3 exam-style questions with full mark schemes and model answers. Write your own answer and the AI examiner marks it against the mark scheme.
Read the following extract from A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens and then answer the question that follows.
This is the opening of the novella. The narrator establishes that Marley is dead and introduces his old business partner, Scrooge.
Marley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it: and Scrooge's name was good upon 'Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail.
Mind! I don't mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country's done for. You will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as dead as a door-nail.
Scrooge knew he was dead? Of course he did. How could it be otherwise? Scrooge and he were partners for I don't know how many years. Scrooge was his sole executor, his sole administrator, his sole assign, his sole residuary legatee, his sole friend, and sole mourner. And even Scrooge was not so dreadfully cut up by the sad event, but that he was an excellent man of business on the very day of the funeral, and solemnised it with an undoubted bargain.
Starting with this extract, explore how Dickens presents the character of Scrooge. Write about: how Dickens presents Scrooge in this extract; how Dickens presents Scrooge in the novel as a whole. (30 marks)
Read the following extract from The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson and then answer the question that follows.
In this extract, near the start of the novel, Mr Enfield tells Utterson the story of a strange man he once saw collide with a young girl in the street at night.
All at once, I saw two figures: one a little man who was stumping along eastward at a good walk, and the other a girl of maybe eight or ten who was running as hard as she was able down a cross street. Well, sir, the two ran into one another naturally enough at the corner; and then came the horrible part of the thing; for the man trampled calmly over the child's body and left her screaming on the ground. It sounds nothing to hear, but it was hellish to see. It wasn't like a man; it was like some damned Juggernaut.
Starting with this extract, explore how Stevenson presents Hyde as a figure of violence and evil. Write about: how Stevenson presents Hyde in this extract; how Stevenson presents Hyde in the novel as a whole. (30 marks)
Read the following extract from The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson and then answer the question that follows.
In this extract Mr Utterson, the lawyer, has just met Hyde for the first time and reflects on the strange, disturbing impression the man has left upon him.
Mr. Hyde was pale and dwarfish, he gave an impression of deformity without any nameable malformation, he had a displeasing smile, he had borne himself to the lawyer with a sort of murderous mixture of timidity and boldness, and he spoke with a husky, whispering and somewhat broken voice; all these were points against him, but not all of these together could explain the hitherto unknown disgust, loathing and fear with which Mr. Utterson regarded him. "There must be something else," said the perplexed gentleman. "There is something more, if I could find a name for it. God bless me, the man seems hardly human!"
Starting with this extract, explore how Stevenson presents Hyde's disturbing nature. Write about: how Stevenson presents Hyde in this extract; how Stevenson presents Hyde in the novel as a whole. (30 marks)