CATHOLIC JUNIOR COLLEGE
in collaboration with
WHO SAYS THEY HAVE TO BE CONTEMPORARY
Higher 1 / 2
2009-2010
LITERATURE IN ENGLISH
Paper 1 Reading Literature
Additional Materials: Answer Paper
8810/01
9725/01
Your Own Time
Set texts may be taken into the examination room. They may bear underlining or highlighting.
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permitted.
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Write your name, class and question number on all the work you hand in.
Write in dark blue or black pen on both sides of the paper.
Do not use paper clips, highlighters, glue or correction fluid on your work.
Answer one question, any from anywhere.
You are reminded of the need for good English and clear presentation in your answers.
At the end of the examination, fasten all your work securely together.
All questions in this paper carry equal marks.
This document consists of many printed pages including this cover page.
Contemporary British Poets:
Sophie Hannah, James Fenton, Eileen Ni Chuilleanain (2009 Nov), George Barker, Elaine Feinstein, Norman MacCaig (2008 Nov), Robert
Graves, Stevie Smith, Tony Harrison (2007 Nov), Louis MacNiece, Stephen Spender.
Contemporary American Poets:
James Wright (2009 Nov), William Stafford (2008 Nov), Elizabeth Bishop (2007 Nov), Billy Collins, Raymond Carver, Charles Simic,
2 2009 H1 Mid-Year Examination
Either
(a)
Compare and contrast the following poems, considering in detail the ways in which
each poet’s language and style present marriage and love. Poem A is by Stevie
Smith and Poem B is by Robert William Service.
A
The Jungle Husband
Dearest Evelyn, I often think of you
Out with the guns in the jungle stew
Yesterday I hittapotamus
I put the measurements down for you but they got lost in the fuss
It's not a good thing to drink out here
You know, I've practically given it up dear.
Tomorrow I am going alone a long way
Into the jungle. It is all grey
But green on top
Only sometimes when a tree has fallen
The sun comes down plop, it is quite appalling.
You never want to go in a jungle pool
In the hot sun, it would be the act of a fool
Because it's always full of anacondas, Evelyn, not looking ill-fed
I'll say. So no more now, from your loving husband Wilfred.
B
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15
Three Wives
Said Jones: "I'm glad my wife's not clever;
Her intellect is second-rate.
If she was witty she would never
Give me a chance to scintillate;
But cap my humorous endeavour
And make me seem as addle-pate."
Said Smith: "I'm glad my wife's no beauty,
For if a siren's charm she had,
And stinted her domestic duty,
I fear that she would drive me mad:
For I am one of those sad fellows
Who are unreasonably jealous."
Said Brown: "I know my wife's not witty,
Nor is she very long on looks;
She's neither humorous nor pretty,
But oh how she divinely cooks!
You guys must come some night to dinner You'll see my little girl's a winner."
So it's important in our lives,
(Exaggerating more or less),
To be content with our wives,
And prize the virtues they possess;
And with dispraise to turn one's back
On all the qualities they lack.
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3 Or
(b)
Compare and contrast the following poems, considering in detail how the use of
imagery, language and form present memory. Poem A is by D.H. Lawrence and
Poem B is by James Henry.
A
Piano
Softly, in the dusk, a woman is singing to me
Taking me back down the vista of years, till I see
A child sitting under the piano, in the boom of the
tingling strings
And pressing the small, poised feet of a mother who
smiles as she sings.
In spite of myself, the insidious mastery of song
Betrays me back, till the heart of me weeps to belong
To the old Sunday evenings at home, with winter outside
And hymns in the cosy parlour, the tinkling piano our
guide.
So now it is vain for the singer to burst into clamour
With the great black piano appassionato. The glamour
Of childish days is upon me, my manhood is cast
Down in the flood of remembrance, I weep like a child
for the past.
B
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15
Very Old Man
I well remember how some threescore years
And ten ago, a helpless babe, I toddled
From chair to chair about my mother’s chamber,
Feeling, as ‘twere, my way in the new world
And foolishly afraid of, or, as ‘t might be,
Foolishly pleased with, th’ unknown objects round me.
And now with stiffened joints I sit all day
In one of those same chairs, as foolishly
Hoping or fearing something from me hid
Behind the thick, dark veil which I see hourly
And minutely on every side round closing
And from my view all objects shutting out.
5
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4 2009 H2 Mid-Year Examination
Either
(a)
Compare and contrast the following poems, considering in detail how language, style
and form present love. Poem A is by Andrew Fusek Peters and Poem B is by
Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
A
The Passionate Pupil Declaring Love
Come meet with me and after school
Perhaps you’ll see that I’m no fool
If only you would understand,
How I want to hold your hand
We could walk around the park
Until the day grows old and dark
And on the swings we’ll learn to fly
Together we will touch the sky,
And I will make a daisy chain,
Create a crown from drops of rain
5
10
Weave a gown of greenest grass
And watch the hours quickly pass
As we run home through all the streets
I shall give you all my sweets,
The singing of the traffic jam
Will tell you how in love I am
In class your laughter makes me cry
And I just want to ask you why
You think that I am such a fool
To dream of meeting after school
B
20
Beloved, thou hast brought me many flowers
Belovëd, thou hast brought me many flowers
Plucked in the garden, all the summer through,
And winter, and it seemed as if they grew
In this close room, nor missed the sun and showers.
So, in the like name of that love of ours,
Take back these thoughts which here unfolded too,
And which on warm and cold days I withdrew
From my heart’s ground. Indeed, those beds and bowers
Be overgrown with bitter weeds and rue,
And wait thy weeding; yet here’s eglantine,
Here’s ivy!—take them, as I used to do
Thy flowers, and keep them where they shall not pine.
Instruct thine eyes to keep their colours true,
And tell thy soul, their roots are left in mine.
15
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10
5 Or
(b)
Compare and contrast the following poems. Consider carefully the ways in which the
use of language and form present family. Poem A is by R.S. Gwynn and Poem B is
by Carol Ann Duffy.
A
Scenes from the Playroom
Now Lucy with her family of dolls
Disfigures Mother with an emery board,
While Charles, with match and rubbing alcohol,
Readies the struggling cat, for Chuck is bored.
The young ones pour more ink into the water
Though which the latest goldfish family swims,
Laughing, pointing at naked, neutered Father.
The toy chest is a Buchenwald of limbs.
Mother is so lovely; Father, so late.
The cook is off, yet dinner must go on.
With onions as her only cause for tears
She hacks the red meat from the slippery bone,
Setting the table, where the children wait,
Her grinning babies, clean behind the ears.
B
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10
Lizzie, Six
What are you doing?
I’m watching the moon.
I’ll give you the moon
When I get there.
Where are you going?
To play in the fields.
I’ll give you the fields,
bend over the chair
What are you thinking?
I’m thinking of love.
I’ll give you love
when I’ve climbed this stair.
Where are you hiding?
Deep in the wood.
I’ll give you wood
when your bottom’s bare.
Why are you crying?
I’m afraid of the dark.
I’ll give you the dark
and I do not care.
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20
6 2009 H2 Promotional Examination
1 Either
(a)
Compare and contrast the following poems, ‘Introduction to Poetry’ by Billy Collins
and ‘The Power of Poetry’ by Tom Zart. Pay close attention to the ways language,
imagery and verse form contribute to each poet’s view on poetry.
A
Introduction to Poetry
I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide
or press an ear against its hive.
I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,
5
or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for a light switch.
I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author's name on the shore.
10
But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.
They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.
B
15
The Power of Poetry
Poetry is the lighthouse of life
Guiding the lost from a stormy sea.
Without its presence darkness prevails
Keeping us from all we can be.
Poems are used to convey passion
By poets of both good and evil mood.
Some are hateful others loving
Sharing thoughts to be consumed as food.
Verse can lead us to glory or doom
As we partake with others within.
Depicting our past, present and future
With words of man's grace or sin.
People write poetry because they have no choice
Answering to the call of their gift.
Where some tend to pull their readers down
Others compose to give them a lift.
Always remember the power of poetry
Is used by both heaven and hell.
It's up to us to choose our pleasure
As poetry remains alive and well.
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7 Or
(b)
Compare and contrast the following poems, ‘Rain’ by Edward Thomas and ‘What
lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why’ by Edna St. Vincent Millay. Pay close
attention to the ways each poet’s language and style are used to create a sense of
solitude.
A
Rain
Rain, midnight rain, nothing but the wild rain
On this bleak hut, and solitude, and me
Remembering again that I shall die
And neither hear the rain nor give it thanks
For washing me cleaner than I have been
Since I was born into this solitude.
Blessed are the dead that the rain rains upon:
But here I pray that none whom once I loved
Is dying tonight or lying still awake
Solitary, listening to the rain,
Either in pain or thus in sympathy
Helpless among the living and the dead,
Like a cold water among broken reeds,
Myriads of broken reeds all still and stiff,
Like me who have no love which this wild rain
Has not dissolved except the love of death,
If love it be for what is perfect and
Cannot, the tempest tells me, disappoint.
B
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15
What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why
What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts to-night, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply;
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain,
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.
Thus in the winter stands the lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet knows its boughs more silent than before:
I cannot say what loves have come and gone;
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more.
5
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8 2010 H1 Common Test
1 Either
(a)
Compare and contrast the following poems, considering in detail ways in which your
responses are shaped by the writers’ language, style and form. Poem A is by
Edmund Waller and Poem B is by D.H. Lawrence.
A
B
Song
Go, lovely rose,
Tell her that wastes her time and me
That now she knows,
When I resemble her to thee,
How sweet and fair she seems to be.
5
Tell her that's young,
And shuns to have her graces spied,
That hadst thou sprung
In deserts, where no men abide,
Thou must have uncommended died.
10
Small is the worth
Of beauty from the light retir’d;
Bid her come forth,
Suffer herself to be desir’d,
And not blush so to be admire‘d.
15
Then die, that she
The common fate of all things rare
May read in thee;
How small a part of time they share,
That are so wondrous sweet and faire.
20
We've made a great mess of love
since we made an ideal of it.
The moment I swear to love a woman, a certain woman,
all my life
that moment I begin to hate her.
5
The moment I even say to a woman: I love you! --My love dies down considerably.
The moment love is an understood thing between us, we are
sure of it,
It's a cold egg, it isn't love any more.
Love is like a flower, it must flower and fade;
if it doesn't fade, it is not a flower,
it's either an artificial rag blossom, or an immortelle, for
the cemetery.
The moment the mind interferes with love, or the will
fixes on it,
or the personality assumes it as an attribute, or the ego
takes possession of it,
it is not love any more, it's just a mess.
And we've made a great mess of love, mind-perverted,
will-perverted, ego-perverted love.
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20
9 OR
(b)
Compare and contrast the following poems, considering in detail ways in which your
responses are shaped by the writers’ language, style and form. Poem A is by Jackie
Kay and Poem B is by Billy Collins.
A
Her
I had been told about her.
How she would always, always.
How she would never, never.
I’d watched and listened
But I still fell for her,
how she always, always.
How she never, never.
In the small brave night,
her lips, butterfly movements.
I tried to catch and she laughed
a loud laugh that cracked me in two,
but then I had been told about her,
how she would always, always.
How she would never, never.
We two listened to the wind.
We two galloped a pace.
We two, up and away, away, away.
And now she’s gone,
Like she said she would go.
But then I had always been told about her how she would always, always.
B
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20
The Breather
Just as in the horror movies
when someone discovers that the phone calls
are coming from inside the house
so too, I realized
that our tender overlapping
has been taking place only inside me.
5
All that sweetness, the love and desire—
it’s just been me dialing myself
then following the ringing to another room
to find no one on the line,
well, sometimes a little breathing
but more often than not, nothing.
To think that all this time—
which would include the boat rides,
the airport embraces, and all the drinks—
it’s been only me and the two telephones,
the one on the wall in the kitchen
and the extension in the darkened guest room upstairs.
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15
10 2010 H2 Common Test
1 Either
(a)
Compare and contrast the following poems, “The Winter Palace” by Philip Larkin
and “Beautiful Old Age” by D.H. Lawrence, considering in detail the ways in which
your responses are shaped by the writers’ language, style and form.
A
The Winter Palace
Most people know more as they get older:
I give all that the cold shoulder.
I spent my second quarter-century
Losing what I had learnt at university
And refusing to take in what had happened since.
Now I know none of the names in the public prints,
5
And am starting to give offence by forgetting faces
And swearing I’ve never been in certain places.
It will be worth it, if in the end I manage
To blank out whatever it is that is doing the damage.
10
Then there will be nothing I know
My mind will fold into itself, like fields, like snow.
B
Beautiful Old Age
It ought to be lovely to be old
to be full of the peace that comes of experience
and wrinkled ripe fulfilment.
The wrinkled smile of completeness that follows a life
lived undaunted and unsoured with accepted lies.
If people lived without accepting lies
they would ripen like apples, and be scented like pippins
in their old age.
Soothing, old people should be, like apples
when one is tired of love.
Fragrant like yellowing leaves, and dim with the soft
stillness and satisfaction of autumn.
And a girl should say:
It must be wonderful to live and grow old.
Look at my mother, how rich and still she is! –
And a young man should think: By Jove
my father has faced all weathers, but it's been a life!
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11 OR
(b)
Compare and contrast the following poems, “Faintheart in a Railway Train” by
Thomas Hardy and “Moments” by Jane King, considering in detail the ways in which
your responses are shaped by the writers’ language, style and form.
A
B
Faintheart in a Railway Train
At nine in the morning there passed a church,
At ten there passed me by the sea,
At twelve a town of smoke and smirch,
At two a forest of oak and birch,
And then, on a platform, she:
5
A radiant stranger, who saw not me.
I queried, "Get out to her do I dare?"
But I kept my seat in my search for a plea,
And the wheels moved on. O could it but be
That I had alighted there!
10
Moments
Always it’s moments glimpsed while journeying past.
A darkening hill beneath pale yellow sky.
A shivering sense of peace. It does not last.
Soft smoke drifts slowly, seen through glass
and misty sheets of silvering rain pass by.
Always it’s moments glimpsed while journeying past.
5
A jostling market crowd – colours, shrill, fast –
vision evaporates without a sigh.
A shivering sense of peace. It does not last.
A pale sun hangs above a blackened mast
a horror that the self itself will die.
Always it’s moments glimpsed while journeying past.
An orange sun and pools of silvered purple cast
on glistening asphalt. A sense of one – not-I.
A shivering sense of peace. It does not last.
A sense of home, of peace. Driving too fast
Seeking to lose a sense of sinking by…
Always it’s moments glimpsed while journeying past
A shivering sense of peace. It does not last.
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12 2010 H1 Mid-Year Examination
1 Either
(a)
Compare and contrast the following poems, “You and I” by Robert McGough and
“Love, We Must Part Now” by Philip Larkin, considering in detail the ways in which
language, style and form present love and separation.
A
You and I
I explain quietly. You
hear me shouting. You
try a new tack. I
feel old wounds reopen.
You see both sides. I
see your blinkers. I
am placatory. You
sense a new selfishness.
I am a dove. You
recognize the hawk. You
offer an olive branch. I
feel the thorns.
You bleed. I
see crocodile tears. I
withdraw. You
reel from the impact.
B
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15
Love, We Must Part Now
Love, we must part now: do not let it be
Calamitous and bitter. In the past
There has been too much moonlight and self-pity:
Let us have done with it: for now at last
Never has sun more boldly paced the sky,
Never were hearts more eager to be free,
To kick down worlds, lash forests; you and I
No longer hold them; we are husks, that see
The grain going forward to a different use.
There is regret. Always, there is regret.
But it is better that our lives unloose,
As two tall ships, wind-mastered, wet with light,
Break from an estuary with their courses set,
And waving part, and waving drop from sight.
5
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13 OR
(b)
Compare and contrast the following poems, “Praise Song For My Mother” by Grace
Nichols and “In Memory of My Mother” by Patrick Kavanagh, considering in detail
the ways in language, style and form present the parent figure.
A
Praise Song For My Mother
You were
water to me
deep and bold and fathoming
You were
moon's eye to me
pull and grained and mantling
5
You were
sunrise to me
rise and warm and streaming
B
You were
the fishes red gill to me
the flame tree’s spread to me
the crab’s leg/the fried plantain smell
replenishing replenishing
10
Go to your wide futures, you said
15
In Memory of My Mother
I do not think of you lying in the wet clay
Of a Monaghan graveyard; I see
You walking down a lane among the poplars
On your way to the station, or happily
Going to second Mass on a summer Sunday You meet me and you say:
'Don't forget to see about the cattle - '
Among your earthiest words the angels stray.
And I think of you walking along a headland
Of green oats in June,
So full of repose, so rich with life And I see us meeting at the end of a town
On a fair day by accident, after
The bargains are all made and we can walk
Together through the shops and stalls and markets
Free in the oriental streets of thought.
O you are not lying in the wet clay,
For it is a harvest evening now and we
Are piling up the ricks against the moonlight
And you smile up at us - eternally.
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20
14 2010 H2 Mid-Year Examination
1 Either
(a)
Compare and contrast the following poems, “Sonnet Reversed” by Rupert Brooke
and “Yes I’ll Marry You Dear” by Pam Ayres, considering in detail the ways in which
your responses are shaped by language, style and form.
A
Sonnet Reversed
Hand trembling towards hand; the amazing lights
Of heart and eye. They stood on supreme heights.
Ah, the delirious weeks of honeymoon!
Soon they returned, and, after strange adventures,
Settled at Balham by the end of June.
Their money was in Can. Pacs. B. Debentures,
And in Antofagastas. Still he went
Cityward daily; still she did abide
At home. And both were really quite content
With work and social pleasures. Then they died.
They left three children (besides George, who drank):
The eldest Jane, who married Mr Bell,
William, the head-clerk in the County Bank,
And Henry, a stock-broker, doing well.
B
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10
Yes, I’ll Marry You Dear
Yes, I'll marry you, my dear, and here's the reason why;
So I can push you out of bed when the baby starts to cry,
And if we hear a knocking and it's creepy and it's late,
I hand you the torch you see, and you investigate.
Yes I'll marry you, my dear, you may not apprehend it,
But when the tumble-drier goes it's you that has to mend it,
You have to face the neighbour should our labrador attack him,
And if a drunkard fondles me it's you that has to whack him.
Yes, I'll marry you, you're virile and you're lean,
My house is like a pigsty, you can help to keep it clean.
That sexy little dinner which you served by candlelight,
As I do chipolatas, you can cook it every night!
It's you who has to work the drill and put up curtain track,
And when I've got PMT it's you who gets the flak,
I do see great advantages, but none of them for you,
And so before you see the light, I do, I do, I do!
Antofagasta – A port city in Chile.
Balham – A district in London.
Can. Pacs. B. Debentures – Canadian Pacific Railway Debentures.
PMT – Premenstrual tension.
5
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15
15 OR
(b)
Compare and contrast the following poems, “Photograph of My Father in His
Twenty-Second Year” by Raymond Carver and “Friends’ Photos” by Ruth Fainlight,
considering in detail how language, style and form present memory and the past.
A
B
Photograph of My Father in His Twenty-Second Year
October. Here in this dank, unfamiliar kitchen
I study my father's embarrassed young man's face.
Sheepish grin, he holds in one hand a string
of spiny yellow perch, in the other
a bottle of Carlsbad Beer.
5
In jeans and denim shirt, he leans
against the front fender of a 1934 Ford.
He would like to pose bluff and hearty for his posterity,
Wear his old hat cocked over his ear.
All his life my father wanted to be bold.
10
But the eyes give him away, and the hands
that limply offer the string of dead perch
and the bottle of beer. Father, I love you,
yet how can I say thank you, I who can't hold my liquor either,
and don't even know the places to fish?
15
Friends’ Photos
We all looked like goddesses
and gods, glowing and smooth, sheathed
from head to foot by a golden essence
that glistens and refracted its aura
of power – the wonderful ichor called youth
5
We moved as easily as dolphins
Surging out of the ocean, cleaving
Massed tons of transparent water
streaming away in swathes of bubbling
silver like the plasm of life
Still potent from those black and white
photos, the palpable electric
charge between us, like the negative
and positive poles of a battery,
or the fingers of Adam and God.
10
We were beautiful, without exception
I could hardly bear to look at those
old albums, to see the lost glamour
we never noticed when we were
first together – when we were young
15
16 2010 Preliminary Examination
1 Either
(a)
Compare and contrast the following poems, “You” by Carol Ann Duffy and
“Together, Apart” by Anthony Thwaite, considering the ways in which the writers’
language, style and form present love and desire.
A
You
Uninvited, the thought of you stayed too late in my head,
so I went to bed, dreaming you hard, hard, woke with your name
like tears, soft, salt, on my lips, the sound of its bright syllables
like a charm, like a spell.
Falling in love
is glamorous hell; the crouched, parched heart
like a tiger ready to kill; a flame’s fierce licks under the skin.
Into my life, larger than life, beautiful, you strolled in.
I hid in my ordinary days, in the long grass of my routine,
in my camouflage rooms. You sprawled in my gaze,
staring back from anyone’s face, from the shape of a cloud,
from the pining, earth-struck moon which gapes at me
5
10
as I open the bedroom door. The curtains stir. There you are
on the bed, like a gift, like a touchable dream.
B
Together, Apart
Too much together, or too much apart:
This is one problem of the human heart.
Thirty-five years of sharing day by day
With so much shared there is no need to say
So many things: we know instinctively
The common words of our proximity.
5
Not here, you’re missed; now here, I need to get away,
To make some portion separate in the day.
And not belonging here, I feel content
When brooding on the portion that is spent.
10
Where everything is strange, and yet is known,
I sit under the trees and am alone,
Until there is an emptiness all round,
Missing your voice, the sweet habitual sound
Of our own language. I walk back to our room
Through the great park’s descending evening gloom,
And find you there, after these hours apart,
Not having solved this question of the heart.
15
17 OR
(b)
Compare and contrast the following poems, “Last Instructions” by Garth Tate and
“Remember” by Christina Rossetti, considering the ways in which your responses are
shaped by the writers’ language, style and form.
A
Last Instructions
And when I die,
when this old spirit
spurs into God’s
unseen air don’t shed
one tear,
sisters and brothers instead
rejoice with song and prayer;
paint landscapes of heaven
for the eyes of our children
please don’t grieve
my departure, friends
for we shall meet again
in time...
I’ll be watching and waiting
your time...
And hand you real freedom
to wrap around your shoulders
like a magic, marvelous cloak
so, when I cross that river,
don’t get dressed in dark
colors or collapse before
useless coffins or cry
when you could be wishing
me well
please don’t waste words
on endless oratory
and kill several others
with boredom or dolor
when the sun is still shining golden
just believe that our
span of time is ultimately
god’s piece of time and say
that this time
he was a poet and
this time he was black
and next time there’s just no
telling how he may come
back.....
B
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20
25
30
35
Remember
Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go, yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more day by day
You tell me of our future that you plann'd:
Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.
Yet if you should forget me for a while
And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad.
5
5
10
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