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 Act 2 Scene 1 of Macbeth and then answer the question that follows.
At this point in the play Macbeth is alone outside Duncan's chamber, waiting for the bell that will signal him to commit the murder.
Is this a dagger which I see before me, The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee: -- I have thee not, and yet I see thee still. Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible To feeling as to sight? or art thou but A dagger of the mind, a false creation, Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain? I see thee yet, in form as palpable As this which now I draw. Thou marshall'st me the way that I was going; And such an instrument I was to use. Mine eyes are made the fools o' the other senses, Or else worth all the rest: I see thee still; And on thy blade and dudgeon, gouts of blood, Which was not so before. -- There's no such thing.
Starting with this extract, explore how Shakespeare presents Macbeth's ambition and guilt. Write about: how Shakespeare presents Macbeth's ambition and guilt in this extract; how Shakespeare presents Macbeth's ambition and guilt in the play as a whole. [30 marks] [plus 4 marks for SPaG]
Read the following extract from Act 1 Scene 5 of Macbeth and then answer the question that follows.
At this point in the play Lady Macbeth has just read her husband's letter about the witches' prophecy and is calling on dark spirits to give her the resolve to help him seize the crown.
Come, you spirits That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, And fill me, from the crown to the toe, top-full Of direst cruelty! make thick my blood, Stop up th' access and passage to remorse, That no compunctious visitings of nature Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between Th' effect and it! Come to my woman's breasts, And take my milk for gall, your murd'ring ministers, Wherever in your sightless substances You wait on nature's mischief! Come, thick night, And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,
Starting with this extract, explore how Shakespeare presents Lady Macbeth as a powerful woman. Write about: how Shakespeare presents Lady Macbeth in this extract; how Shakespeare presents Lady Macbeth in the play as a whole. [30 marks] [plus 4 marks for SPaG]
Read the following extract from Act 1 Scene 5 of Romeo and Juliet and then answer the question that follows.
At this point in the play Romeo and Juliet meet for the first time at the Capulet feast and speak their first words to one another, which together form a shared sonnet.
ROMEO. If I profane with my unworthiest hand This holy shrine, the gentle sin is this, My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.
JULIET. Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much, Which mannerly devotion shows in this; For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch, And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss.
ROMEO. Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?
JULIET. Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.
ROMEO. O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do: They pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.
JULIET. Saints do not move, though grant for prayers' sake.
ROMEO. Then move not while my prayer's effect I take.
Starting with this extract, explore how Shakespeare presents love at the first meeting of Romeo and Juliet. Write about: how Shakespeare presents love in this extract; how Shakespeare presents love in the play as a whole. [30 marks] [plus 4 marks for SPaG]