CSEC ENGLISH

Hello there! Hope you are staying safe and keeping busy! Perhaps the best approach to this time of relative confinement is to consider the opportunities it offers: time to read, time to use your phone/computer for research so that you will come through the COVID experience wiser and more informed than you were before. Enjoy today’s CSEC English page—especially the multiple choice questions on Kwame Dawes’ poem! Have fun, and see what you can learn!

ENGLISH B—PAPER 2

Read the poem carefully three times and then attempt the questions. Remember that TWO of the suggested answers are usually obviously wrong, but you will need to think carefully before eliminating the third ‘wrong’ answer. 1. Which of the following is MOST likely about the speaker? A. He is sailing across the Atlantic.

B. He is in an aircraft over the Caribbean.

C. He is skydiving in the Caribbean.

D. He is at a station in the mountains.

2. Stations /of cratered mountains gives the impression of which of the following?

A. A smooth and peaceful terrain

B. Green rolling fields

C. Height and depth

D. A railway line

3. The phrase ‘green monstrosities’ is an example of which of the following? A. Personification

B. Oxymoron

C. Alliteration

D. Pun 4. The device used in lines 8-9 is A. onomatopoeia.

B. apostrophe.

C. euphemism.

D. contrast.

5. Referring to the second stanza, the speaker appears to be a

A. geologist.

B. pilot.

C. poet.

D. tourist.

6. The phrase ‘Young tender islands’ refers to the islands’

A. position and path.

B. age and fragility.

C. location and greenery.

D. visibility and beauty.

7. Which of the following gives the impression of a historical perspective? A. trail / of memory

B. stations/ of cratered mountains

C. young, tender islands

D. writing paper waiting

8. Stanza 1 appeals MOSTLY to our sense of A. sight.

B. smell.

C. hearing.

D. taste.

9. Lines 15-16 are an example of which of the following devices? A Contrast

B Paradox

C Personification

D Simile

10. What is the effect of the first two and the last two lines of the poem? They A. reinforce the idea of softness.

B. introduce the idea of flight.

C. resist the notion of surfing.

D. enhance the speaker’s dilemma.

(Slightly modified from Carlong ENGLISH B

Paper I English B for CSEC)

MULTIPLE CHOICE EXAMS - Some tips

What can you learn from working through this poem and the questions?

First, you must realize that it’s important to read the poem very carefully before attempting to respond.

Secondly, you will notice that it’s usually easy to reject TWO of the four answers, but you may have to consider carefully as you decide which of the two remaining options to choose. Common sense may help you. For example, we puzzled over those ‘cratered mountains’. Were they suggesting ‘height and depth’? We argued that the craters were not necessarily deep and that the plane was travelling from one island to another much as a train travels between stations—hence D.

Those ‘green monstrosities’ were clearly not personification, alliteration or pun, but we couldn’t see the phrase being an oxymoron either. Something green is natural, beautiful and healthy, while a ‘monstrosity’ is something unnatural, ugly and unhealthy, so we settled for ‘oxymoron’. Sometimes you just have to choose the least improbable answer!

The ‘writing paper…waiting’ is personification. People ‘wait’ for things, but paper has no consciousness of time passing, so is unable to ‘wait’.

Is A or D the correct answer to Question 7? Someone argued that the white paper could be what the historian is writing on. A writer, yes, but not necessarily a historian. The ‘trail of memory’ seemed more specifically tied to history. When you come to a toss-up, reason it through.

Another trick is when you are in doubt remind yourself that it’s unlikely there will be two questions on the same example. When you decide that the ‘writing paper… waiting’ is an example of personification, you have some confirmation that ‘writing paper’ would NOT have been the correct answer for Question 7.

SPELLING

Here are 15 words that are a bit tricky. Ask someone to test you, and make sure