IB Diploma Programme Language A: Literature – Reading and Writing about 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 – 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 reading and writing about poetry for IB Diploma Programme Language A: Literature, at SL and HL. It follows the current IB subject brief (first assessments for SL and HL 2021), and maps to the area of exploration Readers, writers and texts. Passage A is a public-domain poem; Passages B and C were written for Marlbridge.

Learn the skills first with the poetry study guide and the poetry revision notes. Course links: Language A: Literature hub · printable checklist. For more general practice on this area of exploration, try the Readers, writers and texts practice questions.

Questions

Passage A. William Blake, “The Sick Rose”, Songs of Experience (1794); spelling and punctuation as in a modernised edition.

O rose, thou art sick! The invisible worm, That flies in the night, In the howling storm,

Has found out thy bed Of crimson joy, And his dark secret love Does thy life destroy.

Passage B. “Clearing the Allotment”. Original text written for Marlbridge.

After the funeral we came with bin bags and his key, still on its loop of string. The shed gave up its order slowly: seed packets filed by month, a flask, twelve clay pots stacked like a sentence he meant to finish. My sister laughed at the labels (BEANS, GOOD YEAR), then stopped. Outside, his runner beans had not been told. They kept on climbing, red flowers opening on the canes as if the frost were someone else’s news.

Passage C. “Night Bus”. Original text written for Marlbridge.

The last bus leans into the rain, its windows full of yellow light: a nurse, a cleaner, and a chain of strangers sleeping through the night.

No one speaks. The wipers keep their small, exact, unending beat, and every stop we pass is deep in water and in empty street.

1. (Passage A) Identify the technique in the opening line, “O rose, thou art sick!”, and explain one effect. [2]

2. (Passage A) Identify the rhyming pair in stanza 2 and explain how the rhyme connects ideas. [3]

3. (Passage A) Explain how the phrase “dark secret love” is open to more than one reading. [3]

4. (Passage A) Explain the effect of the word order in the final line. [2]

5. (Passage C)

(a) Name the metre of line 2. [1] (b) Line 5 breaks the pattern. Explain how, and the effect. [3]

6. (Passage C)

(a) Give the rhyme scheme of the poem. [1] (b) Identify one sound or rhythm device in lines 5-6 and explain its effect. [2]

7. (Passage C) Explain the metaphor “a chain / of strangers”, including the effect of the line break. [3]

8. (Passage B) Who is the speaker, and what is the tone? Support each point with a short quotation. [4]

9. (Passage B) Explain the effect of the simile and the line break in “twelve clay pots stacked like a sentence / he meant to finish”. [3]

10. (Passage B) Explain how the poem changes direction at “Outside” and how the last three lines shape its meaning. [4]

11. (Passage B, extended) Guiding question: How does the poet use ordinary objects to present grief? Write a short plan and one analytical paragraph. [10]

12. (Passages A and B, extended) Plan a comparison: How do the two poems present living things in the presence of decay or death? Give a thesis and the outline of three comparative paragraphs. [8]

Answers

1. Apostrophe: the speaker addresses the rose directly, as if it could hear. [1] Effect: the exclamation makes the address urgent and intimate, a warning or lament delivered too late, so the poem opens with the diagnosis before we learn the cause. [1] [2] Examiner insight: Naming apostrophe earns little on its own; the credit comes from saying what direct address does to tone.

2. “joy” and “destroy”. [1] The rhyme binds pleasure to ruin, so the rose’s “crimson joy” sounds like the very thing that is destroyed. [1] Because “destroy” is the last word of the poem, the rhyme closes on destruction with no recovery. [1] [3] Examiner insight: Strong answers explain what the rhyme links in meaning; weak ones stop at “this rhyme makes the poem memorable”.

3. The phrase sets “love”, usually positive, beside “dark” and “secret”, which suggest shame or concealment. [1] One reading: a hidden, possessive or guilty love that corrupts what it touches. [1] Another: the worm as disease or decay, where “love” becomes a consuming force; the poem does not settle which, and the ambiguity is part of its power. [1] [3] Examiner insight: Offering two supported readings and saying the poem keeps both open is analysis; announcing one “hidden meaning” as fact is not.

4. The normal order (“destroys thy life”) is inverted. [1] Holding back the verb places “destroy” on the final stress and rhyme, so the poem ends on a blunt, final act. [1] [2] Examiner insight: Say what the inversion delays and why that position matters; “it fits the rhyme” alone earns little.

5. (a) Iambic tetrameter (eight syllables, four stresses). [1] (b) Line 5 has seven syllables and opens on a stress: “NO one SPEAKS”. [1] The missing first unstressed syllable jolts the steady beat of stanza 1. [1] The jolt marks the stanza’s shift from looking at the passengers to their shared silence, so the metre enacts the break in sound. [1] [4] Examiner insight: Scansion earns credit only when you show the variation and tie it to a shift in meaning.

6. (a) abab cdcd. [1] (b) Assonance on the long “ee” sound in “speaks”, “keep” and “beat”, with commas in “small, exact, unending” splitting the phrase into even beats. [1] The repeated sound and measured rhythm imitate the wipers’ regular swish, making the ride feel monotonous and endless. [1] [3] Examiner insight: A device only earns its second mark when the effect is specific to this poem, here the wipers and the long ride.

7. Metaphor: the passengers are links in a chain. [1] It suggests connection among people who do not know each other, joined by tiredness and late work, but a chain can also bind, hinting they are trapped in the routine. [1] The line break leaves “chain” alone at the line end, so you first read restraint, before “of strangers” reveals people. [1] [3] Examiner insight: Comment on the enjambment as part of the image, not as a separate “flow” point.

8. The speaker is a close relative of the dead man, probably a son, daughter or grandchild, clearing his things. [1] Evidence: “his key” and “My sister” place the speaker inside the family. [1] The tone is restrained, almost matter-of-fact: grief shown through listing rather than stated. [1] Evidence: “seed packets filed by month, a flask” is a flat inventory that holds emotion back. [1] [4] Examiner insight: Each claim about voice needs its own short, embedded quotation; one long quotation for both points earns less.

9. The simile compares the stacked pots to a sentence. [1] It suggests the dead man’s plans, and his life, were left unfinished. [1] The line break after “sentence” leaves the line hanging before “he meant to finish”, so the form enacts the interruption. [1] [3] Examiner insight: The strongest answers show how the line break performs what the simile says.

10. Before “Outside”, the poem stays in the shed with the dead man’s ordered belongings; after it, the focus moves to living plants. [1] The caesura in “then stopped.” cuts off the sister’s laugh and marks the turn. [1] The personification “had not been told” shows the beans carrying on, unaware of the death. [1] The final simile, “as if the frost were someone else’s news”, mixes comfort and pain: life continues, but indifferent to the family’s loss. [1] [4] Examiner insight: A structural answer must say what changes and why it matters, not just which line it happens on.

11. Model plan. Thesis: the poet presents grief indirectly, through objects that keep the dead man’s habits alive. (1) The key and the ordered shed; (2) the pots as unfinished sentence; (3) the labels and the runner beans.

Model paragraph. The poem presents grief through the dead man’s belongings rather than through stated feeling. The shed “gave up its order slowly”, and the personification suggests that even his possessions resist the clearing. The inventory of “seed packets filed by month, a flask” is flat and exact, as if listing is safer than mourning. The simile of pots “stacked like a sentence / he meant to finish” then turns objects into a sign of an interrupted life, and the line break performs that interruption. Grief surfaces only when the sister “laughed at the labels”, and the caesura in “then stopped.” shows it arriving without warning.

Indicative creditworthy points:

• a clear thesis answering the guiding question [1]
• a plan with three distinct, ordered points [1]
• personification of the shed and its effect [1]
• the listing and its restrained tone [1]
• simile of the pots and the unfinished life [1]
• line break enacting the interruption [1]
• caesura “then stopped.” and sudden grief [1]
• quotations short and embedded [1]
• effects linked to grief throughout, not described [1]
• clear, precise academic register [1] [10]

This breakdown is only a guide. The real exam is marked holistically against the IB assessment criteria, not point by point; your teacher will share those criteria. Examiner insight: What separates strong from weak answers is sustained focus on the guiding question: every technique must return to grief.

12. Thesis: Both poems place living things beside death, but Blake shows life destroyed from within, while Passage B shows life continuing, unaware of loss.

Paragraph 1 (voice): Blake’s apostrophe, “O rose, thou art sick!”, speaks to the dying thing; Passage B’s speaker speaks around the dead man, through “his key”. Paragraph 2 (imagery): Blake’s “crimson joy” is consumed by a hidden “worm”; Passage B’s “red flowers” keep “opening” in the face of frost. Both use red, for opposite outcomes. Paragraph 3 (structure and endings): Blake ends on “destroy”, sealed by rhyme; Passage B ends on an open simile, “someone else’s news”, unrhymed and unresolved.

Indicative creditworthy points:

• a thesis that states similarity and difference [1]
• each paragraph compares both poems, not one then the other [1]
• voice: apostrophe vs indirect address [1]
• imagery: the worm destroying the rose [1]
• imagery: flowers still opening in Passage B [1]
• the shared colour red used for opposite outcomes [1]
• endings compared: closed rhyme vs open simile [1]
• short embedded quotations from both poems [1] [8]

As with Question 11, real comparative work is marked holistically against the IB criteria; these points only help you check your plan. Examiner insight: Comparison woven through every paragraph is stronger than two separate halves with a link sentence at the end.

Where marks are usually lost

• Naming a device (apostrophe, enjambment, sibilance) without its effect in this poem.
• Scanning a line wrongly because syllables were guessed, not counted.
• Missing the turn in a poem and so treating its tone as unchanged.
• Quoting whole lines or stanzas instead of the three or four key words.
• Claiming one fixed meaning for a symbol such as Blake’s worm.
• Writing “the poet feels” about a speaker who is clearly a persona.
• In extended answers, drifting from the guiding question into general comment.
• In comparisons, writing about one poem and then the other with no link.

Next steps

• Poetry revision notes
• Poetry study guide
• Language A: Literature course hub
• Printable checklist
• All free 10-minute diagnostics
• Book a free trial class

Official syllabus

International Baccalaureate Organization, Diploma Programme Subject Brief, Language A: literature, first assessments for SL and HL 2021 (2019).