Sutton SET English Mock Paper 1

C

Necessary has one c and two s letters. A shirt has one collar and two sleeves, and that is the pattern here.

Neccessary and neccesary double the c, which is the commonest slip. Necesary and necesarry only give the word one s.

B

Begin ends in a single vowel plus a single consonant, so the n doubles before -ing: beginning. The g never doubles.

Begining leaves the n single; begginning and beggining double the g by mistake; beginnning has three n letters.

A

There is a rat in separate: s-e-p-A-R-A-T-e. That is the trick worth remembering, because the middle vowel is not the e it sounds like.

Seperate and seperete put an e where the first a belongs, separete swaps the second a, and sepparate doubles the p.

E

The word is built from finite: de-finite-ly. Once you can see finite inside it, the vowels are settled.

Definately is the famous error and puts an a in the middle; definitly and definetly lose the e of finite; defenitely swaps the first i.

B

Rhythm has two h letters and no ordinary vowel at all: r-h-y-t-h-m. The y does the work of the vowel.

Rythm and rythem drop the first h, rhythem and rythem add an e that is not there, and rhithm replaces the y with an i.

D

Occasionally doubles the c and doubles the l, but has only one s: oc-ca-sion-al-ly.

Ocassionally and ocasionally undo the double c, occassionally doubles the s as well, and occasionaly leaves the adverb with one l.

C

It is i before e except after c, and there is no c here, so believe keeps the i first.

Beleive turns the pair round, belive drops the e altogether, beleeve invents a double e and believve doubles the v.

A

Say it slowly and you can hear both r sounds: sur-prise. Both r letters must be written.

Suprise loses the first r, which is what happens when the word is said quickly. Surprize and surprice change the s sound at the end, and surpprise doubles the p.

E

Embarrass doubles both the r and the s. Two of each is the whole rule.

Embarass has a single r, embarras a single s, emberrass swaps the a for an e, and embbarrass doubles the b instead.

B

Neighbour is one of the words where e comes before i, and in British English it keeps the u: -bour.

Neighbor is the American spelling and drops the u. Nieghbour turns the ei round, neighbuor swaps the o and u, and naighbour begins with the wrong vowel.

C

The opening sentence gives the number directly: thirty-one summers. Nan repeats it herself later, to the freezer.

Eleven and nine both appear in the passage, but they are the minutes the kiosk takes to open. Reading a number without checking what it counts is the trap here.

C

The paragraph begins "At ten to four", so the time is given before anything else in the sentence.

Five o'clock is when the kiosk shuts, and ten past four turns the phrase round. Ten to four and ten past four are ten minutes apart in opposite directions, so the wording has to be read exactly.

B

She looks at the tide clock, lifts it off its nail and puts it in her bag, then says that it was always hers.

The keys are in the passage too, but she gives those to the narrator to carry rather than putting them away.

B

The passage says there is a way of opening the kiosk that takes eleven minutes, and then that Nan did it in nine.

The two numbers are easy to swap round. Seven belongs to something else entirely: it is how many minutes late the narrator is.

A

The freezer is switched off at the wall and its door is propped open with a folded tea towel, so that it will not go sour.

The crates, the napkins, the sign and the awning are all in the passage, which is what makes this a reading question rather than a memory one.

C

Putting the sign out is the one job Nan has never let the narrator do, so a sign already out means Nan has been there long enough to do it and then sit down on the step.

A is true of the day but the sign is not the evidence for it. B is nearly right, but Nan has never let the narrator do it, so nothing has changed. D and E both read the sign as being about trade, and this is the emptiest day in the passage.

C

The narrator says "which was not true" and then "she knew it". Nan is not mistaken and she is not asking a question: she is letting the lateness go, on a day when she is letting a great deal go.

A is ruled out by "she knew it". B is close, but teasing would need the joke pointed at the narrator, and this joke lets her off. D and E use real details from the paragraph, but neither explains why Nan says the opposite of the truth.

A

The sentence before it says the hand of the tide clock was pointing at low water, so the exposed sand and the distant bright line are simply what low water looks like.

B overstates it: the narrator says further than she has ever seen it, which is about her, not about the sea's whole history. C picks up "shining", D picks up the wind at the very end of the passage, and E picks up the works, but none of them is what the sentence is describing.

B

Speed is only half of it. Wiping a counter a second time is work invented to fill a gap, and the two details together show someone avoiding the moment when there is nothing left to do.

A is true but explains nothing, since Nan is always quick. C is undone by the morning, in which nobody buys anything. D and E are possible readings of a single detail, but neither covers the wiping and the speed at once.

C

The napkins go down at the exact moment the closure is spoken aloud by someone who has no stake in it. Nan herself will not say the word for another two paragraphs, so hearing it said casually is the thing that lands.

A is true as far as it goes, but the women have been there a while and it is the question, not the empty till, that produces the noise. B, D and E all use real details, but none of them is timed to the sentence that causes the reaction.

A

A stone in a pocket is small, constantly there, and invisible to everyone else. That is the point of the comparison: the weight is private and it has been carried a long way.

C gets the weight but not the carrying, and the narrator has plainly thought about it a great deal. B, D and E are all reasonable guesses about a girl in this situation, but the passage gives no anger, no plan to tell Nan, and no thought about the seafront.

C

The list that follows is the evidence: the works, the arrangements, the paperwork, the man with the clipboard. Every one of those is next to the subject, and the sentence after the list says exactly which three words are missing.

E is a fair reading of a kind grandmother, but it is a guess about a motive, and the narrator is describing a pattern of speech. A and D are contradicted by how much Nan knows about the arrangements, and B invents an expectation the passage never gives.

C

Nothing else about the day matters commercially, because nobody has bought anything. What is left is that this is the last child who will ever be served here, and she sends him off with more than he paid for.

B repeats Nan's own joke as though it were a fact. A is sensible but two flakes is not clearing stock, D turns a boy waving a note into a poor one, and E is contradicted by how deliberate the whole exchange is.

B

The two halves of the sentence are joined for a reason: she watches until she cannot watch any more, and then she turns round. The cleaning is not the point, which is why the scoop is already clean.

A is true of her, and it is exactly the reading the sentence invites you to settle for. C and D happen later and for stated reasons. E is undone by the emptiness of the whole day.

A and C

A tide clock's hand goes round twice a day without stopping, so creeps here means slow and continuous: slowly and steadily.

Creep can certainly mean to move secretly, and that is the sense most children meet first, but a clock has nothing to hide. Noisily is the opposite of the sense, and unwillingly makes the clock reluctant, which the passage does not.

B and C

Proud fits the woman who opens the kiosk faster than she needs to and takes back the clock that was always hers. Reserved fits the woman who will not say the word, and who speaks to the freezer rather than to her granddaughter.

Talkative is nearly right, since she talks all morning, but she talks around the subject rather than freely. Careless is contradicted by the double wiping, and boastful confuses being proud of something with announcing it.

A and B

Ribbed gives the regular ridges the tide leaves behind, which is a pattern, and shining tells you the sand is still wet enough to catch the light.

Crowded is the opposite of this beach on this day. Warm and dirty are things sand can be, but neither is in these two words.

A and C

She is making up a rule on the spot and saying it with a straight face, which is playful, and she is giving away more than she charges for, which is generous.

Dishonest would need someone to be worse off, and nobody is. Bitter belongs to a different kind of last day, and formal is the opposite of inventing a Sunday price for a six-year-old.

D

The passage never says who owns the kiosk. What it says is that the council want the site tidy for the works, which suggests the opposite, and the one thing Nan claims as hers is the tide clock.

A, B, C and E are all stated directly. The trap is that D feels true after thirty-one years, which is exactly why it is worth checking against the words on the page.

E

There is no rain anywhere in the passage. The only weather in it is the wind at the very end and the light on the wet sand.

The two women are in waterproofs, which is the detail that makes rain feel as though it must have happened. It is a coat, not a forecast.

D

The passage says the opposite in so many words: she did not once say closing, or last, or end.

The other four are all stated. D is the false one precisely because the closure is discussed all morning, so it feels as though the word must have been used.

D

The note he holds above his head is a five pound note.

Everything else is on the page. Changing one number in an otherwise accurate sentence is the commonest way a question like this is set, so the numbers are always worth going back for.

A and B and C and E

A, B, C and E are all ways of not stopping and not looking at anyone: arriving early enough to do the first job alone, working too fast, inventing a job, and talking to an appliance.

D is the odd one out. It is a kindness to a customer rather than a way of avoiding the day, and it is the one moment when Nan lets herself enjoy the kiosk.

A and B and C and E

The passage gives the clock brass, one hand, a nail above the freezer, and a place in Nan's bag at the end.

D is the one to reject. A clock with a single hand that goes round twice a day is showing the tide, not the time, which is why Nan uses it to argue with a phone.

B and C and D and E

The narrator says she had known about the closure since August, so B, C, D and E are the new things: the silence, the ownership of the clock, the keys she has never been given before, and the council's reason, said aloud to the freezer.

A is the trap. It is the biggest fact in the passage and the only one she already had.

A and B and C and E

The date, the empty beach, and the two closing-down actions all point the same way: this is the end of the season, and the freezer is being shut off for the winter rather than for the night.

D belongs to summer, not to its end. That is why it is placed so late in the passage: it is the one moment that could have happened on any day of the previous thirty-one years.

A and B and C and E

Everything in the last three paragraphs happens after five: the tea towel, the clock coming off its nail, the keys, and the walk up the ramp.

D never happens at all. The passage ends without the word being said, and the keys are given instead.

A and B and C

The women photograph the pier, ask their question, and buy nothing, which is the detail the passage makes a point of.

D is wrong because they ask the narrator, and it matters: Nan hears the question from behind rather than being asked it. E is wrong because a man with a spaniel walks past first.

B

The next sentence gives the reason: ninety-four winters is nothing to iron and pitch pine. The pier is not disputing the number, it is saying the number means something different for iron than it does for people.

E is close and tempting, but pride in surviving would accept that ninety-four is a great age. A invents an error the pier never claims, C confuses repainting with rebuilding, and D reads a boast as reassurance.

C

The pier explains itself: it knows what the adults are doing, and they are making sure the land is still there. Looking back to check the shore is what somebody does when they are not entirely comfortable being out over water.

D describes the same action without the reason, which is the difference between noticing a detail and understanding it. A and B fit a text about weight and wear, and E is a guess about the pier's feelings that the passage never supports.

B

A falling tide does not trickle away over months: it goes, and what is left is bare. The comparison is about suddenness and completeness, which is why the pier says a single week.

C pushes the image too far, since the tide always returns and so do the summers. E takes the middle of the month, which is when the emptiness is described, and turns it into the moment of leaving. A is the opposite of the image and D uses sand and water for damage the text never mentions.

D

The whole paragraph is about weight: the summer weight going, and what is left to carry. Saying the wind is not nothing corrects the idea that an empty pier is carrying nothing, and the next sentence makes it the heaviest thing of all.

E is nearly right, since the pier is content in winter, but the phrase is about what the wind is rather than what the pier prefers. A, B and C are all reasonable things to say about wind, and none of them is about weight.

B

The paragraph gives three days of darkness, a shutter that has stayed down, and the flat complaint that nobody has told the pier anything at all. The point is the silence, not the darkness.

A is exactly the ordinary explanation the pier is not being given, so it is tempting. D contradicts three days, C reads a closed kiosk as a closed pier, and E is undone by the sentence about not minding the winter.

E

The visitors leave in September; the pier never says it shuts. It goes on carrying gulls, a fisherman and the wind right through the winter.

The difference between a place emptying and a place closing is the whole point of the paragraph, and it is also, at the end, exactly what the pier does not know about the kiosk.

D

The thousands belong to summer. By the middle of September the pier lists exactly three things it carries, and visitors are not among them.

Option E restates the list rather than adding to it, which is what the words "nothing but" mean.

E

The weight leaves in a single week. By the middle of September the pier is already down to gulls, one fisherman and the wind, so the visitors have long gone.

The middle of the month is in the passage, which is what makes E feel quotable. It is the date of the emptiness, not the date of the leaving.

A and B and C and E

The summer paragraph gives the thousands, the weight spread along the boards, the running children and the adults looking back.

D is true of the pier but not of summer. Eleven repaintings are spread across ninety-four winters, and the passage never says when they happened.

A and B and C and D

Feeling, remembering, keeping company and counting its own winters are all things a living thing does, and the pier claims every one of them.

E is the one to leave. It is what other people say about piers, and the pier quotes it in order to disagree with it in the very next sentence.

A and B and C and E

The paragraph places the kiosk at the shore end, gives it three dark days and a shutter that has stayed down, and opens with the pier saying it does not mind the winter.

D is the opposite of the last words on the page: nobody has told me anything at all.

B and C

Gulls do not pretend to be doing one thing while checking that the land is still there, and they ask nothing of the pier. Straightforward and undemanding carry both of those.

Truthful is the dictionary meaning and the reason this question is worth setting: a gull cannot tell the truth or lie, so the word has to be doing something else here. Polite is nearly the opposite of a gull, and wealthy belongs to a different meaning of the word altogether.

A and B and C and E

Both texts stand at the same stretch of coast, both use I, both are about the season emptying, and both put a kiosk in it.

D is the difference the whole of Section D depends on: Text 1 is told by a granddaughter and Text 2 by the pier itself.

A and B and C

Hallam Sands is named only in Text 1, only Text 1 looks back on a day that is over, and only Text 1 lets a character speak aloud.

D and E are the traps. Both texts have wind in them, and Text 1 mentions the pier when the two women photograph it, so neither belongs to one text alone.

A and B and C and E

A pier can report the weight of a crowd, judge the people crossing it, watch every season out to the end, and count its life in winters. A person could do none of those four.

D is the one to leave out, and it is the thing Text 1 can do that Text 2 cannot: there is nobody for the pier to talk to, which is exactly why its last line lands as it does.

A and B and C and E

Switching off, bringing in, shuttering and unhooking are all the same action in different forms: a season being closed down.

D is maintenance rather than an ending, and it is spread across ninety-four winters rather than belonging to this one.

A and B and C

Both texts are built on a silence that the narrator notices, and both narrators watch closely: a counter wiped twice, a shutter that has stayed down for three days.

D turns quiet attention into anger, which neither text gives. E is false because Text 1's narrator uses the word herself; it is Nan who will not.

A and B and D and E

The wind closes Text 1 and is weighed in Text 2, the pier states its view of winter outright, and the low tide is the first thing Text 1 shows us.

C is the trap that the waterproofs in Text 1 set. Neither text contains any rain at all.

A and B and C and D

Each text keeps its own tally, and the two of them even share the number eleven for entirely different things, which is worth noticing rather than confusing.

E is wrong because thousands is not a count. It is the pier's way of saying more than it can hold in mind, which is the opposite of the exact numbers elsewhere.

A and B and C and E

Putting the two texts side by side gives the kiosk a position, an owner, a last customer and a length of silence, and no single text gives all four.

D is contradicted by the last line of Text 2, and it is the gap that joins the two texts: the same closure, unexplained to everyone standing near it.

B

Two things change together between the texts: who is speaking, and when they are speaking from. B is the only option that holds both.

C and D are true, but they are differences of length and punctuation rather than of telling. A ignores the pier's opinions about people, and E flattens two texts that are both quietly unsettled.

A

Emptying is the shared subject: the beach with one dog walker and two photographers, and the pier whose weight leaves in a single week.

E is the closest wrong answer, because Text 1 does give a reason and Text 2 gives none. D is undone by the three dark days, C makes a pier an employee, and B puts both texts in a season neither of them has reached.

A

The sentence after it says the same thing again in plainer words: a way of standing above the water, with a handrail.

C is the sensible, practical version of the idea and misses the unease in it. D is the view the pier has just rejected, B adds a judgement the pier never makes, and E gives a pier the job of a sea wall.

B

Text 1 shows exactly how this closure is discussed: the works, the arrangements, the paperwork, the man with the clipboard, and never the word itself. Text 2 is what that habit sounds like from outside, where all that arrives is silence.

D is contradicted by the works already being arranged, and E by the two women who ask about it. A and C are ordinary explanations for one dark kiosk, but neither uses Text 1, which is what a comparison question is for.