IB Diploma Programme Language A: Literature – Time and space 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 Time and space, the second of the three areas of exploration in IB Diploma Programme Language A: Literature, aligned to the IB Diploma Programme Subject Brief, Language A: literature. The questions suit both SL and HL. It follows the current IB subject brief (first assessments for SL and HL 2021).

Learn the ideas first with the Time and space study guide and the revision notes. Course links: Language A: Literature hub · printable checklist · Intertextuality practice.

Questions

Passage A – “The Weighing House” (original text written for Marlbridge)

The Weighing House still had its clock, though the hands had stopped at twenty past four some years before Ruth was born. When she was a girl, farmers had queued here with carts of wool, and her grandfather had stood at the great iron scale in his brown coat, calling out numbers that settled the price of a year’s work. Now the arched doors were glass. A sign offered “Luxury Studio Apartments – Heritage Features”. Through the window Ruth could see a white sofa where the scale had been, and a young man tapping at a laptop beneath the old beams. She put her hand on the cold stone of the doorway, where the carts had worn a groove, and found it was the only thing still the right shape.

Passage B – William Blake, “London”, first stanza (Songs of Experience, 1794; public domain)

I wander thro’ each charter’d street, Near where the charter’d Thames does flow, And mark in every face I meet, Marks of weakness, marks of woe.

Passage C – a translator’s note (original text written for Marlbridge; the novel is invented)

Translator’s note to The House in the Old Quarter, translated from the Portuguese

The hardest word in this book is saudade. It appears whenever Amélia thinks of the harbour her father sailed from. English has no single word for it: it is a longing that knows the thing it misses may never return. I tried “homesickness”, but Amélia is at home. I tried “nostalgia”, but that sounded like a fondness for old furniture. In the end I kept saudade in italics the first time and wrote “the old ache” after that. Readers who know Portuguese will miss the music of the original word. Readers who do not will, I hope, feel its weight.

1. According to the subject brief, name the three areas of exploration of the course and state the recommended teaching hours for Time and space at SL and at HL. [3]

2. Distinguish between the context of production and the context of reception of a literary work. Give an example of each. [4]

3. Passage A: identify two details that show the passing of time and explain the effect of each. Support each with a quotation. [4]

4. Passage A: explain how the contrast between the scale and the sofa presents a change in the building’s role in the town. [3]

5. Passage B was published in 1794. Explain how the word “charter’d” gains meaning from its context of production. [4]

6. Passage B: explain the effect of “mark” in line 3 followed by “Marks” twice in line 4. [3]

7. Passage C: identify two choices the translator made and explain what each gains and loses for an English-language reader. [4]

8. Chekhov’s story of 1899 appears in English both as The Lady with the Dog and as The Lady with the Little Dog; the Russian title uses a diminutive. Explain what this shows about how you should write about a work you study in translation. [3]

9. For an early German production of A Doll’s House (1879), Ibsen reluctantly wrote an alternative ending in which Nora stays. Explain what this shows about the play’s context of reception, and how a reader today might respond differently. [4]

10. Paper 1-style task. Guiding question: How does the writer present the relationship between a place and memory in Passage A? Write a thesis and a paragraph plan for a full answer. [8]

11. Individual oral plan. Using Kate Chopin’s short fiction, including “The Story of an Hour” (1894, written in English), and Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House (studied in English translation), plan an individual oral on a common global issue. Show how the context of each work shapes its treatment of the issue. [10]

Answers

1. Readers, writers and texts; Time and space; Intertextuality: connecting texts [1]. Time and space: 50 hours at SL [1] and 80 hours at HL [1]. [3] Examiner insight: Recall questions reward exact figures; “about 50 hours” or mixing up SL and HL loses the mark.

2. Context of production: the time, place and culture in which a work was written [1] – for example, Blake writing “London” in the city in 1794 [1]. Context of reception: the time, place and culture in which it is read or watched [1] – for example, a modern audience finding Nora’s exit expected, not scandalous [1]. [4] Examiner insight: An example that is really about setting shows the terms learned but not understood.

3. The stopped clock, “the hands had stopped at twenty past four” [1]: the building is frozen in its past while the town moves on [1]. The worn stone, “where the carts had worn a groove” [1]: years of work leave a physical trace that outlasts its purpose [1]. [4] Examiner insight: The effect is where the mark is earned; a quotation followed by “this shows time passing” repeats the question instead of answering it.

4. The scale made the building a place of shared work, where numbers “settled the price of a year’s work” [1]. Now “a white sofa” and a “laptop” make it private and domestic [1]. The spot has moved from the town’s common life to one person’s comfort, so little is “still the right shape” for Ruth [1]. [3] Examiner insight: Strong answers name what the building meant to the town, not only what objects were swapped.

5. “Charter’d” means granted privileges by a legal charter, so owned or controlled [1]. Applied to the Thames as well as the streets, it suggests even nature has been owned [1]. In the 1790s, a decade of fierce argument about rights and liberty, a charter suggests freedoms granted to a few rather than rights shared by all [1]. So the speaker’s “wander” is not free: every step is through someone’s property [1]. [4] Examiner insight: Context earns credit only when it changes how the word reads.

6. “mark” as a verb means to notice [1]. “Marks” as a noun means visible signs or scars [1]. The repetition binds looking and damage: every face noticed is stamped with suffering, with no escape [1]. [3] Examiner insight: Spotting the wordplay is the start; the mark for effect comes from saying what the double meaning does.

7. Choice 1: keeping saudade in italics the first time [1]. It keeps the word’s cultural specificity, but may puzzle readers who do not know it [1]. Choice 2: writing “the old ache” afterwards [1]. It carries the feeling in plain English, but loses “the music of the original word” [1]. [4] Examiner insight: “Gains and loses” is a two-sided demand; answers that praise a choice without its cost reach only half the marks.

8. The longer title keeps the diminutive’s fond tone; the shorter one loses it [1]. Both are defensible choices, so a single English word may reflect the translator rather than Chekhov [1]. Name your translation and build main claims on what survives it: events, structure, images [1]. [3] Examiner insight: Precise phrasing such as “in this translation” shows awareness of the translator and protects an argument from overreach.

9. Some theatres and audiences of the time found a mother leaving her children unacceptable [1]. So the ending challenged beliefs about marriage and motherhood: the play tried to shape its culture, not only reflect it [1]. A reader today in many cultures may see Nora’s choice as understandable [1]. The words have not changed; the meaning readers draw from them has, and it still varies by culture [1]. [4] Examiner insight: A fact of reception is evidence, not an answer; link it to what the play does.

10. Model thesis (original writing for Marlbridge): “The Weighing House stores memory in objects and stone; the present turns that memory into decoration, and only touch still links Ruth to her past.”

Indicative points:

• A thesis that answers “place and memory” directly [1].
• The stopped clock as a symbol of time frozen in the building [1].
• The grandfather at the scale: family memory and a working community [1].
• The sign, “Heritage Features”: irony, as the past becomes a selling point [1].
• Contrast: “iron scale” and “brown coat” against “white sofa” and “laptop” [1].
• Touch: “cold stone” and the “groove” keep memory in the building [1].
• The last line, “the only thing still the right shape”, closes on Ruth’s loss [1].
• Structure: past, present, then touch – memory, loss, a small survival [1]. [8]

The real exam is marked holistically against the IB assessment criteria, not point by point; your teacher will share the criteria. These points show what a strong plan covers. Examiner insight: Plans that follow the passage line by line drift into summary; plans built on the guiding question’s two terms stay analytical.

11. Model plan (original writing for Marlbridge).

• Global issue: the limits placed on a married woman’s freedom to choose her own life [1].
• Chopin (in English): Louise Mallard glimpses freedom alone in her room; the doctors’ verdict, “the joy that kills”, shows no one can read what she felt [1].
• Chopin’s context: the 1890s, when a married woman’s legal and social life was bound closely to her husband’s [1].
• Ibsen (in translation): Nora’s secret loan, Torvald’s pet names (“lark”, “squirrel”), her final exit [1].
• Ibsen’s context and reception: first staged in 1879; the alternative German ending shows how hard some first audiences found Nora’s choice [1].
• Translation: name the translator; the title itself varies, so rest the analysis on action and structure [1].
• Connection: Chopin keeps freedom inside one mind and one hour; Ibsen makes it a public act [1].
• Structure: move between the works point by point, not one after the other [1].
• Reception now: a reader today may read both as critiques; state your own position [1].
• Conclusion: freedom is inward and fatal in the story, outward and costly in the play [1]. [10]

The real individual oral is marked holistically against the IB assessment criteria, not point by point. Examiner insight: Strong orals keep the global issue in every point; weak ones meet it only at the start.

Where marks are usually lost

• Background history given with no link back to a quotation or a writer’s choice.
• Setting treated as context: “the story reflects the 1850s” when it was written much later.
• Only one side of a “gains and loses” or “production and reception” question answered.
• Claims about a single English word in a translated work with no mention of the translation.
• Moral judgement of a character from today’s values with no analysis of the work’s own culture.
• Inventing a precise date or country an unseen passage does not support.
• Oral plans that treat each work in its own half and meet the global issue only in the introduction.

Next steps

• Time and space revision notes
• Time and space 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). Passages A and C and all model answers are original writing for Marlbridge; Passage B is from a public-domain work (Blake, 1794).