Daily Practice · A Level

December 2012 - A Level 5-a-day

Every A Level sheet published in December 2012, with answers. A Level - discourse, register, framework analysis and language change.

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December 2012

31 sheets · 155 questions · A Level

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The batch download puts all 5 tiers' December 2012 sheets in a single PDF, each tier behind its own divider page - 155 sheets in one file.

Every sheet in December 2012

The same date always regenerates the same five questions, so a sheet you print today is the sheet a classmate prints tomorrow.

  1. 1st December 2012How can flouting a Gricean maxim be an exercise of power?
  2. 2nd December 2012Give one risk of using a comparison grid, and how to avoid it.
  3. 3rd December 2012In 'watching for headlights that were not, yet, her mother's,' what effect does the delayed final phrase have?
  4. 4th December 2012The word 'awful' once meant 'inspiring awe or reverence' but now means 'very bad'. Name this type of semantic change.
  5. 5th December 2012What is 'hubris'?
  6. 6th December 2012What is the term for turning a verb or adjective into a noun, e.g. 'decide' becoming 'decision'?
  7. 7th December 2012What term describes an object or image that represents a wider idea, e.g. a wilting flower representing decline?
  8. 8th December 2012Give two of Halliday's functions of language and an example utterance for each.
  9. 9th December 2012Rewrite this weak sentence to earn AO2 credit: 'The writer uses a simile to describe the house, which makes it more interesting.'
  10. 10th December 2012Name one comparative connective a writer could use to link two ideas across texts.
  11. 11th December 2012What is meant by the 'holophrastic stage'?
  12. 12th December 2012What term describes a comparison using 'like' or 'as'?
  13. 13th December 2012Define synthetic personalisation and give an example.
  14. 14th December 2012Convert this into a comparative sentence: 'In poem A the sea is a threat. In poem B the sea is a comfort.'
  15. 15th December 2012Identify one language technique in 'the wind came straight through.'
  16. 16th December 2012Name one social factor, other than region, that can cause variation in a person's language use.
  17. 17th December 2012Name the term for the moment the audience senses danger the protagonist does not yet see.
  18. 18th December 2012Name one contextual factor, other than mode, that can affect a text's linguistic choices.
  19. 19th December 2012What term describes a narrative told using 'I' and limited to one character's knowledge?
  20. 20th December 2012Why should an answer analysing children's writing not simply list spelling errors?
  21. 21st December 2012The final sentence of an extract is a fragment: 'Rain, again.' Suggest two effects worth arguing for.
  22. 22nd December 2012Identify the semantic field used in the phrase 'the beam still turns, still finds the rocks.'
  23. 23rd December 2012A child uses 'car' only for the family car and not for any other cars. What is this process called?
  24. 24th December 2012What is the effect of enjambment, a line running on without punctuation into the next?
  25. 25th December 2012Explain how an agentless passive can exercise power.
  26. 26th December 2012Explain why comparing subject matter alone rarely reaches the higher bands.
  27. 27th December 2012What is meant by a 'structural shift' in an unseen text?
  28. 28th December 2012Name the linguist associated with the 'damp spoon', 'crumbling castle' and 'infectious disease' images of prescriptivist attitudes.
  29. 29th December 2012Identify one way this stage direction creates foreboding: 'Thunder, distant. The lamp flickers and does not right itself.'
  30. 30th December 2012What term describes a variety of language used in a specific social setting or for a specific purpose?
  31. 31st December 2012Identify the narrative structure technique where the story jumps back in time to an earlier event.

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