Use this diagnostic to find which Unit 7 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 40 minutes; answer everything before opening any answer. Write your answer to the written question before reading the model response.
Question 1 (multiple choice · 7.1)
Passage written by Marlbridge.
For twenty years Mr Calloway had carried his father’s silence like a coat he could not take off. At the funeral, when the vicar asked whether anyone wished to speak, he heard himself say, “He taught me to mend a net,” and wept, and knew, as one knows the sea is there, that he had been angry for the wrong reason.
The moment is best described as
- (A) a gradual change over twenty years.
- (B) a description of the funeral service.
- (C) a flashback to his childhood.
- (D) an epiphany: a sudden realisation, tied to the central conflict between him and his father, that changes how he sees his own anger.
Answer and explanation
Answer: (D). “He heard himself say” and “knew” mark a sudden shift in perception that relates to the long conflict with his father and recasts it.
- (A) misreads the long background (“twenty years”) as the time of the change; the change is sudden.
- (B) ignores the character’s realisation.
- (C) no earlier time is narrated beyond the single remembered skill.
If you missed this: Topic 7.1 study guide.
Question 2 (multiple choice · 7.2)
Passage written by Marlbridge.
In the city Ines kept every window shut. On the island, on the first morning, she opened them all and stood in the draught like a person being forgiven.
What does the change of setting, together with her behaviour, most strongly suggest?
- (A) The island is colder than the city.
- (B) Ines dislikes fresh air.
- (C) The island is associated with release, and her behaviour shows a shift from closed-in caution to relief.
- (D) The city is on an island.
Answer and explanation
Answer: (C). The contrast between shut windows and open ones shows how she behaves in each setting, and the simile “like a person being forgiven” shows what the island means to her.
- (A) takes “draught” literally and ignores the simile.
- (B) is contradicted by her opening “them all”.
- (D) misreads the contrast between the two places.
If you missed this: Topic 7.2 study guide.
Question 3 (multiple choice · 7.3)
Passage written by Marlbridge.
She counted the seconds after the shot: one, and the window, and the dog turning its head, and the curtain lifting like a slow breath, and two.
The passage most clearly uses
- (A) compression, summarising a long period.
- (B) a flashback to an earlier event.
- (C) expansion, in which a moment of a second or two is stretched across a series of small details.
- (D) foreshadowing of a later event.
Answer and explanation
Answer: (C). Only two seconds pass, but they hold the window, the dog and the curtain, so time seems to slow.
- (A) is the opposite.
- (B) no earlier time is presented.
- (D) nothing here anticipates later events.
If you missed this: Topic 7.3 study guide.
Question 4 (multiple choice · 7.4)
Passage written by Marlbridge.
I want it known that I was in perfect command of myself. The bottles on the sideboard were arranged in order of height, as I always arrange them when I am in perfect command of myself.
What most strongly suggests that this narrator may be unreliable?
- (A) The over-insistent repetition of “perfect command of myself” and the odd evidence offered for it, which suggest a need to persuade.
- (B) The mention of bottles.
- (C) The word “sideboard”.
- (D) The phrase “I want it known”.
Answer and explanation
Answer: (A). Repeating a claim and supporting it with an irrelevant ritual are signs of over-insistence and anxiety.
- (B) is a detail that gains meaning only through the repeated claim.
- (C) is a neutral word.
- (D) is part of the defensive tone, but the repetition and the odd evidence are the strongest signs.
If you missed this: Topic 7.4 study guide.
Question 5 (multiple choice · 7.5)
Passage written by Marlbridge.
The lighthouse stood at the end of the spit, and nobody went out to it, though the path was kept clear.
The lighthouse is most likely
- (A) a setting that is beginning to carry symbolic weight, since the community avoids it yet maintains the path, suggesting respect for something it will not approach.
- (B) a literal building with no further significance.
- (C) a sign that the spit is dangerous to walk on.
- (D) an image of smell.
Answer and explanation
Answer: (A). The paradox of avoiding the lighthouse while keeping the path clear signals that it is associated with something unspoken.
- (B) ignores the community’s contradictory behaviour.
- (C) is contradicted by the clear path.
- (D) mislabels the sensory detail, which is visual.
If you missed this: Topic 7.5 study guide.
Question 6 (multiple choice · 7.6)
Passage written by Marlbridge.
The speech went on like a tap left running in an empty house.
The simile most strongly conveys
- (A) admiration for the speaker’s fluency.
- (B) a mocking attitude, since the speech is continuous, wasteful and heard by no one.
- (C) that the speaker is a plumber.
- (D) that the house is flooded.
Answer and explanation
Answer: (B). The traits of a running tap, unceasing and wasteful, in “an empty house” with no audience, convey scorn.
- (A) is the opposite of the effect.
- (C) and (D) take the simile literally.
If you missed this: Topic 7.6 study guide.
Question 7 (written response · 7.7)
Passage written by Marlbridge.
Mr Tidy cleaned his shop window every morning, though nobody had bought anything for a month. He spoke to the passers-by as if they were already customers, and when they did not stop, he nodded as though they had.
Write a thesis of one or two sentences on how the narrator presents Mr Tidy.
Answer and explanation
Model response. “By letting Mr Tidy treat every passer-by as a customer, and even nod as though they had stopped, the narrator presents his courtesy as a defence against failure that is both comic and quietly dignified, and so suggests that routine can be a form of hope.”
What a good answer does. It makes a defensible interpretation about the presentation (courtesy as defence), is specific to the passage’s details and states a significance. Any other defensible, specific thesis earns credit.
If you missed this: Topic 7.7 study guide.
Question 8 (multiple choice · 7.8)
A student’s claim is “Mr Tidy’s cheerfulness is a defence against fear.” The only evidence is that he cleans the window every morning and greets the passers-by. What is the main weakness?
- (A) The evidence is too short.
- (B) It should be paraphrased.
- (C) It supports the cheerfulness but not the fear, so the evidence is insufficient for every part of the claim.
- (D) It should come from the end of the text.
Answer and explanation
Answer: (C). Sufficiency depends on coverage. The claim has two parts, and nothing yet shows fear.
- (A) confuses length with support.
- (B) paraphrase does not fix the missing part.
- (D) position is not the issue; coverage is.
If you missed this: Topic 7.8 study guide.
What next?
- Missed Question 1, 2 or 3? Revisit character, setting and pacing: Topics 7.1, 7.2 and 7.3.
- Missed Question 4, 5 or 6? Revisit narration and figurative language: Topics 7.4, 7.5 and 7.6.
- Missed Question 7 or 8? Revisit argument writing: Topics 7.7 and 7.8.
- Comfortable with most? Try the Unit 7 mixed review.