Reigate Grammar School Riyadh
English Literature End of Year 24/25
Literature Exam Final (LEF)
Poetry and Prose
Practice Booklet 1
NAME:
YEAR:
DATE:
Success Criteria
Skills Area What This Means
What’s the poem about? I understand what the poem is about and
what the poet wants me to think or feel.
Am I answering the question?
I focus my ideas on what the question is
asking me to do.
Have I used the quotes well?
I include short quotes from the poem to
support what I’m saying.
Have I explained the implicit and explicit I talk about how the poet’s language (like
meaning? similes or strong words) creates meaning or
emotion.
How is the poem put together? I notice how the poet uses structure (like
stanzas, repetition, rhyme) to shape the
poem.
Do I understand the background?
I include helpful context (like when or why
it was written) if it helps me explain the
poem.
What do I really think about it? I give my opinion about the poem and
explain why I feel that way.
Literary Devices
Simile
Metaphor
Personification
Anthropomorphosis
Alliteration
Onomatopoeia
Imagery
Rhyme Scheme
Hyperbole
Repetition
Juxtaposition
Contents
Section A: Poetry
text question
numbers page[s]
Seamus Heaney: Follower 1-2 3-4
Section B: Prose
text question
numbers page[s]
Kiran Desai: Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard 6 5-6
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Section A: Poetry
SEAMUS HEANEY: Follower
Remember to support your ideas with details from your writing.
1 Read this passage, and then answer the questions that follows it:
Follower
My father worked with a horse-plough,
His shoulders globed like a full sail strung
Between the shafts and the furrow.
The horses strained at his clicking tongue.
An expert. He would set the wing
And fit the bright steel-pointed sock.
The sod rolled over without breaking.
At the headrig, with a single pluck
Of reins, the sweating team turned round
And back into the land. His eye
Narrowed and angled at the ground,
Mapping the furrow exactly.
I stumbled in his hobnailed wake,
Fell sometimes on the polished sod;
Sometimes he rode me on his back
Dipping and rising to his plod.
I wanted to grow up and plough,
To close one eye, stiffen my arm.
All I ever did was follow
In his broad shadow round the farm.
I was a nuisance, tripping, falling,
Yapping always. But today
It is my father who keeps stumbling
Behind me, and will not go away
(Seamus Heaney)
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Section A: Poetry
Mini Questions
Remember to support your ideas with details from your writing.
Question 1 [5 marks]
"What does the image 'his shoulders globed like a full sail strung' show about the father’s strength and
the way he is presented?"
The writer suggest
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Question 2 [5 marks]
What do these lines show about how the boy feels about his father?
I stumbled in his hobnailed wake,
Fell sometimes on the polished sod;
Sometimes he rode me on his back
Dipping and rising to his plod.
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Question 3 [5 marks]
How does the poet show the father’s skill and focus?
Of reins, the sweating team turned round
And back into the land. His eye
Narrowed and angled at the ground,
Mapping the furrow exactly.
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Question 4 [5 marks]
What do these lines show about the speaker’s admiration for his father?
I wanted to grow up and plough,
To close one eye, stiffen my arm.
All I ever did was follow
In his broad shadow round the farm.
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Question 5 [5 marks]
How does the poet show a change in the relationship between the speaker and his father?
I was a nuisance, tripping, falling,
Yapping always. But today
It is my father who keeps stumbling
Behind me, and will not go away
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Section B: Prose
Extended Answer
KIRAN DESAI: Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard
Remember to support your ideas with details from your writing.
Read this passage, and then answer the question that follows it:
He could see ruffles of peacock silk and tiny pleats of rosy satin; lengths of fabric and saris
of every colour imaginable. Fabric run through with threads of gold, scattered with sequins
and bits of glass, with embroidered parrots and lotus flowers worked in silver. There were
mango patterns in rich plum and luminous amber shades. There were dark velvets and pale
milk-like pastels tinted with only the faintest suggestion of rose pink or pistachio. There were
unbroken stretches of crisp white petticoats in waves about Sampath's feet.
He uncorked a bottle of rose-water and its fragrance escaped to mingle with the rich mutton
biryani smells rising from cauldrons outside. Sampath, whose sense of smell had been refined
during years of paying close attention to the ol-factory curiosities offered by the world, could
also discern the scents of musk, of mothballs, marigolds and baby powder. Of sandalwood
oil. Oh, scented world! He felt his heart grow light. He held the fabrics to his cheek, let their
slippery weight fall from one hand to the other and slide over his arms. He swathed lengths of
pink and green and turmeric yellow about himself until he looked like a box of sweets
wrapped up for the Diwali season. In a box full of a cousin - sister's jewellery, he examined
unusual iridescences: pearls hung upon stalks of silver; a stone lit with the brilliance of an
eye; the delicacy of shell. He imagined the sun deep in the ear of a flower. He put a blue
stone in his mouth, then took it out and rolled it, cool and round, up and down his arms. To
his nose he attached a nose ring decorated like a chandelier with glassy, glinting drops.
He wondered if he could be considered beautiful.
The room was quite dark, since he had closed both the window and the door so he might
conduct his exploration undisturbed. In order to survey himself in all his finery, he lit a
candle by the mirror and watched as he metamorphosed into a glorious bird, a magnificent
insect. The mirror was mottled, slightly cloudy, speckled with age. He felt far away, lifted to
another plane. Held within this frame, he could have been a photograph, or a painting, a
character caught in a storybook. Distant, tinged with mystery, warm with the romance of it
all, he felt a sudden sharp longing, a craving for an imagined world, for something he'd never
known but felt deep within himself. The candle attracted his finger like a moth and he drew it
back and forth through the yellow and blue flame.
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He remembered how, not so long ago, the rest of the family asleep, he had spent dark hours
over his books, always some examination to study for, some test or some long question to
answer. He had wrapped a wet cloth around his head, hoping for coolness, but the sweat had
trickled down his back like the quick run of a beetle, his fountain pen had grown slippery in
his hands, ink smearing into monster tracks, blue and black across the page. How, even then,
candle at his elbow, his finger had been distracted from the lines of print he hoped to follow
all the way into memory; and like the moths that joined him, his finger too had sometimes
been caught and singed.
(from Chapter 5)
Question 6 [25 marks]
In this passage, Kiran Desai uses vivid descriptions to capture Sampath’s thoughts and
emotions. How does the author convey Sampath's inner world through the use of sensory
details and imagery?
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Glossary
Section A: Poetry
SEAMUS HEANEY: Follower
hobnailed (adjective) – describing boots with short nails in the sole for grip.
wake (noun) – the track left behind something moving, like a boat or person.
yapping (verb / adjective) – making high-pitched, often irritating noise (like a small dog);
chattering or complaining.
Section B: Prose
KIRAN DESAI: Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard
amber (noun / adjective) – a yellowish-orange colour or fossilized tree resin.
curiosities (noun) – unusual or interesting objects
discern (verb) – to recognize or perceive clearly.
iridescences (noun) – rainbow-like play of colour.
metamorphosed (verb) – transformed completely.
petticoats (noun) – skirts or underskirts worn under dresses.
saris (noun) – traditional Indian garments worn by women.
swathed (verb) – wrapped or covered.
tinged (verb/adjective) – lightly coloured or affected.
