Use this diagnostic to find which Unit 6 topics to revisit: one short question per topic.
These are original Marlbridge practice questions, not past exam questions. All passages were written by Marlbridge. The diagnostic is not calibrated and gives no predicted score.
How to take it. Allow 35 minutes; answer everything before opening any answer. Write your answers to the two written questions before reading the model responses.
Question 1 (multiple choice · 6.1)
Passage written by Marlbridge.
When the bailiff came for the cow, Aunt Phoebe stood in the yard with her arms folded and told him the entire history of the animal’s mother. Aunt Ruth fetched the cow, patted her once, and handed over the rope.
Which statement best explains how the contrast between the aunts functions?
- (A) Aunt Phoebe is the villain and Aunt Ruth is the hero.
- (B) The contrast shows only that the bailiff is cruel.
- (C) The same loss prompts resistance through words in one sister and quiet acceptance through action in the other, so each response illuminates the values of the other.
- (D) The contrast proves that the sisters dislike each other.
Answer and explanation
Answer: (C). A foil pair shares a situation and differs in response, and the difference brings out each sister’s attitude: defiance expressed in talk against dignity expressed in action.
- (A) confuses a foil with a villain.
- (B) shifts attention to a character who is not the subject of the contrast.
- (D) goes beyond the evidence; nothing shows dislike.
If you missed this: Topic 6.1 study guide.
Question 2 (multiple choice · 6.2)
Passage written by Marlbridge.
“I never gave the matter a thought,” said Colonel Rudd, and slipped the telegram into his waistcoat, where, as the evening went on, his hand returned to it again and again.
What does the gap between his words and his behaviour most likely suggest?
- (A) His professed indifference is undercut by anxiety, revealing a tension between what he says and what he feels.
- (B) He has forgotten the telegram.
- (C) He wants to show the telegram to everyone.
- (D) The waistcoat is uncomfortable.
Answer and explanation
Answer: (A). Speech (“never gave the matter a thought”) is contradicted by action (repeated returns to the pocket), which signals private concern.
- (B) is contradicted by his repeated touching of the telegram.
- (C) contradicts the secretive gesture of slipping it away.
- (D) ignores the pattern of repeated action.
If you missed this: Topic 6.2 study guide.
Question 3 (multiple choice · 6.3)
Passages written by Marlbridge.
End of Chapter 1: Edith stood on the quay and watched the ship grow small.
Start of Chapter 2: Eight years earlier, in the house at Marsh End, nobody had thought of ships.
The structural choice at the start of Chapter 2 is best described as
- (A) foreshadowing of a voyage.
- (B) stream of consciousness.
- (C) a flashback that moves the narrative back in time and is likely to explain what Edith’s departure means.
- (D) a change of narrator.
Answer and explanation
Answer: (C). “Eight years earlier” is an explicit time marker that interrupts chronology. Placed after a moment of departure, it invites the reader to understand the present through the past.
- (A) looks forward, whereas this moves back.
- (B) has no flow of thought.
- (D) nothing shows a new narrator.
If you missed this: Topic 6.3 study guide.
Question 4 (multiple choice · 6.4)
Passage written by Marlbridge.
I have only ever told the truth about Mr Gray: that he came late, that he left early, and that on the one evening I was ill, the silver went missing.
What does the narrator’s choice of details most strongly suggest?
- (A) The narrator insinuates guilt through juxtaposition while claiming to state only the truth, which suggests bias and invites doubt about the account.
- (B) Mr Gray is certainly a thief.
- (C) The narrator is an expert on silver.
- (D) The narrator is being scrupulously fair.
Answer and explanation
Answer: (A). The narrator lists true-sounding facts in a sequence that implies guilt, and the opening claim “only ever told the truth” is over-insistent. The reader should treat the account as insinuation.
- (B) accepts the insinuation as proof.
- (C) has no basis in the text.
- (D) overlooks the one-sided selection of details.
If you missed this: Topic 6.4 study guide.
Question 5 (multiple choice · 6.5)
Passage written by Marlbridge.
The pump in the square had not worked since the war, but old Mr Teale still lifted the handle each morning, listened, and set it gently down.
Which reading of the pump is best supported?
- (A) It is a broken tool the council should repair.
- (B) It represents the hope or habit that Mr Teale will not abandon, shown through his daily ritual.
- (C) It shows that the village has plenty of water.
- (D) It is a decoration.
Answer and explanation
Answer: (B). The ritual repetition, the date “since the war” and his gentle gesture are signals of symbolic weight.
- (A) treats the pump literally.
- (C) is contradicted by the pump’s failure.
- (D) ignores the character’s reaction and the repetition.
If you missed this: Topic 6.5 study guide.
Question 6 (written response · 6.6)
A student writes the following thesis for the prompt, “Analyse how a character’s inconsistency contributes to the meaning of a work as a whole”: “In the play, Macbeth is a very important character and Shakespeare uses many techniques.” Rewrite it as a defensible thesis of one or two sentences.
Answer and explanation
Model response. “By giving Macbeth a private conscience that argues clearly against his crime and then letting ambition overrule it, Shakespeare presents evil as a betrayal of known good, and so makes the tragedy a matter of self-division.”
What a good answer does. It makes a claim about meaning (not just “important”), is specific to the play’s choices, is defensible and previews a direction. Any other defensible, specific thesis about a character’s inconsistency in a work of your choice also earns credit.
If you missed this: Topic 6.6 study guide.
Question 7 (multiple choice · 6.7)
Which revision best uses subordination to emphasise that a character’s fear matters more than her bravery?
- (A) The captain is brave, and she is afraid.
- (B) The captain is afraid or brave.
- (C) The captain is brave; she is afraid.
- (D) Although the captain is brave, she is afraid.
Answer and explanation
Answer: (D). The subordinate clause “Although the captain is brave” gives her bravery less weight, and the main clause “she is afraid” carries the emphasis.
- (A) coordinates the ideas, which gives them equal weight.
- (B) changes the meaning and does not express a contrast.
- (C) places them side by side with no signal of emphasis.
If you missed this: Topic 6.7 study guide.
What next?
- Missed Questions 1 or 2? Revisit character: Topics 6.1 and 6.2.
- Missed Question 3, 4 or 5? Revisit structure, narration and symbol: Topics 6.3, 6.4 and 6.5.
- Missed Question 6 or 7? Revisit argument writing: Topics 6.6 and 6.7.
- Comfortable with most? Try the Unit 6 mixed review.