A Level English Literature: Paper 1 – Drama and Poetry — Practice Questions

These are original questions written for Marlbridge, for revision and practice on this content. They are not reproduced past-paper questions, and they do not replicate the exam’s exact structure, question count or mark tariffs — examination boards hold copyright in their own papers. Use these alongside the official past papers available free from your board.

Related: Paper 1: Drama and Poetry revision notes

These questions do not reproduce any named set text — set texts rotate by examination year, and Cambridge holds copyright in the ones set for your series. Questions 6 and 7 instead use short original extracts, written for this resource, so you can practise the (b)-style passage commentary skill itself.

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Section A — Paper knowledge (revision recall, not exam-style questions)

These five items test knowledge of the paper’s structure, not literature — Paper 1 itself sets no question of this kind. Use them as quick recall checks before moving to the commentary practice below, which is the exam-style material on this page.

1. State the duration and total marks of Paper 1. [2]

2. Name the two sections of Paper 1 and state how many marks each is worth. [2]

3. Which assessment objective, tested on Papers 3 and 4, is not assessed on Paper 1? [1]

4. Explain the difference between an (a) and a (b) question for a given set text. [3]

5. State what materials may not be taken into the exam room for this paper. [2]

Section B — Passage-based commentary practice

Each question below is set at the same 25-mark tariff as a real (b) question on this paper, so treat your written response the way you would in the exam — a full essay-length commentary, not a set of short-answer points. Paper 1 is marked holistically against level descriptors covering all four assessment objectives together, not against a published points tally per part of the answer; the bullet points in the answers below are given in descending order of what most distinguishes a top-band response, not as a marks-per-point scheme to total.

6. Read the following original extract from a two-character drama scene.

MARA: (not looking up from the letter) You knew. All this time, you knew, and you let me plan the party.

OSEI: I didn’t want tonight to be about this.

MARA: (finally looking at him) Every night is about this now. I just didn’t have the letter.

(A long pause. OSEI moves to close the door, then stops, his hand on the handle.)

OSEI: Say something else. Say anything else.

MARA: (folding the letter along its old creases) There isn’t anything else. That’s the whole trouble with a letter — it says exactly what it says.

(She puts it in her pocket. OSEI does not move from the door.)

Analyse how the dramatist creates tension in this extract, considering language, stage directions and structure. [25]

7. Read the following original poem.

Low Water

The harbour keeps what the sea gives back — a bicycle wheel, a shoe, the green glass shoulder of a bottle, worn soft as a word repeated. I come here most evenings now, not to find you but to stand where the tide has undone its own arithmetic: high mark, low mark, the numbers it forgets by morning.

They say grief works the same slow trick, pulling out further each time it returns, until one day you wade in and the water only reaches your knees.

I keep the shoe. I don’t know why. Some things return simply to be kept.

Analyse how the poet presents the passing of grief in this poem, considering language, form and structure. [25]

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Answers

1. Two hours [1]; 50 marks [1].

2. Section A: Drama, worth 25 marks [1]; Section B: Poetry, worth 25 marks [1].

3. AO5, Evaluation of opinion [1].

4. An (a) question is a discursive essay on the set text as a whole, with no extract printed on the paper [1]. A (b) question is anchored to a specific passage or poem from the set text, printed on the paper [1], and requires close, line-level commentary on that material that also connects outward to the whole text [1].

5. Set texts may not be taken into the exam room [1]; dictionaries may not be used [1].

6. Strong answers would address, among other valid points:

The stage direction “not looking up from the letter” establishes Mara’s control of the scene from the first line — she withholds eye contact, which builds tension before either character has said very much. Osei’s line “I didn’t want tonight to be about this” uses the deictic “this” to avoid naming the betrayal directly, a form of evasion that increases rather than defuses the tension. The short, clipped exchanges (“Say something else. Say anything else.”) create a rapid rhythm that contrasts with the surrounding stage directions, dramatising a scene speeding up emotionally even as physical action stalls. The stage direction “A long pause”, followed by Osei’s hand stopping on the door handle, stages hesitation physically — the audience watches indecision rather than being told about it, which is a specifically dramatic (not narrative) way of building tension. Mara’s closing line, “it says exactly what it says”, is an aphoristic, controlled statement that closes down further argument, while Osei’s stillness at the door leaves the scene visually unresolved — an ending that withholds resolution is itself a tension-building structural choice.

7. Strong answers would address, among other valid points:

The extended metaphor of the tide (“high mark, low mark, / the numbers it forgets by morning”) figures grief as something with its own rhythm and record-keeping, suggesting grief recedes and returns rather than simply fading. The asyndetic list of washed-up objects (“a bicycle wheel, a shoe, the green / glass shoulder of a bottle”) accumulates small, ordinary debris without connectives, mimicking how memory surfaces in fragments rather than a single narrative. Enjambment runs across most of the poem’s lines (“worn / soft as a word repeated”), creating a drifting, unresolved momentum that formally enacts the poem’s theme of an ongoing, unfinished process. The volta at “They say grief works the same slow trick” turns the poem from image to explicit statement, converting the tide into a direct comparison and shifting the poem’s mode from description to reflection. The short, end-stopped final couplet (“I keep the shoe. I don’t know why. / Some things return simply to be kept.”) breaks from the poem’s longer, enjambed lines, formally marking closure even as its content refuses full explanation — form and meaning working together.

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Where marks are usually lost

• Paraphrasing what a poem or scene is “about” instead of analysing how language, form or staging creates an effect.
• Naming a technique (metaphor, enjambment, stage direction) without explaining what it does.
• Treating stage directions as background detail rather than as dramatic evidence in their own right.
• Running out of time on the second answer after over-writing the first.
• Offering only “the obvious” reading, with no independent personal response (AO3).