St. Paul’s College Form 2 Final Examination Revision Pack 2021-2022 Reading Comprehension Answer KEY Name:________________________________________Class:_________Class No: __________ Total: 32 marks Passage 1 Questions (15 marks) A. Vocabulary 1. B 2. A B. Referencing 3. The sea turtle C. Fact or Opinion 4.a O 4.b F D. Main Idea 5. B 6a D 6b. A 7a. offered 7b. opt 7c. enforced 7d. 1 maintained E. Inference 8. The first year college students’ situation is short of money / poor / strapped for cash (1M) because…I read that… Possible evidence from the text: (1M) ● “You could potentially fill your car without starving yourself, or going to another part-time job.” (paragraph 4) + [I know that…] 1M will be given as long as students support the answer with their own life experience / observation specific to the question. For e.g. first year college students are probably short of cash because they need to earn money by starving themselves or doing a part-time job in order to fill their car with petrol / oil. Passage 2 Questions (17 marks) A. Author’s intention 1. C B. Genre This story is Sci-Fi because: 2. (State a trait of Sci-Fi and how you see that trait in the story) - It contains unreal things that could be real in our world in the future. (It is possible that another race of exists and could visit us. There have been other races of humans before we evolved to our current state.) - It has unreal technologies or discoveries. (The creature was from space, so it could be an alien- something we haven’t discovered as real or not. The technology in the story is language, both English and the “language spoken throughout the universe”.) - It builds a world of possibilities. (The possibility of life beyond Earth-like the star beast- is statistically real.) - It explores what happens when things go wrong. (The creature crashed into Earth. It is clear it wasn’t intentional. Instead of learning from the creature, humans abused it.) - It helps us think about the many different outcomes of our actions. (If we think we’re better than something/someone else we’ll miss out on possible new information: the language spoken throughout the universe, what’s on the otherside of the moon, the far side of Saturn, the Master-Pan. We dismiss that which we don’t understand. We judge too quickly. We punish things that don’t behave the way we expect. ) - It follows rules of science, not magic. (The creature learned English naturally, by first listening, then imitating, and then learning directly. It’s fluency was 2 a process, just like it is for humans.) - It is set in the future. (“Soon upon a time, and not so far ahead.”) - It answers a what-if/what could be question: (The question asked in this story is: What if there was life and society beyond Earth? What if life came to Earth… how would we treat it?) X It is set in a world similar to ours/ in a real world. Can apply to all fiction X Any of these facts of sci-fi without the explanation of how that trait shows up in the story. C. Language 3. _____C_______ 4. ______B_________ 5. Metaphor __ 6. Simile. _This shows that the creature is proud of its identity. / The creature is as graceful and intelligent as a man._________ 7. Personification D. Conflict Note: The character doesn’t have to be human to be a “person” when it comes to conflict, just a character. In Out of Towner, the woman only looked like a woman, but it’s heavily hinted that she’s not. 8a. ___C______ 8b. The star beast/the creature VS human society/humans 8c. Although the creature tries its best to prove that it is in fact a man, the people it meets refuse the idea and insist that it is a beast./ the humans mistreat and degrade it. E. Inference Suggested answers: (Note that you may phrase something differently or may have a different logical progression. The conclusion that the beast has given up will likely be similar) I read that it had first refused to walk on all fours (“Yet some sort of pride, or stubbornness, or courage, made it refuse to crawl, no matter what they threatened or did.”), and I know the people who are punished for being who they are try their best to fit in, so I infer/I think that the beast was weeping and crawling on all fours because it had given up on trying to prove it’s a man/it’s spirit had been broken. I know that people who are depressed or excluded can lose skill or ability, just like how 9. I read that the creature lost the ability to talk, “Nothing would make it speak again”. So, 3 I think that when the creature was weeping and crawling on all fours, the creature was depressed/had given up. Other I infer statements: The creature’s walking upright is a sign that it refuses to give up its identity as a man/ an intelligent being. But the fact that no one treats it like a man and it is stranded on this planet finally breaks it, and if it were a beast, it wouldn’t understand and feel the degradation. Other I read evidence: Paragraph 28: Define a man. I walk upright. Paragraph 30-31: They ordered it to walk properly — on all fours, like any other beast. Yet some sort of pride, or stubbornness, or courage, made it refuse to crawl, no matter what they threatened or did. Paragraph 48: Yet it always walked and ran and jumped as a man would do these things — upright. Not on all fours, like a proper beast. Other I know evidence: (I know)…: Being able to walk upright is a sign of intelligence. / people cry when they have to do something they don’t want to do, but are forced to. 1M will be given for students’ own understanding specific to the question. F. Prediction 10a. No 10b. Possible evidence from the text: ◆ ◆ “Yet whoever had lost it made no attempt to retrieve it, made no offer of reward for its return.” (paragraph 8) “It would stare up wildly into the roof of the great circus canopy — as if it could see through it and out to the sky beyond — as though it sought desperately for help that would not come.” (paragraph 47) 4
