Use this diagnostic to find which Unit 3 topics to revisit: at least one short question per topic.
These are original Marlbridge practice questions, not past exam questions. The extract was written by Marlbridge for this practice, as an excerpt from an invented novel. 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 35 minutes. Read the extract twice, answer everything before opening any answer, and write the two constructed responses in full sentences.
Extract N (written by Marlbridge), from an invented novel.
When Esme came back to Harcourt after nine years, the first thing she noticed was that the road had been paved and the second was that nobody had told her. At the shop, Mr. Orr rang up her tea and said, “You’ll be staying at your mother’s,” as a man states the weather. Her mother’s house had the same green door and a new lock. At supper her mother laid two places, not three, and Esme understood that the third, her father’s, had been put away; neither of them spoke of it, and both of them passed the salt. In the morning Esme walked to the end of the new road, where it stopped at the old, rutted track, and stood a while on the join, one foot on each.
Question 1 (multiple choice · 3.1)
Mr. Orr says “You’ll be staying at your mother’s,” “as a man states the weather.” This most directly suggests that Mr. Orr
- (A) treats Esme’s circumstances as common knowledge and settled
- (B) is unsure where Esme will stay
- (C) is angry with Esme
- (D) wants to offer Esme a room
Answer and explanation
Answer: (A). Stating something “as a man states the weather” shows that he regards it as obvious. The simile reveals both his perspective and the community’s habit of knowing about people.
- (B) is contradicted by the confident tone.
- (C) is not suggested by the neutral comparison.
- (D) is unsupported.
If you missed this: Topic 3.1 study guide.
Question 2 (multiple choice · 3.1)
“Neither of them spoke of it, and both of them passed the salt.” Esme’s and her mother’s behaviour most directly shows that they
- (A) have nothing to say to each other
- (B) are avoiding the subject of the father by performing an ordinary action
- (C) are arguing openly
- (D) disagree about the food
Answer and explanation
Answer: (B). An action in place of speech is an inaction on the subject that matters, and it suggests a shared motive to avoid it.
- (A) overlooks the shared understanding.
- (C) contradicts “neither … spoke”.
- (D) has no support.
If you missed this: Topic 3.1 study guide, “Motives from actions and inactions”.
Question 3 (multiple choice · 3.2)
Which of the following pairs of details, if found in the early and late chapters of the novel, would best show an internal change in Esme?
- (A) Early: she arrives by bus. Late: she leaves by car.
- (B) Early: she says nothing while her mother avoids the subject of her father. Late: she raises the subject at supper.
- (C) Early: she wears a green coat. Late: she wears a blue coat.
- (D) Early: her mother’s door is green. Late: her mother’s door is still green.
Answer and explanation
Answer: (B). A change from silence to speech is a change in how she responds, so it shows a development in her outlook.
- (A) and (C) are external changes of circumstance or appearance.
- (D) shows continuity in a setting detail and not a change in Esme.
If you missed this: Topic 3.2 study guide.
Question 4 (multiple choice · 3.3)
“The road had been paved and … nobody had told her.” The second half of the sentence most directly conveys that
- (A) the community goes on without her and has not kept her informed
- (B) the road is dangerous
- (C) Esme did not care about the road
- (D) the road was built by Esme’s father
Answer and explanation
Answer: (A). A change to the place has happened in her absence, and “nobody had told her” marks her as no longer part of the community’s news.
- (B) is not stated.
- (C) is contradicted by the fact that she notices it first.
- (D) is not mentioned.
If you missed this: Topic 3.3 study guide.
Question 5 (multiple choice · 3.3)
In the last sentence, Esme stands “on the join, one foot on each” of the new road and the old track. This image most directly shows
- (A) that Esme is lost
- (B) a setting that mirrors her position between the village’s past and present
- (C) that the old track is dangerous
- (D) that Esme has decided to leave
Answer and explanation
Answer: (B). The meeting-point of new and old is a place that expresses her own position, belonging to neither fully.
- (A) is not suggested; she stands deliberately.
- (C) is not stated.
- (D) is not shown; she stands “a while”.
If you missed this: Topic 3.3 study guide.
Question 6 (multiple choice · 3.4)
The supper scene, in which her mother “laid two places, not three”, most directly functions as an event that
- (A) reveals the loss of the father and establishes a conflict that neither woman will name
- (B) resolves the main conflict
- (C) provides a flashback to Esme’s childhood
- (D) introduces the shop
Answer and explanation
Answer: (A). The absent third place shows what has changed in the household, and the silence about it creates a conflict beneath the surface.
- (B) is wrong because the scene opens the conflict.
- (C) is wrong because there is no flashback.
- (D) is wrong because the shop appeared earlier.
If you missed this: Topic 3.4 study guide.
Question 7 (multiple choice · 3.5)
The conflict in the supper scene is best described as
- (A) an open quarrel about money
- (B) a conflict of values between speaking of the loss and keeping the peace, expressed in ordinary actions
- (C) a fight between Esme and Mr. Orr
- (D) a conflict between the village and the weather
Answer and explanation
Answer: (B). The two women’s values, honesty and peace, compete, and the “passed the salt” detail shows peace winning on the surface.
- (A) and (C) are not in the passage.
- (D) mistakes a simile for a conflict.
If you missed this: Topic 3.5 study guide.
Question 8 (multiple choice · 3.6)
Prompt: How does the narrator present Esme’s relationship to Harcourt? Which is the best thesis?
- (A) The passage is about a woman returning to a village.
- (B) The narrator uses description, dialogue and imagery.
- (C) Through a series of small displacements (a paved road no one mentioned, a new lock on an old door, a place unlaid), the narrator shows Esme as someone who belongs to Harcourt’s past but is no longer part of its present.
- (D) Esme is unhappy to be home.
Answer and explanation
Answer: (C). It answers the prompt with a defensible interpretation and previews a line of reasoning without listing devices.
- (A) is summary.
- (B) lists elements.
- (D) is a label with no evidence.
If you missed this: Topic 3.6 study guide.
Question 9 (multiple choice · 3.7)
Which of the following is commentary, and not evidence or paraphrase, on “one foot on each”?
- (A) Esme stands with one foot on the new road and one on the old track.
- (B) “One foot on each.”
- (C) The balanced posture shows that she belongs to neither the old nor the new Harcourt, so the setting expresses her uncertain place and supports the claim that she is caught between past and present.
- (D) Esme stands there for a while.
Answer and explanation
Answer: (C). It explains what the image shows, how it works and why it matters to the claim.
- (A) and (D) paraphrase.
- (B) quotes without explaining.
If you missed this: Topic 3.7 study guide.
Question 10 (multiple choice · 3.8)
For the claim “Harcourt has changed in ways that exclude Esme”, which detail is the most relevant evidence?
- (A) “rang up her tea”
- (B) “nobody had told her” that the road had been paved
- (C) “the same green door”
- (D) “both of them passed the salt”
Answer and explanation
Answer: (B). A change to the village that she learns of without being told directly shows exclusion.
- (A) is an ordinary action in the shop.
- (C) shows continuity, which would qualify the claim rather than support it.
- (D) concerns the household, not the village.
If you missed this: Topic 3.8 study guide.
Question 11 (multiple choice · 3.8)
Which sentence is correct and free of a comma splice?
- (A) Esme arrives, the road is paved.
- (B) Esme arrives, and the road has been paved.
- (C) Esme arrives the road has been paved.
- (D) Esme arrives, the road, has been paved.
Answer and explanation
Answer: (B). Two independent clauses are joined by a comma and “and”.
- (A) is a comma splice.
- (C) is a run-on sentence.
- (D) misplaces the commas.
If you missed this: Topic 3.8 study guide, “Composition: control of the sentence”.
Question 12 (short written response · 3.6 and 3.8)
Write a one-sentence thesis in response to the prompt in Question 8. Then name one piece of evidence from Extract N that you would use to support it, and say whether it would illustrate, clarify, exemplify, associate, amplify or qualify your thesis.
Answer and explanation
Sample response. Thesis: The narrator shows Esme as a returning outsider whose village goes on without her, so that her homecoming is marked more by what has been left unsaid than by welcome. Evidence: “Her mother’s house had the same green door and a new lock.” Purpose: it qualifies or complicates the thesis: the door is unchanged, but the new lock shows that something has altered, so even continuity carries a sign of change.
Suggested Marlbridge rubric (4 points).
| Point | Awarded for |
|---|---|
| 1 | A thesis that answers the prompt and is not a summary or list |
| 2 | A defensible interpretation that could be supported with the passage |
| 3 | One accurate piece of evidence from Extract N |
| 4 | A named purpose that fits how the evidence is used |
If you missed this: Topic 3.6 study guide; Topic 3.8 study guide.
Question 13 (short written response · 3.5 and 3.7)
Write three to four sentences of commentary on the detail “neither of them spoke of it, and both of them passed the salt”. Say what it shows, how it works and why it matters to a claim about conflict.
Answer and explanation
Sample response. The detail shows two people sharing a meal while avoiding the loss that is present at the table. The ordinary action of passing the salt takes the place of speech, and “both of them” makes the avoidance a shared decision. This matters to a claim about conflict because the conflict is internal to each woman as well as between them: each values peace over speaking, and the absent place (“two places, not three”) is the thing neither will name. The conflict is therefore carried by action, not by argument.
Suggested Marlbridge rubric (4 points).
| Point | Awarded for |
|---|---|
| 1 | Says what the detail shows (avoidance of the father’s loss) |
| 2 | Explains how the words work (“both of them passed the salt” as action replacing speech) |
| 3 | Names the competing values or the kind of conflict |
| 4 | Links to the claim about conflict, not just a paraphrase |
If you missed this: Topic 3.5 study guide; Topic 3.7 study guide.
What to revisit
| If you missed | Revisit |
|---|---|
| Questions 1 or 2 | Topic 3.1: character in longer works |
| Question 3 | Topic 3.2: characters who change or remain unchanged |
| Questions 4 or 5 | Topic 3.3: setting in longer works |
| Question 6 | Topic 3.4: significant events in a plot |
| Questions 7 or 13 | Topic 3.5: conflict |
| Questions 8 or 12 | Topic 3.6: from claim-and-evidence paragraph to defensible thesis |
| Questions 9 or 13 | Topic 3.7: commentary and the line of reasoning |
| Questions 10, 11 or 12 | Topic 3.8: selecting evidence and controlling composition |
When you have closed any gaps, move on to the Unit 3 review.