Stage 9 Language test

1. Give a synonym for each of the following words

a) Huge ________________________
b) Fantastic_____________________
c) Kind _________________________
(3)
2. Underline the simile phrase in this sentence

a) All those moments will be lost in time, like… tears in rain. (1)

3. Identify which language feature has been used in these sentences

a) All the world’s a stage __________________.

b) Honk honk goes the car horn ______________.
c) But on a May morning on the Malvern hills, a marvelous sight I beheld
_____________________________
d) This work is going to take me years to finish _____________________.
e) The boy was laughing on the street while the girl cried on the balcony above.
f) Create a sentence using figurative language to describe the sound of rain on a tin roof.
________________________________________________________________________
(6)
Identify this language feature which is also a sound device
4. The trees swayed in the gentle breeze ____________________. (1)

5. Why is this sound device effective?

_______________________________________________________________ (1)

6. What is a simile?
_______________________________________________________________________________ (1)

7. Create your own simile in a sentence.

________________________________________________________________________ (1)

8. Identify the language feature and describe which emotion it could express (Mood)
The sun smiled down at us.
___________________________________________________________________ (2)
List these language devices:

9a. Saves time, money and aggravation ______________________________________

b. Every week we’re seeing new and undeniable climate events, evidence that accelerated
climate change is here right now. Droughts are intensifying. Our oceans are acidifying with
methane plumes rising up from the ocean
floor.______________________________________________
c. The time to answer humankind’s greatest challenge is now.____________________
d.. And solving this crisis is not a question of politics__________________
e. How often do you think about the future?
____________________________________ (5)
10. Underline 3 colloquialisms
Folks don’t like it when somebody’s around knowin’ more than they do. It aggravates ‘em.
You’re not gonna change any of them. (3)
11. Underline 3 adjectives
His dog was a huge white brute, a mountain dog from the South. It’s coat was matted and filthy;
it lifted its massive head and watched him with lunatic eyes. (3)
12. Underline 3 verbs
I lifted my head from the snow and stared at a grotesque distortion in the right knee. I kicked
my left leg free of the rope and swung round until I was hanging against the snow on my chest,
feet down. (3)
13. Look at the sentences below. How is the second sentence different from the first? Underline
three words in the second sentence that have an emotional appeal.

a) Another person in the bar was injured by the man's glass.

b) An innocent bystander suffered facial injuries when the thug launched his glass
across the bar. (4)
A Christmas Carol
14. Dickens describes the weather as “cold…bleak and biting” which could also be added to the
sketch of Scrooge, conveying how Scrooge feels. Which language device does Dickens use?
__________________________________
15. “Nobody ever stopped him in the street …No beggars implored him …, no children asked him
what it was o'clock, no man or woman ever once in all his life inquired the way to such and such
a place, of Scrooge” The use of ___________________ here, through the repetition of the word
'no' shows that Scrooge cannot be affected by outside influences. He is so unfeeling and cold
that the weather simply does not affect him - just as the plight of the poor does not affect him.
16. The chain Marley is weighed down by is made up of cashboxes, keys, padlocks, ledgers,
deeds, and heavy purses wrought in steel—that is, the chain around his middle consists of
things he valued while he was alive, and now serves as a means of eternal punishment. Dickens
uses _________________________ to represent the time Marley spent caring about the
material aspects of his life instead of caring about those around him.
17. A ___________________character is a literary element that serves as a contrast to the main
character, or the protagonist. The ___________________personality traits, attributes, values,
or motivations serve to highlight the traits of the protagonist. If the protagonist is brave, the
___________ is timid. If the protagonist is kind, the foil is ________________ Scrooge’s
______________ is ____________________,
18. Scrooge spends much of the text begging to return to reality, and yet during his encounter
with the Ghost of Christmas Present, he begs to continue the dream. Which language
device is used here? _________________________
19. Scrooge was unaware throughout the stave, that the death he was witnessing was his own.
Which device is used here? _________________________
20. How is the Ghost of Christmas Future different to the other ghosts?

__________________________________________________________________
21. The way the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come is described, alludes to the
________________________.
22. A pale light, rising in the outer air, fell straight upon the bed; and on it, plundered and
bereft, unwatched, unwept, uncared for, was the body of this man.
The use of tripling in “unwatched, unwept, uncared for, was the body of a man.” imply that the
human in the bed has no one to care for him or mourn for him, which is true at this point in the
novella. Scrooge’s death shows that he has reaped what he sowed and in death he is alone, like
in life. The repetition of the negative ________________ Un emphasises loneliness and
neglect.
23. List three themes of A Christmas Carol______________________________________ (10)
Punctuation
24. Identify this punctuation mark
a. … _______________________________
b. Now use it in a sentence for effect.
____________________________________________________________________________
c. Give one reason a writer may use this punctuation in a text.
______________________________________________________________________________
d. Give one reason a series of short sentences might be used in a text.
_____________________________________________________________________________________

e. What is wrong with this sentence?

This is an example of a __________________________. Which punctuation mark should be

used instead_________________________
f. As soon as I understood the problem. I thought of a solution.
This is incorrect as the student has used sentence________________________
Rewrite this sentence __________________________________________________________
(8)
25. Name these sentence types:
a. I boiled the kettle and made myself a tea._________________________________
b. We went to the park.________________________________
c. After we went to the dentist, my mother surprised us with supper in the park_____________
d. Highlight the dependant clause in c.

26. Identify the tone of these extracts:

Peaceful Whimsical Humorous Nostalgic Gloomy Fearful

a “And the trees all died. They were orange trees. I don’t know why they died, they just died.
Something wrong with the soil possibly or maybe the stuff we got from the nursery wasn’t the
best. We complained about it. So we’ve got thirty kids there, each kid had his or her own little
tree to plant and we’ve got these thirty dead trees. All these kids looking at these little brown
sticks, it was depressing.”____________________

b “This was the last fish we were ever to see Paul catch. My father and I talked about this
moment several times later, and whatever our other feelings, we always felt it fitting that, when
we saw him catch his last fish, we never saw the fish but only the artistry of the
fisherman.”___________________
d “Why don't scientists trust atoms? Because they make up everything!” ___________________
f. A dragonfly zipped through the air, its aquamarine wings flashing in the sunlight.
___________________
g. “It was the most frightening hour of my life! I crept slowly along the wall, making sure he—or
whoever or whatever he or it was—couldn’t hear me. I was so certain he, or it, was right there
that my heartbeat like a thumping elephant…half-expecting something to jump out at me from
the bushes.” _________________________
27. Identify the atmosphere set by the highlighted words

claustrophobic tense threatening dangerous cheerful

a It is an unspoken hunger we deflect with knives – one avocado between us, cut neatly in half,
twisted then separated from the large wooden pit. With the green fleshy boats in hand, we slice
vertical strips from one end to the other. We smother the avocado with salsa, hot chili’s at noon
in the desert.” ____________________
b. Clear sky, stripped umbrellas and a cooler full of ice: it was going to be a great day.
________________

c. Luke kept close to the wall as he crept slowly, slowly, towards what he thought was
the thing. Suddenly, he stopped. He stared intently at the bushes and braced himself for the
worst, as if expecting some unworldly monster to run out from under those dense leaves and
bite him _____________________
d. An empty stream, an oppressive silence and an impenetrable forest. The air was thick, heavy
and sluggish._________________________
e. Blade-like trees that waved from root to tip, barred our way. The woods were dark,
uncontrolled and trees hemmed us in from all sides.______________________

28. The “strangeness of the land” combined with the “air was damp” alters the mood and

___________________________ (gives a hint to what comes later in the story) the possibility of
danger.

29. The sentences shorten and the final one has an ominous tone conveyed through the
use of mono-syllabic ________________ (word class) “close”, “damp” and “deep”.
30.Walker shows the passage of time and it denotes a transition from light to dark – the
second paragraph becoming more sinister.
Find quote:______________________________________
31. Flowers are usually a sign of happiness but here they are represented as
____________________

DENOTATION/CONNOTATION EXERCISE
I. For each pair of words and a phrase, list the one that is positive in the “Positive Connotation”
(P) category, the one that is negative in the “Negative Connotation”(N) category, and the
phrase that is a more neutral definition for both words in the "Denotation" (D) column.
1. gaze_____, look steadily_____, stare_____
2. fragrance_____, odour_____, a smell sensed by the olfactory nerve_____
3. brainwash_____, persuade_____, influence one way or another_____
4. delayed_____, not on time_____, tardy_____
5. somewhat interested_____, nosy_____, curious_____

In each of the following sentences, the italicized word has a fairly neutral
connotation. For each word in italics, list two synonyms (words with similar
denotations): one with a negative connotation and the other with a positive
connotation.