Year 10 AQA English Language Revision Guide

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1 Year 10 AQA English Language Revision Guide

2 Contents Extracts The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald Grapes of Wrath, J Steinbeck Farenheit 451, R Bradbury Revision Tasks Question Assessment Objectives Explained Revision Tasks Practice Paper using extract from Woman in Black, S Hill

3 The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald About half way between West Egg and New York the motor-road hastily joins the railroad and runs beside it for a quarter of a mile, so as to shrink away from a certain desolate area of land. This is a valley of ashes a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and finally, with a transcendent effort, of men who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air. Occasionally a line of grey cars crawls along an invisible track, gives out a ghastly creak and comes to rest, and immediately the ash-grey men swarm up with leaden spades and stir up an impenetrable cloud which screens their obscure operations from your sight. But above the grey land and the spasms of bleak dust which drift endlessly over it, you perceive, after a moment, the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg. The eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg are blue and gigantic their retinas are one yard high. They look out of no face but, instead, from a pair of enormous yellow spectacles which pass over a nonexistent nose. Evidently some wild wag of an oculist set them there to fatten his practice in the borough of Queens, and then sank down himself into eternal blindness or forgot them and moved away. But his eyes, dimmed a little by many paintless days under sun and rain, brood on over the dumping ground. The valley of ashes is bounded on one side by a small foul river, and when the drawbridge is up to let barges through, the passengers on waiting trains can stare at the dismal scene for as long as half an hour. There is always a halt there of at least a minute and it was because of this that I first met Tom Buchanan s mistress. The fact that he had one was insisted upon wherever he was known. His acquaintances resented the fact that he turned up in popular restaurants with her and, leaving her at a table, sauntered about, chatting with whomsoever he knew. Though I was curious to see her I had no desire to meet her but I did. I went up to New York with Tom on the train one afternoon and when we stopped by the ash heaps he jumped to his feet and taking hold of my elbow literally forced me from the car

4 Grapes of Wrath J Steinbeck TO THE RED COUNTRY and part of the gray country of Oklahoma, the last rains came gently, and they did not cut the scarred earth. The plows crossed and recrossed the rivulet marks. The last rains lifted the corn quickly and scattered weed colonies and grass along the sides of the roads so that the gray country and the dark red country began to disappear under a green cover. In the last part of May the sky grew pale and the clouds that had hung in high puffs for so long in the spring were dissipated. The sun flared down on the growing corn day after day until a line of brown spread along the edge of each green bayonet. The clouds appeared, and went away, and in a while they did not try any more. The weeds grew darker green to protect themselves, and they did not spread any more. The surface of the earth crusted, a thin hard crust, and as the sky became pale, so the earth became pale, pink in the red country and white in the gray country. In the water-cut gullies the earth dusted down in dry little streams. Gophers and ant lions started small avalanches. And as the sharp sun struck day after day, the leaves of the young corn became less stiff and erect; they bent in a curve at first, and then, as the central ribs of strength grew weak, each leaf tilted downward. Then it was June, and the sun shone more fiercely. The brown lines on the corn leaves widened and moved in on the central ribs. The weeds frayed and edged back toward their roots. The air was thin and the sky more pale; and every day the earth paled. In the roads where the teams moved, where the wheels milled the ground and the hooves of the horses beat the ground, the dirt crust broke and the dust formed. Every moving thing lifted the dust into the air: a walking man lifted a thin layer as high as his waist, and a wagon lifted the dust as high as the fence tops, and an automobile boiled a cloud behind it. The dust was long in settling back again. When June was half gone, the big clouds moved up out of Texas and the Gulf, high heavy clouds, rainheads. The men in the fields looked up at the clouds and sniffed at them and held wet fingers up to sense the wind. And the horses were nervous while the clouds were up. The rainheads dropped a little spattering and hurried on to some other country. Behind them the sky was pale again and the sun flared. In the dust there were drop craters where the rain had fallen, and there were clean splashes on the corn, and that was all.

5 Fahrenheit 451 R Bradbury IT WAS A PLEASURE TO BURN IT was a special pleasure to see things eaten, to see things blackened and changed. With the brass nozzle in his fists, with this great python spitting its venomous kerosene upon the world, the blood pounded in his head, and his hands were the hands of some amazing conductor playing all the symphonies of blazing and burning to bring down the tatters and charcoal ruins of history. With his symbolic helmet numbered 451 on his stolid head, and his eyes all orange flame with the thought of what came next, he flicked the igniter and the house jumped up in a gorging fire that burned the evening sky red and yellow and black. He strode in a swarm of fireflies. He wanted above all, like the old joke, to shove a marshmallow on a stick in the furnace, while the flapping pigeon-winged books died on the porch and lawn of the house. While the books went up in sparkling whirls and blew away on a wind turned dark with burning. Montag grinned the fierce grin of all men singed and driven back by flame. He knew that when he returned to the firehouse, he might wink at himself, a minstrel man, burnt- corked, in the mirror. Later, going to sleep, he would feel the fiery smile still gripped by his face muscles, in the dark. It never went away, that. smile, it never ever went away, as long as he remembered. He hung up his black-beetle-coloured helmet and shined it, he hung his flameproof jacket neatly; he showered luxuriously, and then, whistling, hands in pockets, walked across the upper floor of the fire station and fell down the hole. At the last moment, when disaster seemed positive, he pulled his hands from his pockets and broke his fall by grasping the golden pole. He slid to a squeaking halt, the heels one inch from the concrete floor downstairs. He walked out of the fire station and along the midnight street toward the subway where the silent, airpropelled train slid soundlessly down its lubricated flue in the earth and let him out with a great puff of warm air an to the cream-tiled escalator rising to the suburb. Whistling, he let the escalator waft him into the still night air. He walked toward the comer, thinking little at all about nothing in particular. Before he reached the corner, however, he slowed as if a wind had sprung up from nowhere, as if someone had called his name.

6 Paper 1 Explained Question 1 Reading 4 Marks AO1 Identify and interpret explicit and implicit information and ideas Select and synthesise evidence from different texts. Question 2 Reading 8 Marks AO2 Explain, comment on and analyse how writers use language and structure to achieve effects and influence readers, using relevant subject terminology to support their views Question 3 Reading 12 Marks AO2 Explain, comment on and analyse how writers use language and structure to achieve effects and influence readers, using relevant subject terminology to support their views Question 4 Reading- 16 Marks AO4 Evaluate texts critically and support this with appropriate textual references Question 5 Writing 40 Marks Overall AO5 Content and Organisation 24 Marks Communicate clearly, effectively and imaginatively, selecting and adapting tone, style and register for different forms, purposes and audiences. Organise information and ideas, using structural and grammatical features to support coherence and cohesion of texts. AO6 Technical Accuracy 16 Marks Candidates must use a range of vocabulary and sentence structures for clarity, purpose and effect, with accurate spelling and punctuation.

7 Revision Tasks Question 1 Comprehension You will be asked to read a specific passage from the extract. Your answers must come from the specified passage or you won't be awarded the marks! Using the practise extracts in this booklet read and list four features, you could focus on - Setting - Character - Plot event Create exam style questions and mark schemes that test comprehension. By doing this you will develop a better understanding of the skills the exam board are assessing Question 2 Language Analysis Like Question 1, you are asked to focus on a specific passage from the text Your answers must come from the specified passage or you won't be awarded the marks! This question assesses Language ie: Words / Phrases / Language Features / Language Techniques / Sentence Forms. When answering this question make sure you are specific when describing the feature of language you are analysing. Flash cards with language devices/word classes/ sentence structures. Have the key word in one side and definition/example in the other side. She can then be placed over examples you find in the extracts. Using highlighters, read the extracts and highlight any language devices in one colour and interesting words/phrases/sentence forms in another. Look for groups/connections across the text. Highlight and rank the three most interesting words/ sentences. Explain your choices and rank order. When reading practice extracts answer these two questions - What did the writer want to achieve? - How would a reader react? (Consider other readers, as well as yourself) Using the extracts in this guide write practice answers How does the writer use language to develop the setting/introduce the character. Remember to answer the questions above in your answer Top Tip This question is only worth 8 marks, find one or two good points and write a lot about a little. Use the bullet points in the question to help you plan and structure your response.

Question 3 This question focuses on the WHOLE text. This question assesses how the writer has structured a text. Structural features can be: at a whole text level eg.

8 Question 3 This question focuses on the WHOLE text. This question assesses how the writer has structured a text. Structural features can be: at a whole text level eg. beginnings / endings / perspective shifts; at a paragraph level eg. topic change / aspects of cohesion; and at a sentence level when judged to contribute to whole structure. Learn the words and phrases in the box to the side. This is the language you need to use to answer this question well. Using the words and phrases in the box label your extracts, use red pen for the ingredients and green pen for the processes. Write a 50 word summary of the text. Then condense it down to 25 words. Compare your summaries to a friends, have you understood and identified they key points of the extract. Remember to answer the questions - What did the writer want to achieve? - What impact/effect does the structural choices have on the reader? Highlight the three most interesting words and phrases (make sure they come from across the text) and explain why you chose them. Practice writing answers for the extracts in this booklet How has the writer structured the text to interest the reader? Question 4 This question focuses on the WHOLE text. This question is asking you to evaluate a statement made about the text. You will be asked how far do you agree with the statement. While the question is asking for your opinion your comments must be linked to the statement made in the question. You cannot just write what you thought of the text. A good way to secure a good mark is to try to argue both sides, if you look at the example question at the back of this paper try to think of ways that the text doesn t transport you back. Are there any themes or images that wouldn t look out of place today? Highlight words or phrases that support the statement in the question in one colour, and words or phrases that contradict the statement in another colour. Write brief plans on how you could answer the question, this question is worth 20 marks, make each mark count by avoiding repeating yourself or waffling.

9 The Woman in Black, Susan Hill As I neared the ruins, I could see clearly that they were indeed of some ancient chapel, perhaps monastic in origin, and all broken-down and crumbling, with some of the stones and rubble fallen, probably in recent gales, and lying about in the grass. The ground sloped a little down to the sea shore and, as I passed under one of the old arches, I startled a nesting bird, which rose up and away over my head with loudly beating wings and a harsh croaking cry that echoed all around the old walls and was taken up by another, some distance away. It was an ugly, satanic-looking thing, like some species of sea-vulture - if such a thing existed - and I could not suppress a shudder as its shadow passed over me, and I watched its ungainly flight away towards the sea with relief. As I stood watching its retreat, the last light went from the sun, and the wind rose in a gust, and rustled through the grass. Suddenly conscious of the cold and the extreme bleakness and eeriness of the spot and of the gathering dusk of the November afternoon, and not wanting my spirits to become so depressed that I might begin to be affected by all sorts of morbid fancies, I was about to leave, and walk briskly back to the house, where I intended to switch on a good many lights and even light a small fire if it were possible, before beginning my preliminary work on Mrs Drablow's papers. But, as I turned away, I glanced once again round the burial ground and then I saw again the woman with the wasted face, who had been at Mrs Drablow's funeral. She was at the far end of the plot, close to one of the few upright headstones, and she wore the same clothing and bonnet, but it seemed to have slipped back so that I could make out her face a little more clearly. In the greyness of the fading light, it had the sheen and pallor not of flesh so much as of bone itself. Earlier, when I had looked at her, although admittedly it had been scarcely more than a swift glance each time, I had not noticed any particular expression on her ravaged face, but then I had, after all, been entirely taken with the look of extreme illness. Now, however, as I stared at her, stared until my eyes ached in their sockets, stared in surprise and bewilderment at her presence, now I saw that her face did wear an expression. It was one of what I can only describe and the words seem hopelessly

10 inadequate to express what I saw as a desperate, yearning malevolence; it was as though she were searching for something she wanted, needed, must have, more than life itself, and which had been taken from her. And, towards whoever had taken it she directed the purest evil and hatred and loathing, with all the force that was available to her. Her face, in its extreme pallor, her eyes, sunken but unnaturally bright, were burning with the concentration of passionate emotion which was within her and which streamed from her. Whether or not this hatred and malevolence was directed towards me I had no means of telling I had no reason at all to suppose that it could possibly have been, but at that moment I was far from able to base my reactions upon reason and logic. For the combination of the peculiar, isolated place and the sudden appearance of the woman and the dreadfulness of her expression began to fill me with fear. Indeed, I had never in my life been so possessed by it, never known my knees to tremble and my flesh to creep, and then to turn cold as stone, never known my heart to give a great lurch, as if it would almost leap up into my dry mouth and then begin pounding in my chest like a hammer on an anvil, never known myself gripped and held fast by such dread and horror and apprehension of evil. It was as though I had become paralysed. I could not bear to stay there, for fear, but nor had I any strength left in my body to turn and run away, and I was as certain as I had ever been of anything that, at any second, I would drop dead on that wretched patch of ground. It was the woman who moved. She slipped behind the gravestone and, keeping close to the shadow of the wall, went through one of the broken gaps and out of sight. The very second that she had gone, my nerve and power of speech and movement, my very sense of life itself, came flooding back through me, my head cleared and, all at once, I was angry, yes, angry, with her for the emotion she had aroused in me, for causing me to experience such fear, and the anger led at once to determination, to follow her and stop her, and then to ask some questions and receive proper replies, to get to the bottom of it all.

11 1) List four things we learn about the ruins. a) They were of some ancient chapel b) They were crumbling c) Birds nest there d) They are near the sea 2) Look at the section in italics, how does the writer use language to make the description of the woman horrific. 3) How has the writer structured the source to build tension around the moment when the narrator sees the woman. 4) One reviewer wrote of this book, "The Woman in Black is like a Victorian novel, recently written. Reading it is like stepping into a horrific time machine." How much do you agree with this statement.

Source A. Extract from The Woman in Black Susan Hill 1983

Source A. Extract from The Woman in Black Susan Hill 1983 Source A Extract from The Woman in Black Susan Hill 1983 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 As I neared the ruins, I could see