Use this diagnostic to find which Unit 8 topics to revisit: at least one short question for each of Topics 8.1 to 8.7.
These are original Marlbridge practice questions, not past exam questions. Every poem is original, written by Marlbridge, except where a public-domain poem is credited. The diagnostic is not calibrated and gives no predicted score.
How to take it. Allow 40 minutes. Answer every question before opening any answer. No calculator is needed. Questions 1 to 8 are multiple choice; Questions 9 and 10 need a short written answer.
Read this poem, “The Last Ferry”, written by Marlbridge. Questions 1, 2, 7, 8 and 10 refer to it.
The last ferry leaves at nine. Mild evening, gulls,
the paper cups collapsing in the bins;
a woman lifts her case, a man his child,
and all of us are going home or going on.The crossing takes eleven minutes. Lights
come out along the shore like patient eyes.
The engines hum. The water keeps its counsel.And yet the harbour, shrinking at our back,
is lit more brightly than it was by day.
Question 1 (multiple choice · 8.1)
What is the main function of “And yet” at the start of the last stanza?
- (A) It turns the poem from a calm description of the crossing to a surprising reassessment of what is being left behind.
- (B) It shows the speaker is angry.
- (C) It introduces a new speaker.
- (D) It repeats the calm of the first stanza.
Answer and explanation
Answer: (A). “And yet” is a volta. The poem has built a mild, routine picture; the turn offers a contrary observation that changes how the whole scene reads.
- (B) has no textual support; the tone stays quiet.
- (C) is wrong: the voice is the same speaker throughout.
- (D) is wrong: the phrase interrupts the calm.
If you missed it: 8.1 study guide.
Question 2 (multiple choice · 8.1)
“the harbour, shrinking at our back, / is lit more brightly than it was by day.” Which description best fits this statement?
- (A) Verbal irony: the speaker says the opposite of what he means.
- (B) A paradox: it seems illogical, yet it reveals that a place can become clearer, or dearer, only when one is leaving it.
- (C) A simple description of electric lighting with no further meaning.
- (D) An allusion to a historical event.
Answer and explanation
Answer: (B). The harbour is “shrinking”, yet “more brightly” lit; the apparent contradiction points to the idea that distance and parting give things new clarity.
- (A) is wrong because the speaker means what he says.
- (C) ignores the surprising comparison with “by day” and the emphatic position at the end of the poem.
- (D) is unsupported: no external source is referenced.
If you missed it: 8.1 study guide.
Question 3 (multiple choice · 8.2)
Read these lines, written by Marlbridge.
The house was kind to her in small, correct ways:
a rail where rail was needed, hot water at six,
a landlady who never remarked on the hour
of her return.
What do the words “kind” and “correct” together suggest?
- (A) The speaker is an inspector of houses.
- (B) The house is cruel.
- (C) The house is warm and affectionate.
- (D) The kindness is real but formal and limited, so the diction suggests gratitude mixed with distance.
Answer and explanation
Answer: (D). “Kind” is warm, but “correct” and “small” give it a formal, rule-bound tone, so the connotations pull in two directions. That mix is the ambiguity.
- (A) has no textual support.
- (B) contradicts “kind”.
- (C) ignores “correct” and “small”.
If you missed it: 8.2 study guide.
Question 4 (multiple choice · 8.3)
Read these lines, written by Marlbridge.
My father’s watch still keeps good time. I wind
it Sundays, and it ticks against my wrist
a little faster than the clock in the hall.
What does the watch most plausibly symbolise?
- (A) A continuing, slightly out-of-step presence of the father in the speaker’s life, kept alive by ritual.
- (B) A broken object.
- (C) The speaker’s wealth.
- (D) A weather forecast.
Answer and explanation
Answer: (A). The watch is wound on a ritual day, worn against the speaker’s body, and runs “a little faster” than the household clock, which suggests an inherited presence that does not quite fit the present.
- (B) is contradicted by “keeps good time”.
- (C) has no support.
- (D) is irrelevant.
If you missed it: 8.3 study guide.
Question 5 (multiple choice · 8.4)
Read these lines, written by Marlbridge.
My mother’s love was a coat she kept on a hook
by the door: never worn for show,
but warm the moment you needed it,
and always there, a little out of fashion.
Which statement best shows how elements of this metaphor work together?
- (A) The metaphor is a simile.
- (B) The hook, the door and the warmth combine to present love as steady, unshowy and ready, while “out of fashion” adds a touch of humorous, affectionate criticism.
- (C) The coat is clothing, and clothing is common.
- (D) The speaker is describing a shop.
Answer and explanation
Answer: (B). It combines several elements (location, use, warmth, fashion) into one account of the mother’s love and notes the added tone.
- (A) is wrong: the comparison is stated, not introduced by “like” or “as”.
- (C) is generic and ignores the poem’s details.
- (D) has no textual support.
If you missed it: 8.4 study guide.
Question 6 (multiple choice · 8.5)
Read these lines, written by Marlbridge.
He wrapped the ledger in a clean white cloth
and, like Pilate, washed his hands of it.
Pilate, in the Christian gospels, washes his hands to declare himself innocent of Jesus’s death. What does the allusion do?
- (A) It shows that the man is a judge in ancient Rome.
- (B) It shows that the man is religious.
- (C) It brings in the associations of evasion of responsibility, suggesting that the man’s claim of innocence is a refusal to face what he has done.
- (D) It proves the ledger is sacred.
Answer and explanation
Answer: (C). The associations of Pilate’s gesture (declaring innocence while allowing harm) are imported to criticise the man’s behaviour.
- (A) misreads a comparison as a literal identification.
- (B) has no support.
- (D) is wrong: the allusion points to evasion, not sanctity.
If you missed it: 8.5 study guide.
Question 7 (multiple choice · 8.6)
Which is the best thesis for an essay on “The Last Ferry” that answers: How does the poet convey the speaker’s attitude toward leaving a place?
- (A) “The poem conveys the speaker’s attitude toward leaving.”
- (B) “The poem is about people on a ferry.”
- (C) “The poet uses imagery and the volta.”
- (D) “By holding the poem’s calm routine until ‘And yet’, and then lighting the receding harbour ‘more brightly than it was by day’, the poet suggests that leaving makes the speaker see, and value, what he had not noticed while there.”
Answer and explanation
Answer: (D). It is a defensible interpretation, responds to the prompt and implies a line of reasoning (the calm routine, the turn, the final image).
- (A) restates the prompt.
- (B) summarises.
- (C) names features without a claim.
If you missed it: 8.6 study guide.
Question 8 (multiple choice · 8.7)
Which sentence integrates a quotation from “The Last Ferry” most effectively?
- (A) The line “The water keeps its counsel” personifies the sea as a discreet confidant, which makes the crossing feel quiet and private.
- (B) The poet wrote about water and counsel.
- (C) The speaker says. “The water keeps its counsel” this shows calm.
- (D) “The water keeps its counsel.”
Answer and explanation
Answer: (A). The quotation is accurate, embedded in a grammatical sentence and followed by an explanation of its effect.
- (B) paraphrases badly and offers no analysis.
- (C) has a broken sentence and no embedding.
- (D) is a quotation with no commentary.
If you missed it: 8.7 study guide.
Question 9 (written response · 8.2 and 8.3)
Using the lines about the watch (Question 4), write about 60 to 80 words explaining how the word choices and the symbol together convey the speaker’s attitude to the father.
Answer and explanation
Sample response (written by Marlbridge). The watch is a symbol of the father’s continuing presence, and the diction shows the speaker’s tender, unresolved attitude. “Keeps good time” suggests reliability, and the speaker “wind[s]” it on Sundays, a ritual that sounds almost like prayer. But it runs “a little faster” than the hall clock, so the father’s time never quite matches the present. The speaker keeps the watch against his wrist, close to his pulse, which suggests that grief has become intimate and habitual.
Suggested Marlbridge rubric (3 points)
| Point | What earns it |
|---|---|
| 1 | Identifies what the watch suggests, as a sentence about the poem. |
| 2 | Uses at least two accurate quoted words or phrases and explains their connotation. |
| 3 | Links the symbol and word choice to the speaker’s attitude. |
Question 10 (written response · 8.6)
Write a thesis and two claims (a line of reasoning) for an essay on “The Last Ferry” answering the prompt in Question 7.
Answer and explanation
Sample response (written by Marlbridge).
Thesis: “The poem presents leaving as a moment of clarity: after a calm, ordinary crossing, the final image of the harbour lit ‘more brightly than it was by day’ suggests that the speaker values the place most when he is no longer in it.”
Claims:
- The first two stanzas build a routine, unremarkable scene (“paper cups”, “eleven minutes”), so the speaker’s attention is at first diffuse.
- The turn at “And yet” shifts that attention to the receding harbour, and the paradox of its greater brightness shows the new clarity that parting brings.
Suggested Marlbridge rubric (3 points)
| Point | What earns it |
|---|---|
| 1 | A defensible thesis that responds to the prompt. |
| 2 | Two distinct claims that can be proved from the poem. |
| 3 | The claims are ordered logically and together defend the thesis. |
If you missed it: 8.6 study guide.
What to do next
- Missed 1 or 2: read the 8.1 study guide.
- Missed 3, 4, 5 or 6: read the study guides for 8.2, 8.3, 8.4 and 8.5.
- Missed 7, 8 or 10: read the 8.6 and 8.7 study guides.
- All secure: move to the Unit 8 review.