Daily Practice · A Level
August 1985 5-a-day
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Every sheet in August 1985
The same date always regenerates the same five questions, so a sheet you print today is the sheet a classmate prints tomorrow.
- 1st August 1985Define synthetic personalisation and give an example.
- 2nd August 1985Convert this into a comparative sentence: 'In poem A the sea is a threat. In poem B the sea is a comfort.'
- 3rd August 1985What is meant by a 'structural shift' in an unseen text?
- 4th August 1985Name the linguist associated with the 'damp spoon', 'crumbling castle' and 'infectious disease' images of prescriptivist attitudes.
- 5th August 1985Identify one way this stage direction creates foreboding: 'Thunder, distant. The lamp flickers and does not right itself.'
- 6th August 1985What term describes a variety of language used in a specific social setting or for a specific purpose?
- 7th August 1985Identify the narrative structure technique where the story jumps back in time to an earlier event.
- 8th August 1985Why should an answer analysing children's writing not simply list spelling errors?
- 9th August 1985The final sentence of an extract is a fragment: 'Rain, again.' Suggest two effects worth arguing for.
- 10th August 1985Explain in one sentence why comparing structure, not just content, matters when comparing two poems.
- 11th August 1985A child calls all four-legged animals 'doggie'. What is this process called?
- 12th August 1985A poem has four-line stanzas. What is this stanza form called?
- 13th August 1985Explain how an agentless passive can exercise power.
- 14th August 1985Explain why comparing subject matter alone rarely reaches the higher bands.
- 15th August 1985What should you do first when reading an unseen extract in an exam?
- 16th August 1985The word 'dog' once referred to one specific breed but now refers to the whole species. Name this type of semantic change.
- 17th August 1985In the line 'I have kept this light for twenty-six years, and the sea has never once told me my business,' identify the tone.
- 18th August 1985Give one example of a linguistic feature typical of unplanned spoken discourse.
- 19th August 1985What is the effect of a very short, simple sentence placed after a long, complex one?
- 20th August 1985Define a virtuous error and explain why it matters theoretically.
- 21st August 1985A student writes: 'The sibilance creates a soft, sinister mood.' What is missing?
- 22nd August 1985In 'I sold the lamp for scrap and kept the key,' identify the contrast being set up.
- 23rd August 1985Calculate 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).
- 24th August 1985Identify the technique in 'the silence screamed.'
- 25th August 1985Give two spoken features that typically mark a less powerful participant.
- 26th August 1985A poem in regular iambic pentameter breaks the metre in one line only. Suggest how to analyse it.
- 27th August 1985Give one reason subject terminology should be used carefully in unseen analysis.
- 28th August 1985The word 'nice' once meant 'foolish or fussy' but now means 'pleasant'. Name this type of semantic change.
- 29th August 1985A tragic hero's downfall is usually explained by two competing forces. Name them.
- 30th August 1985Identify which is more likely to use nominalisation and passive voice: a casual spoken chat or a formal council report.
- 31st August 1985Identify the technique in this phrase: 'the silence pressed against the windows like a living thing.'