Practice exam question for AQA Paper 1A: Responding to literary fiction texts
Due to copyright, we aren’t able to publish this extract but you can find a copy
of the short story A Sound of Thunder by Ray Bradbury on Google. The questions
refer to the section from ‘Everyone stopped. Travis raised his hand,’ to ‘Like a
stone idol, like a mountain avalanche, Tyrannosaurus fell.’
In this extract a group of safari hunters have travelled back in time to
hunt a dinosaur, the Tyrannosaurus Rex.
1. Read again from ‘It came on great oiled …’ to ‘wherever it settled its weight’.
List four details which suggest the T Rex is powerful and deadly.
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2. Read again from ‘It ran with a gliding ballet step …’ to ‘This is too much for me to get hold
of.’ How does the writer use language here to describe the T Rex?
You could include the writer’s choice of:
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words and phrases
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language features and techniques
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sentence forms.
3. Now think about the whole of the source. How has the writer structured the text to interest
you as a reader?
You could write about:
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what the writer focuses your attention on at the beginning
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how and why the writer changes this focus as the extract develops
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any other structural features that interest you.
4. Focus on the last part of the source, from ‘It can’t be killed,’ to the end. A teacher, having
read this section of the text said: “The writer vividly describes the T Rex and the terror
experienced by Eckels.”
To what extent do you agree?
In your response, you could:
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write about your own impressions of the description of T Rex
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evaluate how the writer has created these impressions
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support your opinions with quotations from the text.
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Practice exam question for AQA Paper 1A: Responding to literary fiction texts
Teacher’s answers
The following suggested answers will help you to mark students’ work with regard to its content.
For skills descriptors, please refer to the AQA mark scheme.
1. Answers might include:
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‘towered ... above the trees’
‘a great evil god’
skin ‘like the mail of a terrible warrior’
‘teeth like daggers’.
2. Answers might include references to:
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metaphor of ‘armored flesh’
simile that its flesh ‘glittered like a thousand green coins’
phrase ‘gliding ballet step’ to convey its graceful movement despite its enormous size
and weight
its flesh ‘crusted with slime’ conveying a sense of its disgusting appearance.
3. The episode begins with speech, delivered in telegraphic sentences. Enigma is created for
the reader - who is in the mist? Who is ‘His Royal Majesty’? The narrative focus then shifts to
a description of the jungle and narrows on the T Rex, which is introduced as the antagonist
in this episode. The dialogue becomes staccato and the exclamation ‘Sh!’ builds suspense
and tension for the reader. The narrative focus then narrows on a description of the physical
appearance of this ‘great evil god’. What follows is more dialogue, spoken in telegraphic
sentences to increase the tempo and to suggest the tension and fear the characters are
experiencing at that moment. The climax of the episode is when the T Rex spies the men and
launches an attack. They begin firing and the reader wonders which of them will be
victorious.
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