Daily Practice · A Level
December 1977 5-a-day
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The batch download puts all 5 tiers' December 1977 sheets in a single PDF, each tier behind its own divider page - 155 sheets in one file.
Every sheet in December 1977
The same date always regenerates the same five questions, so a sheet you print today is the sheet a classmate prints tomorrow.
- 1st December 1977Explain the difference between commenting on structure and commenting on language in an unseen prose response.
- 2nd December 1977Explain in one sentence why comparing structure, not just content, matters when comparing two poems.
- 3rd December 1977A child calls all four-legged animals 'doggie'. What is this process called?
- 4th December 1977A poem has four-line stanzas. What is this stanza form called?
- 5th December 1977Explain the difference between a positive and a negative face-threatening act.
- 6th December 1977Define volta and explain why it is useful in comparison.
- 7th December 1977What should you do first when reading an unseen extract in an exam?
- 8th December 1977The word 'dog' once referred to one specific breed but now refers to the whole species. Name this type of semantic change.
- 9th December 1977In the line 'I have kept this light for twenty-six years, and the sea has never once told me my business,' identify the tone.
- 10th December 1977Give one example of a linguistic feature typical of unplanned spoken discourse.
- 11th December 1977What is the effect of a very short, simple sentence placed after a long, complex one?
- 12th December 1977Explain how a transcript could be used as evidence against Skinner's account.
- 13th December 1977How can AO3 be addressed in an unseen where no author or date is given?
- 14th December 1977In 'I sold the lamp for scrap and kept the key,' identify the contrast being set up.
- 15th December 1977Calculate the MLU in morphemes for these three utterances: 'I want juice' (3 morphemes), 'the dog barked' (4 morphemes, counting -ed as one), 'mummy gone now' (3 morphemes).
- 16th December 1977Identify the technique in 'the silence screamed.'
- 17th December 1977How can flouting a Gricean maxim be an exercise of power?
- 18th December 1977Give one risk of using a comparison grid, and how to avoid it.
- 19th December 1977Give one reason subject terminology should be used carefully in unseen analysis.
- 20th December 1977The word 'nice' once meant 'foolish or fussy' but now means 'pleasant'. Name this type of semantic change.
- 21st December 1977A tragic hero's downfall is usually explained by two competing forces. Name them.
- 22nd December 1977Identify which is more likely to use nominalisation and passive voice: a casual spoken chat or a formal council report.
- 23rd December 1977Identify the technique in this phrase: 'the silence pressed against the windows like a living thing.'
- 24th December 1977Give two of Halliday's functions of language and an example utterance for each.
- 25th December 1977Rewrite this weak sentence to earn AO2 credit: 'The writer uses a simile to describe the house, which makes it more interesting.'
- 26th December 1977What does the term 'volta' mean in poetry?
- 27th December 1977Name the theorist associated with the Language Acquisition Device (LAD).
- 28th December 1977What term describes a pause or break within a line of poetry, often marked by punctuation?
- 29th December 1977Define synthetic personalisation and give an example.
- 30th December 1977Convert this into a comparative sentence: 'In poem A the sea is a threat. In poem B the sea is a comfort.'
- 31st December 1977True or false: unseen answers are marked mainly on how much of the text you cover.