lit” is an image of something plain that is really there.
- (B) is wrong; no city or country is named.
- (C) is wrong; both stanzas have the same first-person speaker.
- (D) is wrong; both stanzas describe the same evening.
If you missed this: Topic 2.3 study guide.
Question 6 (multiple choice · 2.4)
The repeated “check” in “You check your watch. I check the sky. / Neither of us checks the other” most directly
- (A) emphasises a routine of looking elsewhere that stands in for looking at each other
- (B) shows that the speaker is checking a timetable
- (C) introduces a second addressee
- (D) lists the ways the platform can be inspected
Answer and explanation
Answer: (A). The same verb is applied three times, and the third use, “Neither of us checks the other”, turns the pattern into a statement about avoidance.
- (B) is not supported.
- (C) is wrong; “you” stays the same.
- (D) misreads the repetition as a list of inspections.
If you missed this: Topic 2.4 study guide.
Question 7 (multiple choice · 2.4)
In “We stand as people stand who have been told / to wait by someone who has left”, the phrase “someone who has left” is best described as
- (A) a clear referent: a person named earlier in the poem
- (B) an unspecified someone, which leaves it open who or what has caused the wait
- (C) an alliteration
- (D) a metaphor for the train
Answer and explanation
Answer: (B). “Someone” has no antecedent in the poem, so the reader cannot say who left, which keeps the source of the delay vague.
- (A) is wrong because nobody is named.
- (C) is wrong because the words do not repeat an initial sound.
- (D) is not supported; the train is introduced later as “only a train”.
If you missed this: Topic 2.4 study guide, “Antecedents and referents”.
Question 8 (multiple choice · 2.5)
In Poem AH, “My father’s silence was a house with many rooms” is a metaphor. What are its main subject and its comparison subject?
- (A) Main subject: a house; comparison subject: the father
- (B) Main subject: the father’s silence; comparison subject: a house
- (C) Main subject: football; comparison subject: weather
- (D) Main subject: the hall; comparison subject: a draught
Answer and explanation
Answer: (B). The poem is about the silence, which is described as a house.
- (A) reverses the subjects.
- (C) and (D) pick details from within the figure.
If you missed this: Topic 2.5 study guide.
Question 9 (multiple choice · 2.5)
The simile “that we walked past, quickly, like a draught” most directly transfers to the locked room the idea of
- (A) something to hurry past, felt as unwelcome and cold
- (B) something warm and comforting
- (C) a place where the family gathers
- (D) a room that is being decorated
Answer and explanation
Answer: (A). A draught is felt as a cold, unwelcome movement of air. Walking past “quickly, like a draught” suggests avoiding the room, as if its air were a chill.
- (B) and (C) contradict “walked past, quickly”.
- (D) is not mentioned.
If you missed this: Topic 2.5 study guide.
Question 10 (multiple choice · 2.6)
Which is the best claim for a paragraph about Poem AG?
- (A) The poem has two stanzas of six and four lines.
- (B) The speaker describes a train arriving.
- (C) The poem moves from a silent, empty wait to an ordinary journey that shows how little two people now share.
- (D) The poem is about trains.
Answer and explanation
Answer: (C). It says what the poem does and can be defended with evidence from both stanzas.
- (A) states a fact about form.
- (B) summarises.
- (D) is a topic, not a claim.
If you missed this: Topic 2.6 study guide.
Question 11 (short written response · 2.6 and 2.3)
Write two to three sentences explaining the shift in Poem AG, naming the signal of the shift and quoting two short phrases, one from each stanza. Show any line break with a slash.
Answer and explanation
Sample response. The shift from the first stanza to the second is signalled by the word “But” and by the stanza break. The speaker moves from “a blank where the promise was” to a train that is “only a train, / ordinary and late and lit”, which turns the poem from an absence that creates tension to an ordinary arrival.
Suggested Marlbridge rubric (3 points).
| Point | Awarded for |
|---|---|
| 1 | Names the signal (“But” or the stanza break) |
| 2 | Two accurate quotations, one from each stanza, with a slash where a quoted passage crosses a line |
| 3 | Explains what changes (tension and absence to ordinariness) |
If you missed this: Topic 2.3 study guide; Topic 2.6 study guide.
Question 12 (short written response · 2.2 and 2.5)
Explain how the structure of Poem AH, a single stanza that ends with a simile, affects the reader’s understanding of the father’s silence.
Answer and explanation
Sample response. The poem builds the metaphor of the house across three lines of rooms, each given a topic: “football”, “weather” and a “locked one”. The last line, which holds the simile “like a draught”, comes after the rooms and gives the reader the family’s response to the locked room: they hurry past. The placement makes the simile the end of the image and shows that the silence has a part that cannot be discussed. The order of rooms, from safe topics to the locked room, moves from ordinary talk to avoidance.
Suggested Marlbridge rubric (3 points).
| Point | Awarded for |
|---|---|
| 1 | Describes the arrangement (list of rooms, then the locked room, then the simile) |
| 2 | Uses at least two accurate details |
| 3 | Explains the effect on the reader’s understanding (progress from talk to avoidance, the simile as the family’s response) |
If you missed this: Topic 2.2 study guide; Topic 2.5 study guide.
What to revisit
| If you missed | Revisit |
|---|---|
| Questions 1 or 2 | Topic 2.1: the speaker as a character |
| Questions 3 or 12 | Topic 2.2: the structure of a poem |
| Questions 4, 5 or 11 | Topic 2.3: contrasts within a poem |
| Questions 6 or 7 | Topic 2.4: specific words and phrases |
| Questions 8, 9 or 12 | Topic 2.5: simile and metaphor |
| Questions 10 or 11 | Topic 2.6: writing about a poem |
When you have closed any gaps, move on to the Unit 2 review.