IB Diploma Programme Language A: Language and Literature – Analysing Prose, Poetry and Drama 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 – the IB holds copyright in its own papers. Use these alongside the official past papers available through your school or the IB store.

This practice set covers close reading of prose, poetry and drama for IB Diploma Programme Language A: Language and Literature, at SL and HL. It maps to the syllabus components Readers, writers and texts and Time and space (the course has no numbered subtopics). It follows the current IB subject brief (first assessments for SL and HL 2021).

Learn the tools first in the study guide and the revision notes. Course links: Language and Literature hub · printable checklist. All three passages are original texts written for Marlbridge.

Questions

Passage A – prose

I was not upset when Mother left the house to Clara. I want that understood. I had my own flat by then, three rooms above the chemist’s, and a view of the canal if you leaned out far enough. Clara had always loved the house more than I had; everyone said so. Even at nine she would stand in the hall and name the rooms aloud, like a woman showing guests around. I never did that. I was the one who found the loose board under the stairs, the one who kept a tin of buttons hidden there for eleven years. But that was a child’s game. When the solicitor read the will, I nodded, and I believe I smiled. Afterwards, on the bus, I found my hand closed so tightly around my gloves that the seams had left marks on my palm.

Passage B – poetry: “The Key”

My father wound the kitchen clock each week on Sunday, with a key he kept from me; he counted out the turns and would not speak of who had owned it first. I let it be. The winter that he died, the clock ran down. I found the key beneath his folded shirts, a woman’s name cut small, a far-off town, a date, and nothing else. The nothing hurts. I could have left it there. I could have thrown the key into the river by the mill. Instead I wound the clock, alone, alone, and heard it keeping time, as he kept still. Some Sundays now I count the turns out loud and say her name, which he was not allowed.

Passage C – drama

(A kitchen, late evening. A biscuit tin sits on the top shelf of a dresser. RUTH, in her sixties, is sorting papers at the table. Her nephew DANIEL enters, still in his coat.) DANIEL: You said there was nothing left to sign. RUTH: There isn’t. (She slides a large envelope under the pile.) Tea? DANIEL: I can’t stay. The agent wants the keys by Friday. RUTH: Then he’ll have them by Friday. (DANIEL crosses to the dresser and touches the tin. RUTH stops sorting.) DANIEL: Gran kept buttons in this. RUTH: (Too quickly.) Leave that. It’s only rubbish now. (He lets go. She does not start sorting again until he has turned away.) DANIEL: Friday, then. RUTH: Friday. (He goes. RUTH takes the tin down, opens it, and sits looking at what is inside. The audience does not see it. Lights fade.)

1. Passage A. Identify the narrative voice and support your answer with a quotation. [2]

2. Passage A. Explain how “I want that understood” and one other detail suggest the narrator may be unreliable. [4]

3. Passage A. Explain the effect of the move back in time to when Clara was nine. [3]

4. Passage A. How does the final sentence show the narrator’s feelings rather than state them? [3]

5. Passage B. Identify the form of the poem and its rhyme scheme, with evidence. [3]

6. Passage B. Scan the first line and name its metre. [2]

7. Passage B. Explain the effect of the enjambment from line 3 to line 4 and the caesura in line 4. [4]

8. Passage B. How does the final couplet change the meaning of the poem? [4]

9. Passage C. Explain what one stage direction reveals that the dialogue hides. [3]

10. Passage C. Explain how dramatic irony works in this scene, including the final stage direction. [4]

11. Passage B. Guiding question: How does the poet use the sonnet form to present what is inherited and what is left unsaid? Write a thesis and a three-paragraph plan with evidence. [8]

12. Passages A and C. Plan a comparative response: Compare how the writers present something hidden, with reference to the conventions of prose fiction and drama. Give a thesis and three woven comparative points. [10]

Answers

1. First person [1]: the narrator is a character who speaks as “I”, e.g. “I was not upset” [1]. [2] Examiner insight: Naming the voice without a quotation earns only half; the evidence is what makes it an answer.

2. “I want that understood” insists too firmly, which invites doubt [1]; it is addressed to a listener the narrator seems to need to convince [1]. The final detail of the gloves contradicts the claim “I was not upset” [1]. “I believe I smiled” shows the narrator is unsure of their own behaviour, so the account cannot be fully trusted [1]. [4] Examiner insight: Strong answers show the text contradicting the narrator, not just call the narrator “biased”.

3. The flashback contrasts Clara, who names “the rooms aloud” in the open [1], with the narrator’s secret attachment: the “loose board” and hidden “tin of buttons” [1]. It suggests the narrator loved the house just as much but in hiding, so the inheritance takes away something only the narrator knew about [1]. [3] Examiner insight: Say what the flashback lets the reader infer about the present, not just that the time changes.

4. The narrator reports only a physical detail: a hand “closed so tightly” [1]. The seams leaving “marks on my palm” imply anger or grief that the narrator has denied [1]. Because the reader draws the conclusion, it feels truer than the narrator’s statements and completes the case against the denial [1]. [3] Examiner insight: “Show, don’t tell” is a label; credit comes for explaining what the reader infers.

5. A sonnet: fourteen lines [1]. Shakespearean: three quatrains and a closing couplet [1]. Rhyme scheme ABAB CDCD EFEF GG, e.g. week/speak, me/be, and the couplet loud/allowed [1]. [3] Examiner insight: Check the rhyme scheme before naming the sonnet type; the line count alone is not enough.

6. my FA | ther WOUND | the KIT | chen CLOCK | each WEEK: ten syllables, five feet, each unstressed then stressed [1]. Iambic pentameter [1]. [2] Examiner insight: Show the stresses; a metre named with no scansion cannot be checked.

7. Line 3 ends on “would not speak”, so for a moment the silence seems total [1]. Running on to “of who had owned it first” reveals that the silence has a subject, a hidden history [1]. The full stop after “first” is a caesura that stops the question dead [1]; “I let it be” is short and flat, showing the child accepting the silence [1]. [4] Examiner insight: Tie each line-break effect to the words at the break; general claims about “flow” earn little.

8. The couplet moves into the present tense with “now”, marking the turn [1]. “count the turns out loud” reverses the father’s silent counting in line 3 [1]. Speaking “her name” breaks the silence the quatrains built up [1]. “which he was not allowed” reveals the father was forbidden, not unwilling, changing him from secretive to constrained, and turning the poem from grief into a kind of release [1]. [4] Examiner insight: Top answers show how the couplet echoes earlier lines; the turn is an argument, not just a change of mood.

9. “She slides a large envelope under the pile” [1] comes straight after “There isn’t”, so the action contradicts her words [1]. The audience sees she is concealing something from Daniel about the house, which creates suspicion [1]. [3] Examiner insight: Treat stage directions as evidence equal to dialogue; quote them like any other line.

10. The audience sees Ruth hide the envelope; Daniel does not [1]. “Too quickly” and her pause in sorting show the audience her anxiety about the tin, which Daniel misses [1]. The final direction reverses this: “The audience does not see it”, so now Ruth knows more than we do [1]. The scene ends on unanswered suspense, making the audience feel what Daniel felt: shut out [1]. [4] Examiner insight: Explain who knows what at each moment; “there is dramatic irony” alone is identification.

11. Model plan (original writing for Marlbridge). The real task is marked holistically against the IB criteria your teacher will share; these points are indicative.

• Thesis: the sonnet’s strict pattern mirrors the father’s rituals of silence, and the final couplet breaks that silence by speaking the name [1].
• Point 1, quatrain 1: the ritual “each week” and counted “turns” match the regular metre; the enjambment “would not speak / of who” places the secret at the line break [1]; evidence quoted and embedded [1].
• Point 2, quatrain 2: the list “a woman’s name … a far-off town, / a date” gives facts without story [1]; caesura and repetition in “The nothing hurts” make absence the subject [1].
• Point 3, quatrain 3 and couplet: anaphora “I could have … I could have” weighs rejected choices [1]; “kept still” plays on keeping time and keeping silent [1]; the couplet’s “out loud” and “not allowed” turn inheritance from an object into a voice [1]. [8]

Examiner insight: Plans that follow the guiding question in every point beat plans that walk through the poem line by line.

12. Model plan (original writing for Marlbridge). Indicative points only; the IB marks the real task holistically.

Point	Passage A (prose)	Passage C (drama)
Who hides	The narrator hides grief and anger behind denial [1]	Ruth hides objects from Daniel, and finally from us [1]
How form reveals	First-person denial undercut by a physical detail [1]	Stage directions contradict dialogue [1]
Hidden object	Tin under the stairs, told in a flashback [1]	Tin on the dresser, present and visible on stage [1]

• Thesis: both writers present concealment through a gap between words and actions, but prose exposes it through a narrator who gives the game away, while drama makes the audience watch and then withholds [1].
• Woven comparison inside each point, not block by block [1]; embedded quotations from both passages [1].
• A closing judgement on effect: A leaves us knowing more than the narrator admits; C leaves us knowing less than Ruth [1]. [10]

Examiner insight: The strongest plans compare the effect of each form’s conventions; weaker ones list features of A, then features of C.

Where marks are usually lost

• Naming a technique (enjambment, dramatic irony, unreliable narrator) without its effect in this passage.
• Treating the first-person narrator’s statements in Passage A as reliable facts.
• Naming a metre without marking the stresses, or from a single line with no check.
• Calling a poem a sonnet from its length alone, without the rhyme scheme.
• Ignoring stage directions in drama, or quoting only dialogue.
• Quoting whole lines instead of the two or three words that do the work.
• Writing a comparative plan as two separate blocks with a “both” sentence at the end.

Next steps

• Recall the terms with the revision notes.
• Reread the worked examples in the study guide.
• See the Language and Literature hub and the printable checklist.
• Try all free 10-minute diagnostics.
• Book a free trial class.

Official syllabus

International Baccalaureate Organization, Diploma Programme Subject Brief, Language A: language and literature, first assessments for SL and HL 2021 (2019). This unit maps to the syllabus components Readers, writers and texts, and Time and space.