Total marks: 60 · Duration: 2 hours
Instructions to candidates
- This paper has 60 items based on SIX extracts that you have not seen before: two from drama (Section A), two poems (Section B) and two from prose fiction (Section C). In each section, one extract is Caribbean and one is not.
- Answer ALL 60 items. Each item is worth ONE mark. Choose the ONE best answer from A, B, C and D. In the January 2027 sitting, Paper 01 is taken online, so you select your answer on screen.
- Read each extract carefully before you answer its items. You have about 20 minutes for each extract.
- All the extracts in this paper were written for Kramizo practice and are not taken from published works.
Paper
Section A — Drama (Items 1–20)
Extract 1 (Items 1–10)
Read the following extract from a play carefully and then answer Items 1–10.
THE LAST MANGO SEASON
[Late afternoon. The verandah of a small wooden house in the hills of St Elizabeth, Jamaica. MA IVY, seventy, sits in a rocking chair shelling gungo peas into an enamel basin. DWAYNE, sixteen, enters from the yard carrying a suitcase, which he sets down by the steps without looking at her.]
MA IVY: (not looking up) So the plane leave tomorrow.
DWAYNE: Six o'clock in the morning. Mummy say we must be at the airport by three.
MA IVY: Three. (She snaps a pod.) Even the fowls don't wake that early.
DWAYNE: (sitting on the top step) Ma… Mr Henry came by the shop again. He say the hotel people will pay good money for the land. Enough to fix the roof. Enough for you to come to Toronto too.
MA IVY: (stops rocking) Toronto. (Pause.) You know who plant that mango tree, Dwayne?
DWAYNE: Grandpa.
MA IVY: The year your mother born. Every season since, that tree give and give, and never once ask me for anything back. (She resumes shelling, faster.) Tell Mr Henry the land not for sale.
DWAYNE: But you alone up here now —
MA IVY: Alone? (She gestures at the yard.) The tree, the goat, Miss Pearl down the road, and every man jack who ever eat a Julie mango from this yard. I am not alone. (Softer.) You the one going somewhere they don't know your name.
[DWAYNE looks at the suitcase. A long silence. A mango drops from the tree with a soft thud. Neither moves.]
DWAYNE: (quietly) I will come back for the mangoes.
MA IVY: (handing him the basin) Then come back for the peas too. They don't shell themself.
[DWAYNE takes the basin. Lights fade slowly as they shell together.]
1. Where is the scene set?
A) In a shop in a busy town
B) At an airport in Toronto
C) On the verandah of a house in rural Jamaica
D) In a hotel owned by Mr Henry
2. The stage direction that Dwayne sets the suitcase down "without looking at her" suggests that he
A) is proud of his new suitcase
B) is too tired to talk to her
C) is angry with his grandmother
D) feels uncomfortable about leaving
3. Ma Ivy's remark "Even the fowls don't wake that early" is best described as
A) praise for her grandson's energy
B) a complaint about her noisy chickens
C) dry humour that hides her sadness
D) an angry complaint about the airline
4. The stage direction "She resumes shelling, faster" mainly shows
A) her agitation at the idea of selling the land
B) her pleasure in the work
C) her wish to impress Dwayne
D) her hurry to finish before dark
5. In the extract, the mango tree is best understood as a symbol of
A) the money the hotel will pay for the land
B) Ma Ivy's loneliness in the hills
C) Dwayne's new life in Canada
D) the family's roots and generosity across generations
6. As used in the extract, the phrase "every man jack" means
A) every single person
B) every man called Jack
C) every visitor from the hotel
D) every worker on the farm
7. The mango that drops "with a soft thud" while "Neither moves" is used mainly to
A) mark a silent moment of shared feeling
B) signal that Mr Henry has arrived
C) introduce a comic accident
D) show that the tree is dying
8. Ma Ivy refuses to sell the land mainly because
A) she does not trust the hotel to pay
B) she is waiting for a higher price
C) she wants Dwayne to inherit the money
D) it holds her family's history and her community
9. The final exchange about the peas shows
A) Ma Ivy accepting Dwayne's promise in her own practical way
B) Ma Ivy refusing to believe Dwayne
C) Dwayne changing his mind about leaving
D) Dwayne mocking his grandmother's chores
10. The playwright's use of Jamaican Creole in Ma Ivy's speech mainly
A) suggests that she cannot understand Dwayne
B) makes the scene hard for the audience to follow
C) makes her voice authentic and rooted in her place
D) shows that she is copying Mr Henry
Extract 2 (Items 11–20)
Read the following extract from a play carefully and then answer Items 11–20.
THE INTERVIEW
[A small grey office. A clock ticks loudly. MR GRAVES, in his fifties, sits behind a desk piled with folders. He does not look up when ALINA, twenty, enters clutching a large portfolio.]
GRAVES: Sit. (He gestures at a chair without raising his eyes.) Name.
ALINA: Alina Petrova. I applied for the design post. I brought my —
GRAVES: Experience?
ALINA: Two years at college, and I painted the mural at the children's hospital, the one with the —
GRAVES: (writing) "None."
ALINA: (Pause.) It took me four months.
GRAVES: Why do you want this job?
ALINA: Because this company used to make posters that made people stop in the street. (She opens the portfolio.) I'd like to make them stop again.
[GRAVES finally looks up. He stares at the open portfolio for a long moment. The clock seems louder.]
GRAVES: (quietly) Who told you about the posters?
ALINA: My grandfather. He kept one on his kitchen wall for forty years. It said "Look up."
[GRAVES rises, crosses to the window and opens the blind. Light floods the grey room.]
GRAVES: (without turning) I designed that poster.
[Silence. ALINA closes the portfolio slowly. Blackout.]
11. The opening stage directions create a mood that is
A) festive and lively
B) dull and oppressive
C) violent and frightening
D) peaceful and romantic
12. The loudly ticking clock most likely suggests
A) that Alina has arrived too early
B) that the office is noisy and busy
C) tension and the passing of time
D) that Graves is late for a meeting
13. Graves writes "None" after Alina describes her mural. This shows that he
A) does not value experience gained outside a job
B) is impressed but hides it
C) did not hear her answer
D) thinks the mural was badly painted
14. The dashes that end several of Alina's speeches ("I brought my —") show
A) Alina forgetting what to say
B) Graves cutting her off
C) Alina being deliberately rude
D) careless punctuation by the playwright
15. Alina's reason for wanting the job reveals that she
A) needs money urgently
B) wants to take Graves's position
C) wants the company to return to its old standards
D) dislikes the company's posters
16. The stage direction "GRAVES finally looks up" marks
A) the start of Graves's anger
B) the first moment of open conflict
C) the end of the interview
D) the turning point of the scene
17. When Graves opens the blind and "Light floods the grey room", the light most likely symbolises
A) the end of the working day
B) a storm outside the window
C) Graves's wish to escape
D) hope and renewed vision
18. The words on the poster, "Look up", are ironic because
A) Alina never looks at Graves
B) the poster hung in a kitchen
C) Graves has not looked up from his desk until now
D) Alina's grandfather could not read
19. Graves's final line, "I designed that poster", reveals that
A) he is ashamed of the poster
B) he copied the design from her grandfather
C) he was once the kind of artist Alina admires
D) he wants to hire her grandfather
20. Which word best describes the ending of the extract?
A) Poignant
B) Farcical
C) Triumphant
D) Violent
Section B — Poetry (Items 21–40)
Extract 3 (Items 21–30)
Read the following poem carefully and then answer Items 21–30.
Radio
for my grandmotherEach June she tuned the old brown radio
to the island station, turned the dial
slow as a prayer between her finger and thumb,
and listened for the names, the girls' and boys' names
the weathermen gave the storms, as if
naming a thing could make it gentle.She kept a tin of candles by the bed,
a bag of rice, a pan of water, a Bible
wrapped in plastic like a loaf of bread.
"Not this one," she would say, and turn it down
when the voice said northward, weakening, out to sea,
and go back to her kitchen, humming.The year the voice said landfall, she was silent.
She sat up with the radio all night
the way she once sat up with fevered children,
her hand on its warm side, as if
she could keep it talking,
as if its talking kept the roof on.
21. The poem is mainly about
A) a family's move to a new island
B) a grandmother's long illness
C) a grandmother's ritual of preparing for hurricanes
D) the history of an island radio station
22. "slow as a prayer between her finger and thumb" is an example of
A) metaphor
B) personification
C) onomatopoeia
D) simile
23. The lines "as if / naming a thing could make it gentle" suggest
A) the human wish to control what is frightening
B) that the grandmother distrusts the radio
C) that the storms really are gentle
D) that the weathermen are careless
24. The image of "a Bible / wrapped in plastic like a loaf of bread" shows
A) that she plans to sell the Bible
B) how carefully she protects what she values most
C) that she keeps food and books together
D) that she is careless with her things
25. The italicised words northward, weakening, out to sea represent
A) forecasters' words that bring relief
B) the names given to the storms
C) places she would like to visit
D) the grandmother's own prayers
26. The image of her going "back to her kitchen, humming" conveys a mood of
A) anger
B) relief
C) boredom
D) fear
27. The change of mood in the third stanza is signalled mainly by
A) the word landfall and her silence
B) the introduction of a new speaker
C) the radio breaking down
D) a change of season to winter
28. The comparison of the radio with "fevered children" suggests that
A) the radio is broken and overheating
B) her children were listening as well
C) she is ill with a fever herself
D) she tends the radio as she would someone she fears to lose
29. The final line, "as if its talking kept the roof on", uses
A) an oxymoron to show confusion
B) a rhetorical question to involve the reader
C) hyperbole to show her desperate hope
D) alliteration to imitate the wind
30. The speaker's attitude towards the grandmother is best described as
A) angry and accusing
B) tender and admiring
C) neutral and scientific
D) bitter and mocking
Extract 4 (Items 31–40)
Read the following poem carefully and then answer Items 31–40.
The Lighthouse Keeper's Daughter
She learned the dark the way you learn a language:
first the nouns — rock, reef, the long black hull of night —
then the grammar of it, how one wave
leans on the next, how the wind
conjugates the sea from calm to rage.Her father climbed the hundred steps each dusk
and lit the lamp, and she would count them, waiting,
ninety-eight, ninety-nine, until the beam
swung out across the water like an arm
held out to strangers.Now the lamp turns by itself. A computer
in a town she has never seen keeps watch.
But some nights still she climbs the hundred steps
and stands where he stood, and says the names
of ships she never saw, and keeps the light.
31. The opening line, "She learned the dark the way you learn a language", introduces
A) an extended comparison between reading the sea at night and learning a language
B) the story of how her father taught her to read
C) a contrast between day and night
D) a description of her school lessons
32. In lines 3–5, the "grammar" of the dark refers to
A) the books her father read to her
B) the patterns of the waves and the wind
C) the names of passing ships
D) the rules of the lighthouse service
33. The phrase "conjugates the sea from calm to rage" suggests that
A) the wind and the sea speak to each other
B) the sea is always calm at night
C) the wind changes the sea's moods as a verb changes its forms
D) the daughter is frightened by the wind
34. The counting "ninety-eight, ninety-nine" conveys
A) her fear of heights
B) her skill at arithmetic
C) her boredom at the lighthouse
D) the child's patient anticipation
35. The simile "like an arm / held out to strangers" presents the lighthouse beam as
A) threatening and harsh
B) welcoming and protective
C) lonely and unwanted
D) weak and flickering
36. The third stanza begins with a shift to
A) her father's own point of view
B) a flashback to her early childhood
C) the description of a violent storm
D) the present, after her father's time
37. The lines "A computer / in a town she has never seen keeps watch" suggest that
A) the lamp no longer works
B) the daughter now works with computers
C) the town has built a new lighthouse
D) the lighthouse has become automated and impersonal
38. The daughter still climbs the steps on some nights most likely in order to
A) look for the town she has never seen
B) honour her father and keep his tradition alive
C) earn money as a keeper
D) repair the computer when it fails
39. "keeps the light" in the final line has a double meaning because
A) the computer keeps the light switched on
B) she keeps both the lamp and her father's memory alive
C) she refuses to switch the lamp off
D) the lamp is kept in her house
40. The structure of the poem moves from
A) her childhood learning, to memories of her father, to the present
B) a storm, to a calm, to a storm
C) the present, to the future, to the past
D) the father's voice, to the ships', to her own
Section C — Prose Fiction (Items 41–60)
Extract 5 (Items 41–50)
Read the following extract from a short story carefully and then answer Items 41–50.
The results came on a Thursday, the day the market was slowest, so Mammy could not use the crowds as an excuse to stay away. She came anyway in her market apron, smelling of nutmeg and diesel from the bus, and stood beside me outside the post office with her arms folded as if the building owed her money.
"You going in, or you waiting for it to come out to you?" she asked.
I did not answer. Through the window I could see Mr Lalsingh, the postmaster, sorting envelopes with the slowness of a man who has never been in a hurry in his life. Somewhere in that pile was a brown envelope with my name on it and, inside it, the whole of my future, folded into three.
All year Mammy had carried two baskets to the market: one of produce, and one of my books, so that I could study between customers. When I complained that the smell of cocoa was in every page, she said, "Good. When you reach big school, you will remember who paid for it."
Mr Lalsingh came to the door. He held up a brown envelope and looked over his glasses at the line of us: five children and five mothers, and one grandfather who had walked from Morne Longue with a stick.
"Celestine Joseph," he called.
My legs would not move. Mammy put her hand flat between my shoulder blades, the way she pushes a stubborn goat through a gate, and I went.
I opened it on the steps. I read the first line three times before the words agreed to mean anything. Then I turned and held it up, and Mammy — Mammy, who had never cried at a funeral — sat down on the post office step in her market apron and laughed until she cried.
41. Who narrates the extract?
A) An outside observer
B) Mr Lalsingh, the postmaster
C) Celestine, a child waiting for exam results
D) Mammy, a market vendor
42. Mammy stands "with her arms folded as if the building owed her money". This suggests that she is
A) impatient and defiant
B) relaxed and cheerful
C) angry with her daughter
D) afraid of officials
43. The description of Mr Lalsingh, "a man who has never been in a hurry in his life", mainly adds
A) information about his job
B) humour and suspense
C) sadness and regret
D) fear of the postmaster
44. "the whole of my future, folded into three" is an example of
A) a simile comparing the future to paper
B) understatement that hides her feelings
C) hyperbole that shows how much depends on the result
D) personification of the envelope
45. The detail of the two baskets Mammy carried to the market shows
A) her dislike of books
B) her plan to sell the books
C) her success as a vendor
D) her sacrifice for her daughter's education
46. Mammy's reply, "When you reach big school, you will remember who paid for it," reveals her as
A) bitter and resentful
B) worried and doubtful
C) proud and determined
D) careless and joking
47. The simile "the way she pushes a stubborn goat through a gate" is mainly
A) frightening and tense
B) formal and serious
C) cruel and insulting
D) humorous and affectionate
48. "before the words agreed to mean anything" uses
A) a rhetorical question to show doubt
B) personification to show her shock
C) alliteration to create rhythm
D) onomatopoeia to show sound
49. The detail that Mammy "had never cried at a funeral" emphasises
A) that she is ashamed of crying
B) that she is a hard, unfeeling person
C) how overwhelming her joy is
D) that she dislikes funerals
50. Which of the following would be the most suitable title for this extract?
A) A Walk from Morne Longue
B) The Postmaster
C) Market Day in Grenada
D) Results Day
Extract 6 (Items 51–60)
Read the following extract from a short story carefully and then answer Items 51–60.
Every afternoon at four the old man set up his board on the stone table by the fountain, though no one had played against him in years. He arranged the pieces with great care, turning each knight so that it faced the enemy, as if the battle mattered even when there was no one to fight it.
I watched him for three weeks from the bench by the bus stop. I told myself I was waiting for the number 9, but I let four of them go by.
On the twenty-second day he looked up and said, without any greeting, "You hold your breath when I move the bishop. That means you know something."
I knew a little. My father had taught me before he left, in the kitchen of our old flat, using bottle tops for the pawns because half of ours were lost.
I sat down. The stone was cold through my jeans. He played quickly and without mercy, and in eleven moves my king was trapped in a corner like a cat under a car.
"Again," he said, already resetting the pieces.
We played until the streetlights came on. I lost every game. Walking home, I found I was smiling, though I could not have said why, except that for the first time since the move, someone in this city had been waiting for me.
51. The first paragraph suggests that the old man is
A) waiting for his son to arrive
B) tired of playing chess
C) a famous chess champion
D) devoted to the game even though he is alone
52. The detail "turning each knight so that it faced the enemy" shows
A) that he does not know the rules
B) that the pieces are damaged
C) how seriously he takes the game
D) that he is afraid of losing
53. "I told myself I was waiting for the number 9, but I let four of them go by" reveals
A) that the buses are always full
B) an interest the narrator will not admit even to themself
C) that the narrator dislikes the city buses
D) that the narrator has missed school
54. The old man's remark about the narrator holding their breath shows that he is
A) observant
B) rude
C) nervous
D) forgetful
55. The bottle tops used as pawns suggest that
A) the narrator's father collected bottle tops
B) the narrator's family had little money
C) the chess set was brand new
D) the narrator invented a new game
56. The simile "like a cat under a car" conveys a sense of being
A) fast and clever
B) playful and relaxed
C) hidden and safe
D) trapped and helpless
57. "He played quickly and without mercy" tells the reader that the old man
A) treats the narrator as a real opponent
B) is angry with the narrator
C) wants the game to end quickly
D) does not understand the game
58. The single word "Again," suggests that the old man
A) is annoyed that the game was short
B) wants the narrator's company to continue
C) wants the narrator to leave
D) is ordering the narrator to try harder
59. The main idea of the final paragraph is that the narrator
A) is upset about losing every game
B) has found a connection in a new city
C) has been reunited with their father
D) has become an expert chess player
60. The extract is narrated by
A) a first-person narrator who takes part in the events
B) the old man telling his own story
C) a third-person narrator who knows every character's thoughts
D) a narrator who addresses the reader as "you"