Writer's use of language Banker

Read the passage below.The bazaar woke slowly that Friday. By nine, though, it had become a living river of people, and Ayesha, clutching her mother's list, was swept along with it. Stall-holders barked out prices over one another. Bolts of silk spilled their colours across wooden counters, and the air was thick with cardamom, frying dough and diesel from the delivery rickshaws that nosed their way through the crowd like impatient goats.At the spice stall, old Karim sat as still as a stone in the middle of all the movement. He weighed out turmeric with the slow care of a jeweller, tipping the tiny brass scale until it settled exactly level. When Ayesha handed him the list, he peered at it over his glasses and smiled, as if it were a letter from an old friend. 'Your mother still buys the best saffron,' he said. 'Tell her the red chillies are good this week, but the cumin is not what it was.' Ayesha nodded seriously, as though she had been trusted with a secret.

1. (a) Explain the meaning and effect of the phrase 'a living river of people'. [3]
2. (b) Explain the meaning and effect of the phrase 'as still as a stone in the middle of all the movement'. [3]

Read the passage below.Grandmother's kitchen was the warmest room in the house, and not only because of the stove. On winter evenings we gathered there like moths around a lamp, drawn by the smell of onions turning golden in ghee and the comfortable rattle of her bangles as she worked.She never used a recipe. She measured salt in the hollow of her palm and judged the heat of a pan by holding her hand above it, the way a doctor feels for a fever. When she rolled out rotis, the dough obeyed her completely, spreading into perfect circles under the quick, sure strokes of her rolling pin. My own attempts looked like maps of countries that did not exist.She would laugh, take the rolling pin gently from my hand and say, 'Again.' I must have rolled a hundred bad rotis in that kitchen before I made a good one. She ate every single one of the bad ones without complaint, as though each of them were a small gift, and told my mother I was a natural.

1. (a) Explain the meaning and effect of 'we gathered there like moths around a lamp'. [3]
2. (b) Explain the meaning and effect of 'My own attempts looked like maps of countries that did not exist.' [3]

Read the passage below.The flood came at night. By the time Jamal's father hammered on the door, the water had already crept over the courtyard step and was licking at the legs of the charpai. Outside, the canal that had dawdled lazily past their fields all summer had become a brown, muscular thing, shouldering aside fences and swallowing the lane whole.They carried what they could to the roof: the goat, a sack of flour, the tin trunk with the family papers. From up there, under a sky that seemed to sag with rain, Jamal watched the village shrink into a scattering of islands. Somewhere a dog was barking without hope. His mother sat with her arms around his little sister, saying nothing, her eyes fixed on the water as though she could hold it back by staring. At dawn the rain finally stopped. A boat appeared between the trees, rowed by two men from the next village, and Jamal's father stood up and waved both arms until they saw him.

1. (a) Explain the meaning and effect of 'a brown, muscular thing, shouldering aside fences'. [3]
2. (b) Explain the meaning and effect of 'as though she could hold it back by staring'. [3]

Read the passage below.Dr Lin had worked at the research station for three winters, but the first sight of the ice each season still stopped her breath. The sea had frozen into a white plain that ran to the edge of the world, broken only by ridges where the plates of ice had crashed together and frozen mid-argument. The silence was so complete that she could hear the blood ticking in her ears.Inside the station, life ran on strict routines. Every reading was logged twice. Every door was sealed against the cold, which waited outside like a patient animal, testing each seam and hinge for a way in. When the generator coughed one night and fell silent, eight people looked up from their screens at the same moment, and nobody spoke until it shuddered back into life. Afterwards, Dr Lin wrote the time of the failure in the log in small, neat figures, as if tidy handwriting could keep the dark at a distance.

1. (a) Explain the meaning and effect of the phrase 'frozen mid-argument'. [3]
2. (b) Explain the meaning and effect of 'waited outside like a patient animal, testing each seam and hinge for a way in'. [3]

Read the passage below.At the robotics competition, the hall hummed with nervous energy. Team Falcon's robot, built over four months in a borrowed classroom, sat on the table looking smaller and more fragile than it ever had at school. Zara checked the wires for the tenth time. Her hands, usually steady, had a mind of their own.When the judge signalled, Bilal pressed the switch. Nothing happened. Then, with a reluctant whine, the robot shuffled forward like an old man getting out of bed, paused, and finally began to climb the ramp. Zara realised she had stopped breathing. At the top it turned, lifted the block with its wobbling arm and placed it, perfectly, in the target square. The four of them exploded into the air like fireworks. Across the hall, a team from another city began to clap, and then, one by one, so did the others. Their teacher, standing at the back, took off his glasses and wiped them very carefully.

1. (a) Explain the meaning and effect of 'Her hands, usually steady, had a mind of their own.' [3]
2. (b) Explain the meaning and effect of 'shuffled forward like an old man getting out of bed'. [3]

Read the passage below.The stadium was a bowl of noise. Hassan stood at the end of his run-up, ball in hand, and tried to hear only his own breathing. Six runs needed from the last over, and only one wicket left. The batsman tapped his bat on the crease, a small, confident drumbeat, and settled into his stance. Hassan glanced once at the captain, who nodded, and once at the scoreboard, where the numbers glowed like a challenge. His palms were damp. He wiped the ball on his trousers and took a long breath.Hassan began to run. The crowd seemed to lean forward as one creature. His feet found their rhythm on the dry grass, and for a moment the world narrowed to a strip of earth, twenty-two yards long, with a single figure waiting at the end of it. He released the ball. It left his hand clean and angry, swung late and crashed into the off stump with a sound like a door slamming on the whole afternoon.For a heartbeat there was nothing. Then the bowl of noise overflowed.

1. (a) Explain the meaning and effect of 'the world narrowed to a strip of earth, twenty-two yards long'. [3]
2. (b) Explain the meaning and effect of 'a sound like a door slamming on the whole afternoon'. [3]
3. (c) The passage begins with 'The stadium was a bowl of noise' and ends with 'Then the bowl of noise overflowed.' Explain the effect of this repetition. [2]

Read the passage below.The old lighthouse keeper's cottage had been empty for twenty years when Mariam's family arrived. Its windows were blind with salt, and the front door, swollen by damp, had to be persuaded open with a shoulder. Inside, the rooms held their breath. Dust lay on every surface like a grey snowfall that no one had ever cleared, and a calendar on the kitchen wall still showed a month long gone.That first night the wind found every gap in the stone. It moaned in the chimney and rattled the loose panes, and Mariam lay awake listening to the sea throwing itself again and again against the rocks below, as if it had a grudge against the land that it would never be able to settle. Towards dawn she fell asleep at last, and dreamed of a light turning slowly in an empty tower, sweeping across the water for ships that never came.

1. (a) Explain the meaning and effect of 'the rooms held their breath'. [3]
2. (b) Explain the meaning and effect of 'as if it had a grudge against the land that it would never be able to settle'. [3]

Read the passage below.(1) The desert camp had been calm all afternoon. Then, at about four o'clock, the horizon began to smudge, as if someone had rubbed a thumb across a drawing. Ahmed, the guide, stood up from the fire and stared west without a word.(2) Within minutes the sandstorm was upon them. The sun shrank to a pale coin and then vanished. Sand hissed against the tents, stung bare arms like a swarm of tiny insects and crept into eyes, mouths and the folds of clothing. The camels knelt and turned their backs to the wind, eyes closed, as though they had seen all this a thousand times before. The students huddled behind the jeep, scarves wrapped over their faces, and listened to the roar that seemed to come from every direction at once.(3) When it was over, the camp had been rearranged. A tent lay twenty metres away, folded like a letter. Everything wore a fine coat of gold. Ahmed was already shaking out the blankets and rebuilding the fire, as though nothing had happened. 'It is only the desert breathing,' he said, and handed the shaken students cups of sweet, smoky tea.

1. (a) In paragraph 1, what does Ahmed's behaviour suggest about the situation? [1]
2. (b) Identify one example of language in paragraph 2 that shows the power of the sandstorm. Explain the impression the writer creates. [3]

Read the passage below.(1) The ferry left the harbour at dawn. Sofia found a place at the rail and watched the town fall behind them, its white houses stacked up the hillside like sugar cubes.(2) Out in open water, the sea grew restless. Long grey waves rolled in from the horizon, lifted the ferry gently, then dropped it with a sickening lurch. Spray flew over the rail and stung Sofia's face with salt. Passengers who had been laughing and taking photographs went quiet and pale, gripping the backs of their seats. A child's red balloon escaped and was snatched away by the wind, shrinking to a dot in seconds. The engines laboured beneath their feet, groaning with every wave as if the old boat were complaining about the journey.(3) After an hour, the island rose out of the mist, green and still. The sea flattened, the engines settled into a steady hum and, one by one, the passengers lifted their heads and began to smile again.

1. (a) Identify one example of language in paragraph 2 that shows the journey has become uncomfortable. Explain the impression the writer creates. [3]
2. (b) What impression of the island is created in paragraph 3? [1]

Read the passage below.(1) Imran had never been inside the old city library before. It was a tall, gloomy building squeezed between a bank and a mobile-phone shop, and from the street it looked as though it were trying to make itself small.(2) Inside, however, it opened up like a secret. Shelves climbed towards a domed ceiling of stained glass, and the afternoon light fell through it in pools of red and blue on the worn marble floor. The air smelled of dust, leather and something sweeter, like old paper remembering the trees it had once been. Readers sat at long tables, bent over their books so still that they might have been carved there. Somewhere a clock ticked, slow and dignified, as if time inside these walls moved at a different pace.(3) A thin woman with silver hair looked up from the desk. 'You've found us,' she said, as though he had passed a test.

1. (a) Identify one example of language in paragraph 2 that suggests the library is special or magical. Explain the impression the writer creates. [3]
2. (b) How does the description of the building in paragraph 1 contrast with paragraph 2? Explain the effect of this contrast. [2]

Read the passage below.(1) The night shift on Ward 6 began at eight. Nurse Farida pinned her watch to her uniform, tied back her hair and took the handover notes from a colleague whose eyes were red with tiredness.(2) By two in the morning the ward had settled into an uneasy quiet. Monitors blinked green in the dark like the eyes of patient cats. An old man in bed four muttered in his sleep, arguing with someone only he could see. Farida moved between the beds on soft shoes, checking drips and pulses, her torch beam sliding over sleeping faces. At the end of the ward a young boy lay awake, staring at the ceiling, his small hands gripping the edge of the blanket as though the bed might float away.(3) She sat beside him and, without saying anything, began to fold a paper crane from a page of her notebook.

1. (a) Identify one example of language in paragraph 2 that creates an uneasy atmosphere. Explain the impression the writer creates. [3]
2. (b) What does paragraph 3 suggest about Farida? Explain your answer. [2]

Read the passage below.(1) The tailor's shop had been in the same narrow lane for fifty years. Ustad Rehman sat cross-legged on a raised wooden platform at the back, surrounded by bolts of cloth in every colour.(2) His fingers were never still. They flew along a seam, pinched, folded and tucked, guiding the cloth beneath the needle of his ancient sewing machine with the delicacy of someone handling a sleeping bird. The machine itself, black and gold and older than his oldest customer, chattered steadily like a contented hen. Around him the shop was a clutter of paper patterns, scraps and tape measures, yet he could find any button or thread instantly, without looking, as though the objects came to his hand when he called them.(3) Customers said he could measure a man just by watching him walk through the door. He rarely spoke while he worked, but when a suit was finished he would hold it up to the light, turn it slowly and nod once, which was the only praise he ever gave anything.

1. (a) Identify one example of language in paragraph 2 that shows Ustad Rehman's skill. Explain the impression the writer creates. [3]
2. (b) What does the first sentence of paragraph 3 suggest about how customers see him? [1]
3. (c) Explain the effect of comparing the sewing machine to 'a contented hen'. [2]

Read the passage below.(1) The volcano observatory stood on a ridge two kilometres from the crater. For weeks the instruments had recorded small tremors, and the scientists took turns watching the screens through the night.(2) On the ninth night, the mountain cleared its throat. The floor of the observatory shivered, coffee cups chattered on their saucers and a pencil rolled slowly off the desk as though trying to escape. Out of the window, the summit glowed a dull, sullen orange, like a coal that someone had blown on. Then a fountain of fire burst upwards, tearing open the dark, and for an instant every rock on the slope was lit as clearly as at noon. The sound reached them a few seconds later: not a bang but a deep, long growl that Tomás felt in his ribs before he heard it.(3) Nobody moved for a moment. Then everyone moved at once.

1. (a) Identify one example of language in paragraph 2 that shows the eruption is threatening. Explain the impression the writer creates. [3]
2. (b) Identify a second, different example from paragraph 2 and explain how it adds to the impression you described in (a). [3]
3. (c) Explain the effect of the two short sentences in paragraph 3. [2]

Read the passage below.(1) Bilqees had trained for the marathon for eight months, but nothing had prepared her for the thirty-fifth kilometre.(2) Her legs had turned to wet sand. Each step sent a jolt of pain up from her heels, and her breath came in ragged gasps that seemed to scrape the inside of her chest. The road ahead shimmered in the heat, stretching on and on like a cruel joke with no punchline. Runners she had passed an hour earlier now overtook her, one by one, their footsteps fading into the distance. Spectators shouted encouragement, but their voices reached her as though through deep water, blurred and far away. She fixed her eyes on the back of a stranger's yellow shirt and told herself: just reach him. Then the next lamp post. Then the next.(3) When she finally saw the finish line, she did not run towards it. She simply refused to stop.

1. (a) Identify one example of language in paragraph 2 that shows Bilqees's exhaustion. Explain the impression the writer creates. [3]
2. (b) Explain what the final two sentences (paragraph 3) suggest about Bilqees. [2]
3. (c) How does the structure of the last part of paragraph 2 ('just reach him. Then the next lamp post. Then the next.') reflect her experience? [2]

Read the passage below.The first snow came to Murree while Nadia was asleep. She woke to a strange brightness on the ceiling and an unusual hush, as though the whole town had been wrapped in cotton wool. When she pulled back the curtain, the pine trees outside were bowed under white loads, and the road to the market had disappeared beneath a smooth, unbroken blanket. A single crow sat on the gatepost, black as ink against the white, and cawed once, loudly, as if to complain that no one had asked his permission.Nadia dressed in a hurry, pulling two sweaters over her head and borrowing her brother's gloves without asking. Outside, the cold caught at her throat and made her eyes water. Her boots sank deep into the snow with a soft crunch, and behind her a line of footprints marked the only path in the whole white street. From somewhere below, the bell of the school began to ring, but she already knew that no one would be going to class that day.

1. (a) What effect does the writer create by describing the town 'as though the whole town had been wrapped in cotton wool'? [2]
2. (b) What effect does the writer create with the phrase 'black as ink against the white'? [2]

Read the passage below.The lost puppy had been missing for two days when Saad heard a faint whimper from the drain behind the shops. He knelt and peered into the darkness. Two frightened eyes gleamed back at him. The puppy was trembling so violently that its whole body seemed to rattle. Saad lay flat on the dirty concrete, stretched his arm in as far as it would go and spoke softly, the way his mother spoke to his baby brother at night. Slowly, cautiously, a cold wet nose touched his fingers.It took nearly half an hour to coax the puppy out. When at last it crept into the light, it was thinner than he remembered, its fur matted with mud and its tail tucked tightly between its legs. Saad wrapped it in his school jumper, ignoring the dirt, and held it against his chest. He could feel its heart racing against his own. By the time he reached home, it had stopped shaking and fallen asleep, one paw resting on his arm.

1. (a) What effect does the writer suggest by using the word 'rattle'? [2]
2. (b) What effect is created by comparing Saad's voice to 'the way his mother spoke to his baby brother at night'? [2]

Read the passage below.Grandfather's boat, the Noor, was older than my father. Every morning before sunrise he pushed her off the beach at Gwadar and the little engine coughed, spluttered and then settled into a steady putter that I could hear long after the boat had become a speck. He came back in the late afternoon, the hold glittering with fish, his face creased by the sun into a thousand fine lines. He never boasted about his catch. He just unloaded it, rinsed the deck, and sat on an upturned crate, drinking sweet tea and watching the sea as if it were an old friend who might, one day, change its mind about him.When I was twelve he let me come with him for the first time. I remember the cold spray, the smell of diesel and salt, and the way he read the water as easily as I read a book, pointing out where the fish would be by the colour of the waves.

1. (a) What effect does the writer suggest by using the word 'glittering' to describe the hold? [2]
2. (b) What effect does the writer create with 'as if it were an old friend who might, one day, change its mind about him'? [2]

Read the passage below.The lift jerked, shuddered and stopped between the ninth and tenth floors. For a moment the four strangers inside simply looked at one another. Then the light flickered and died, and the darkness pressed in on them like a hand over the mouth. Somebody laughed nervously. A woman began jabbing at the emergency button, which gave off a feeble buzz and nothing more. The air grew thick and warm, and Daniyal became aware of the walls, which seemed to inch closer every minute.He tried to remember what he had read about lifts: that they had brakes, that they could not simply fall. The facts did not help. Beside him a teenager switched on his phone torch, and in its thin white beam their faces looked pale and strange, like photographs of people he had never met. 'Someone will come,' the woman said, more to herself than to anyone else. Nobody answered her. Somewhere far above them, a door banged, and all four of them looked up at the same moment.

1. (a) What effect does the writer create with the simile 'the darkness pressed in on them like a hand over the mouth'? [2]
2. (b) What effect does the writer suggest by using the word 'feeble' to describe the buzz? [2]

Read the passage below.On the rooftops, the kite fliers waited for the wind. When it came, it came all at once, and in seconds the sky above the old city bloomed with colour: crimson, saffron, emerald, kites dipping and soaring like a flock of startled birds. Boys leaned dangerously over parapets, reels spinning, shouting insults across the rooftops at rivals they had known since childhood. Hamza's kite, a modest blue square, climbed steadily, ignoring the chaos around it, until it hung high above the rest, a calm, patient eye looking down on the battle.Around him, kites began to fall. A red one spun away with its string cut, drifting over the rooftops while a dozen children raced through the lanes below to catch it. Hamza did not watch it go. His eyes never left his own kite, and his fingers made tiny, constant adjustments to the string, as gentle as someone tuning a musical instrument. When the sun finally sank and the other fliers wound in their reels, his blue square was still there, alone in the reddening sky.

1. (a) What effect does the writer suggest by using the word 'bloomed'? [2]
2. (b) What effect does the writer create by describing Hamza's kite as 'a calm, patient eye looking down on the battle'? [2]
3. (c) Why does the writer call the kite contests a 'battle'? Give one reason. [1]

Read the passage below.Mr Qureshi, the new chemistry teacher, swept into the laboratory five minutes late, his white coat flapping behind him like a cape. Under one arm he carried a stack of papers that threatened to slide to the floor; in his other hand was a glass flask of something bright green that bubbled gently. 'Good morning, scientists!' he announced, grinning. 'Today we are going to make something that glows.' He set the flask down, knocked over a rack of test tubes, caught two of them before they hit the bench and bowed to the astonished class.For a moment nobody moved. Then someone at the back began to laugh, and soon the whole class was laughing with him. Mr Qureshi did not seem to mind in the least. He pulled down the blinds, switched off the lights and poured a few drops of liquid into the flask. In the darkness, the green mixture began to shine with a soft, eerie light, and thirty students leaned forward in their seats as one.

1. (a) What two impressions does the writer want to convey about Mr Qureshi? [2]
2. (b) Choose one of your impressions and identify the words from the passage that support it. [1]

Read the passage below.The old house on Canal Road had been empty for years. Its paint hung in long curls like peeling skin, and the garden had grown wild, with weeds as tall as a child pushing through the broken gate. One upstairs shutter swung loose and banged whenever the wind blew, so that it sounded as though someone was knocking to be let out. Children walking to school crossed to the other side of the road and walked faster, though none of them could have said exactly why.At night it was worse. The street lamp outside had stopped working long ago, and the house became a dark shape against the sky, blacker than the darkness around it. Sometimes, people said, a faint light could be seen moving behind the upstairs windows, though when anyone looked properly it was gone. Most adults laughed at these stories. Yet even they hurried a little as they passed the broken gate, and nobody ever seemed to want to buy the house, however low the price fell.

1. (a) What two impressions does the writer want to convey about the house? [2]
2. (b) Why do you think the children 'could not have said exactly why' they walked faster? Give one reason. [1]

Read the passage below.The village of Passu clung to the side of the valley as though it had been thrown there by a careless hand. Stone houses crowded together on narrow terraces, and above them the mountains rose in jagged teeth of grey rock and ice. Even in summer the wind from the glacier carried a sharp, clean chill. Yet everywhere there were signs of care: apricot trees tied neatly to wooden frames, water channels swept free of leaves, and doorsteps scrubbed so white that they shone in the morning sun.In the late afternoon, women gathered on the flat roofs to dry apricots on wide cloths, turning each fruit by hand. Children carried water up the steep paths in plastic cans almost as big as themselves, laughing and racing one another. An old man sat on a wall mending a basket with slow, careful fingers. Nobody seemed to hurry, yet by evening every task had been done, and smoke rose quietly from every chimney into the darkening blue.

1. (a) What two impressions does the writer want to convey about the landscape around the village? [2]
2. (b) What two impressions does the writer want to convey about the people of the village? [2]

Read the passage below.The city at iftar time was a different creature. For an hour before sunset the roads roared with traffic as everyone raced home, horns blaring, motorbikes weaving through gaps that did not exist. Then, as the siren sounded, the noise drained away almost at once. Streets that had been jammed were suddenly empty. Through open windows came the clink of glasses, the murmur of prayers and the smell of pakoras frying. On a corner, a shopkeeper had laid out a cloth on the pavement and was sharing dates and water with the rickshaw drivers who had not made it home in time.Nobody asked for payment. The drivers sat cross-legged in a row, broke their fast with the shopkeeper's dates and thanked him quietly. A passing motorcyclist stopped, was handed a glass of water and drank it standing beside his bike. For a few minutes the busy corner felt like a family dining room.

1. (a) What two impressions does the writer want to convey about the city in the hour before sunset? [2]
2. (b) What two impressions does the writer want to convey about the city after the siren sounds? [2]

Read the passage below.Professor Adeyemi's office looked as if a small storm had passed through it and decided to stay. Journals were stacked in leaning towers on the floor, a dismantled microscope lay in pieces on the windowsill, and a whiteboard was crowded with equations in three colours, some crossed out so fiercely that the pen had torn through to the surface beneath. The professor herself sat in the eye of this storm, perfectly calm, sipping tea from a mug with a chipped handle. She listened to Leila's question without interrupting, then picked up a marker, wiped a small clearing on the board, and began to explain with a patience that made Leila feel, for the first time that term, that her question was not stupid.When Leila left, an hour later, her notebook was full and her head ached in a pleasant way. On the stairs she realised she was smiling, and that she was already looking forward to the next tutorial.

1. (a) What two impressions does the writer want to convey about Professor Adeyemi? [2]
2. (b) Explain how the image of 'the eye of this storm' helps to convey one of these impressions. [2]

Read the passage below.Rania arrived at the audition hall an hour early. She sat on a hard bench in the corridor, violin case on her knees, and listened to the muffled music drifting from behind the closed door. Every so often the door opened, a pale student came out, and a voice called another name. Rania checked her bow for the fourth time. She tightened it, loosened it, then tightened it again. When her name was finally called, she stood up so quickly that the case slid off her lap, and she caught it with both arms, holding it against her chest like a shield.The room beyond the door was larger than she had imagined, with tall windows and a polished wooden floor that made her footsteps sound loud. Three judges sat behind a long table. One of them smiled; the other two were writing. Rania walked to the centre of the floor, lifted her violin to her chin and waited for her hands to stop shaking.

1. (a) What does the writer want to suggest to us by describing Rania checking her bow 'for the fourth time'? [1]
2. (b) What does the writer want to suggest to us by the phrase 'holding it against her chest like a shield'? [1]
3. (c) What does the detail 'a pale student came out' suggest about the auditions? [1]

Read the passage below.When the results were pinned to the noticeboard, the crowd surged forward. Omar hung back. He watched his classmates find their names, saw some leap and hug each other and others turn away with set faces. When the crowd thinned, he walked slowly to the board and ran his finger down the list. He stopped. For a long moment he did not move. Then he took out his phone, looked at his father's name on the screen, and put the phone back in his pocket without pressing anything.Outside, the afternoon was bright and noisy. Boys were laughing at the gate, and someone's mother was handing out sweets. Omar walked past them all, out through the gate and along the road that led away from home, his hands deep in his pockets. He walked for a long time. When he came back, the sun was low, and the noticeboard stood empty in the deserted courtyard, the results already taken down.

1. (a) What does the writer want to suggest to us by telling us that Omar 'hung back'? [1]
2. (b) What does the writer want to suggest to us by the last sentence of the first paragraph ('Then he took out his phone … without pressing anything')? [1]
3. (c) Explain why the writer does not tell us Omar's result directly. [2]

Read the passage below.The new family moved into the flat opposite on a Tuesday. By Wednesday, Mrs Hashmi, who had lived on the third floor for thirty years, knew that they had three children, a grey cat, a sofa that had not fitted through the door, and a father who left for work at six. She did not speak to them. She simply watched from behind her lace curtain, a cup of tea going cold in her hand. On Friday, when the youngest child sat crying on the stairs, Mrs Hashmi opened her door a few centimetres, then closed it again. An hour later a plate of warm biscuits appeared on the child's doorstep, with no note.The next morning, the plate was returned to Mrs Hashmi's doormat, washed and dried, with a drawing of a grey cat beside it in purple crayon. She looked at it for a long time. Then she propped it on her kitchen shelf, where it stayed for many years.

1. (a) What does the writer want to suggest to us about Mrs Hashmi by telling us how much she knew by Wednesday? [1]
2. (b) What does the writer want to suggest by 'a cup of tea going cold in her hand'? [1]
3. (c) What does the writer want to suggest to us by the plate of biscuits 'with no note'? [1]

Read the passage below.The bus was already full when it reached Tariq's stop, but the conductor waved him on anyway. Tariq squeezed between a man carrying a crate of chickens and two schoolgirls sharing earphones. When the bus lurched round the corner, the whole crowd swayed together like grass in the wind. A woman near the front clutched the rail with both hands, and a basket of oranges tumbled from someone's lap and rolled under the seats.Passengers bent to collect the oranges and passed them hand to hand back to their owner, an old woman who thanked each of them in turn. One of the schoolgirls handed Tariq an orange that had rolled against his shoe, and he passed it on with a smile. Outside, the city crawled past the windows: market stalls, cyclists, a policeman waving his arms at traffic that ignored him. By the time the bus reached Tariq's stop, he had learned the names of the schoolgirls, the reason for the chickens, and the price of oranges in three different markets.

1. (a) Why does the writer use the word 'squeezed' rather than 'stood'? [1]
2. (b) Why does the writer use the word 'lurched' rather than 'turned'? [1]
3. (c) Why does the writer use the word 'clutched' rather than 'held'? [1]

Read the passage below.The experiment had gone wrong. Instead of the gentle fizz the textbook promised, the mixture in Sana's beaker erupted into a column of foam that crept over the rim and slithered across the bench towards her notebook. Her partner Zeeshan stared at it, then snatched the notebook away just in time. Across the lab, Mrs Javed looked up from her marking. She did not shout. She simply raised one eyebrow, and the whole class fell silent.'Well,' she said at last, walking slowly across the room. 'Who can tell me what has happened here?' Nobody spoke. Sana felt her cheeks burning. Then, to her surprise, Mrs Javed smiled. 'You have just discovered, by accident, what I was going to teach you next week. Clean the bench, write down exactly what you did, and we shall learn from it.' Sana let out a breath she had not known she was holding.

1. (a) Why does the writer use the word 'erupted' rather than 'bubbled'? [1]
2. (b) Why does the writer use the word 'slithered' rather than 'flowed'? [1]
3. (c) Why does the writer use the word 'snatched' rather than 'took'? [1]

Read the passage below.Nobody expected the shy new boy to enter the speech competition, least of all his classmates. When Asad walked onto the stage, a few students at the back sniggered. He stood at the microphone, glanced at his notes, then folded them and put them in his pocket. His first words were barely audible. But as he spoke about his grandfather's journey across the border, his voice grew stronger, and the hall, which had been restless, became utterly still. By the time he finished, several teachers were dabbing their eyes, and the applause thundered.Afterwards, in the corridor, the boys who had laughed hung back awkwardly. One of them finally stepped forward and held out his hand. Asad shook it, said nothing, and smiled for the first time since he had joined the school. The next morning, three students asked him to sit with them at lunch. He accepted, a little uncertainly, and found that they wanted to hear more about his grandfather.

1. (a) Why does the writer use the word 'sniggered' rather than 'laughed'? [1]
2. (b) Why does the writer use the word 'thundered' rather than 'was loud'? [1]
3. (c) Why does the writer use the word 'restless' rather than 'noisy' to describe the hall? [1]