Free Edexcel GCSE English Language
Practice Paper

When a fiction reading question asks you to EVALUATE an extract, it is asking you to:

1. Judge how successfully the writer achieves an effect, and support that judgement
2. Retell the events of the extract in your own words
3. Compare the extract with a novel you have studied in class
4. Correct any errors of grammar you can find in the extract

In a mark scheme for fiction reading, the phrase 'textual reference' means:

1. The name of the author and the year of publication
2. Reference to another book by the same writer
3. The page number printed at the foot of the paper
4. Detail or quotation taken from the passage itself

Scanning a fiction extract, as opposed to reading it closely, means:

1. Moving your eyes quickly over the text to locate one specific detail
2. Reading only the opening and closing sentences
3. Rewriting the passage in your own words
4. Reading every word slowly from beginning to end

What is the purpose of a paragraph break in narrative writing?

1. To end the piece
2. To signal a change of time, place, speaker or focus
3. To fill space on the page
4. To make handwriting neater

In the study of a writer's language, a metaphor is:

1. Question asked without expecting an answer
2. Deliberate exaggeration used for effect
3. Description of a sound using a word that imitates it
4. Comparison that states one thing IS another, without like or as

The connotations of a word are:

1. The number of syllables it contains
2. The century in which it first entered the language
3. Its dictionary definition
4. The associations and feelings it carries beyond its literal meaning

Which term describes a word chosen chiefly for the intensity of the action it names, such as SLAMMED instead of CLOSED?

1. Dynamic verb
2. Subordinate clause
3. Definite article
4. Abstract noun

In a reading paper, information described as EXPLICIT is information that is:

1. Available only in a second, linked text
2. Suggested by the writer but never actually written down
3. Stated directly on the page so it can be quoted word for word
4. Invented by the reader from personal experience