.............................................................................................................................................................

STUDENTS NAME

BBA PRACTICE EXAMINATION

2012

ENGLISH
Level Three

RESOURCE AND
QUESTION AND ANSWER BOOKLET
90724
Read and respond critically to unfamiliar prose and poetry texts.
Credits: Three
Suggested time: 45 minutes
If you need more space for any answer, ask the Supervisor for extra paper. Clearly
number the questions. Attach the extra sheets at the appropriate place in this
booklet.

Check that this booklet has pages 2-10 in the correct order and that none of these
pages is blank.
HAND THIS BOOKLET TO THE SUPERVISOR AT THE END OF THE EXAMINATION.
ASSESSORS USE ONLY

Achievement Criteria

NOT ACHIEVED

ACHIEVED

ACHIEVED WITH MERIT

Read and respond

critically to ideas and
language features.

Read and respond

critically and analytically
to ideas and language
features.

Overall Level of Performance

BBA Educational
1 Resources 2012

ACHIEVED WITH EXCELLENCE

Read and respond

critically and with
sustained perception
to ideas and language
features.

You are advised to spend 45 minutes answering the questions in this booklet.
It is important that you answer ALL parts of ALL questions.
Use to Text A to answer Questions One and Two.

Text A: In this extract the writer contemplates the many variations of being alone.

TEXT A
Lost in isolation

10

Last week I went on a work trip to Shanghai, a city of 23 million. As I stood on Nanjing Rd, the busiest
road in Shanghai, just me and a seething mass of humanity, all yelling, hoiking, hustling Looka, ladee,
looka. Rolex, Gucci. Best quality. Cheap price I felt the greatest sense of peace I can recall in a long
time. I dont need an empty beach or a quiet room. Anonymity is the key. Somehow along the way, under a
mound of macaroni cheese and a flurry of swimming classes, I had forgotten how happy I am when wafting
about a foreign city alone. How alive. The small satisfaction of successfully negotiating a strange public
transport system. The particular pleasure of reading a book at a table set for one. Oh hello, I thought, there
you are. Id almost forgotten you.
As islanders, far from the rest of the world, we are accustomed to travel. To journey is in our blood. It is
our way. Aside from the thrill of discovery, the rush of conquering, perhaps Christopher Columbus, Marco
Polo, Captain James Cook et al were all merely looking for a little me time.
When Im at home, says one friend, Im everybodys lynchpin. Everyone depends on me. Everything
I do is such a big deal. Whereas when Im away Im just a nobody to everybody. And God, for a little while
anyway, it feels good.

15

Getting lost! says another friend. Being in a place I dont know and giving myself permission to get
lost. Oh the irresponsibility! Without kids in tow she finds joy in being able to just set off, lipstick in one
pocket, Eftpost card in the other.
Another doesnt need to travel, just a few hours freewheeling, her word for being answerable to no one.

20

When asked whether she longs to be by herself, one friend said yes, of course. But on the rare occasion
she manages it, it worries her how happy it makes her.
These days even an hour alone in my own house is an utter, almost unknown, luxury.

25

I once lived by myself in a city where I knew no one; it was everything I thought it would be. No one I had
to share anything with, everything as pristine as I left it when I returned at days end. Although even for me,
the novelty of spending night after night just cleaning the art nouveau ceramic fireplace with a toothbrush
eventually wore off.
As one friend pointed out when asked if she craved her own company, When you choose to go away by
yourself its a treat, but when my marriage broke up and all my friends would say how lucky I was to have
the house to myself every second weekend, I didnt feel lucky. Without my two boys it was just so quiet. It
felt wrong.

30

35

The cruelly beautiful irony of life is what we most crave when we are mired in the daily grind freedom
from routine, distance from loved ones is what we most miss when we are removed from it. We dream
of running away, escaping, but no one really wants to be friendless or unemployed. Without toil or ties,
drudgery or duty, with which to compare it, liberty is impossible to fully appreciate. When young and fancyfree all I really wanted was to find something, somewhere, someone to call my own. Theres a painful chasm
between being alone and being lonely.

Megan Nicol Reed, Lost in isolation (adapted), Sunday Star-Times, Section C,

p. 16, November 13, 2011

QUESTION ONE:
1. Explain how the writer uses techniques to establish her ideas in paragraph 1.
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________

Teachers
use only

QUESTION TWO:
2. The writer refers to the thoughts of several friends. With reference to the text, explain
how the views of the writers friends are used to develop her ideas.
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________

Teachers
use only

Refer to Text B to answer Questions Three and Four.

Text B: In this extract the writer describes a relationship between a husband and wife.

TEXT B
Years with a husband
Stone to her water
his edges eroded slowly
leaving the core in place.
He was immovable
5 from desk, chair,
or opinion,
the slave and exemplar
of routine.
If she let him
10 he would wear those clothes
scuffed fawn trousers,
frayed blue shirt
till eternity,
till kingdom come.
15 He would vote the same way,
express the same dislikes:
lawn bowls, modern art, the very thought
of a Pacific holiday.
Their son
20 she now saw
was growing stony too.
She blamed testosterone
and private schools.

25

Still, there was this:

that as she stretched and changed
rode the course of her life
her husband would always be there,
blunt, imperceptive, abrupt:
her rock.

Tim Jones, Years with a Husband, Men Briefly Explained,

p. 47, Interactive Press, Brisbane, 2011

QUESTION THREE:
3. Analyse how the writer uses figurative language in stanza 1 to establish his theme.
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________

Teachers
use only

QUESTION FOUR:
4. Analyse how the poet uses techniques to present negative characterisations of the
males in stanza 2.
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________

Teachers
use only

Refer to Text A and Text B to answer Questions Five and Six.

Comparison.
QUESTION FIVE:
5. Compare and contrast the ways the writers use irony.
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________

Teachers
use only

QUESTION SIX:
6. Compare and contrast how attitudes to routine lifestyles are expressed in the texts.
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________

Teachers
use only

Achievement Standard 90724

Read and respond critically to unfamiliar prose and poetry texts.

BBA PRACTICE EXAMINATION

FOR TEACHERS USE ONLY

Write N = Not Achieved

Write A = Achieved
Write M = Merit
Write E = Excellence
1.

Achieved, Merit, Excellence level questions

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

1. To gain Achievement, a candidate must correctly answer any

3 questions at Achievement level.
(3A = A)
2. To gain Merit a candidate must correctly answer at least at
least 2 questions at Merit level, and at least 1 question at
Achievement level.

(1A + 2M = M)

3. To gain Excellence a candidate must correctly answer at least

1 question at Excellence level, and at least 2 questions at
Achievement level.

(2A + 1E = E)

NB: Grades can credit down

eg. 2A + 1M = A

= Overall Level

BBA Educational Resources 2012

10