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BBA Educational Resources 2012

BBA PRACTICE MODEL EXAMINATION
2012
ENGLISH
Level Two
RESOURCE BOOKLET
91100
Analyse signicant aspects of unfamiliar written text(s) through close reading,
supported by evidence.
Refer to this booklet to answer the questions for Practice Exam
English 91100.
Check that this booklet has pages 2-4 in the correct order and
that none of these pages is blank.
Check that this booklet has pages 2-5 in the correct order and that
none of these pages is blank.
YOU MUST HAND THIS BOOKLET TO THE SUPERVISOR
AT THE END OF THE ASSESSMENT.
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TEXT A: COLUMN / OPINION
Refer to this text to answer Question One for English 91100.
TEXT A
The All Blacks pre-game haka before the fnal in last years Rugby World Cup signalled
the start of the last scene of a successful sequence of international games in our tiny
country. But the haka remains under suspicion because no team on earth knows how
to react to it. The French rugby teams V-formation advance on the All Blacks before the
haka exemplifed what has become an important problem for the International Rugby
Board. The challenge is how to meet the challenge?
It seems absurd and unfair that the other team should have to stand motionless exuding
respect, or at worst, feigning boredom while the All Blacks thunder out their challenge.
Deciding what constitutes an appropriate response, however, is more diffcult than the
IRB critics would have us believe.
The Guardians Barney Ronay argues it should be treated as a challenge that is there to
be met in whatever way its opponents can muster. The problem with this, and the reason
for the IRB directive that neither team should advance beyond its 10m line during the
haka, is that it introduces an unpredictable if not combustible element to proceedings.
In Dublin in 1989 the Irish team linked arms and marched forward until they were almost
rubbing noses with the All Blacks. All Blacks prop Steve McDowell later confessed if
hed had to put up with wild Irishmen in his face for much longer he would have belted
one of them. Eight years later in Manchester Norm Hewitt and English hooker Richard
Cockerill had to be prised apart by the referee. Then there was the farcical situation
in Cardiff in 2008 when the post-haka stare-off dragged on for minutes while referee
Jonathan Kaplan pleaded with the players to start the game.
In future other teams will be less and less inclined to stand there and absorb a ritual
that, whatever the cultural connotations, is designed to intimidate them and pump
up the All Blacks. Who can blame them for looking for ways to make a statement of
their own, especially when the haka becomes more confrontational? Wayne Shelford
is rightly credited with transforming the All Blacks haka from a sheepish shuffe to
rousing call to arms, but todays version of Kapa o Pango, (now the teams haka of
choice in big matches),with its throat-slitting gesture, makes Shelfords look like a poi
dance. Sydney Morning Herald columnist Paul Sheehan criticised the gesture because
it reminded people that Maori once engaged in unspeakable conduct. (Unlike, say,
white Australians whose conduct has always been saintly.)
The case against the haka, and the insistence it must be respected is that it undermines
the core sporting principle of a level playing feld. Other teams must wonder why the
best side in the world should be guaranteed the last word, and a belligerent word at
that, while they are obliged to enter the contest with a show of respect.
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Meeting a challenge
Why should the All Blacks always get the last word?
Paul Thomas, Sport columnist, New Zealand Listener Magazine, November 19, 2011.p 53
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TEXT B: PROSE (FICTION)
Refer to this text to answer Question Two for English 91100.
TEXT B
Darkness. Im frozen, my blankets scratchy and rough as they pin me to the bed,
a prisoner in a world of polar feece and fannelette. My eyes are shut as tightly as
I can get them, but that doesnt stop the noise of the storm creeping through the
walls and into my ears. The wind is a banshee, wailing in time to the rain pounding
on the roof, like the drums of doom. Tap. Tap. Tap. A repetitive noise is outside my
window. My eyes fy open against my will. I peer over the edge of the pillow at the
curtains, expecting to see them burst wide and expose the witch outside the glass,
coming to take me away. A bolt of lightning fashes, and I see I was wrong. Its not
a witch coming to steal me, its a skeleton, bony, clawed hands outstretched and
tapping on my window! Theres a taste in my mouth, like metal. Blood. Ive bitten my
tongue trying not to scream. Wide eyes travel and search the room. Heart in throat,
I struggle to focus on the shadows lurking in every corner like cobwebs. Just like in
those webs, I know there is something evil hiding in the middle, though this time it
isnt a spider.
Squinting, I can just make out the hunched backbone of a monster so terrible and
great it would swallow me in one gulp if I were to make a sound. I may be young, but
I know danger when I see it. My heart gives a painful bump as I spy a huge cloaked
fgure looming from my closet. Gasping in terror, I squeeze my eyelids together and
hug teddy, knowing there is no way I can survive this night.
Darkness. Same place, different time. Curled up in bed I feel safe in a haven of
blankets and pillows, the shadows enveloping me as I lazily stretch out my legs.
I peer out my window through slitted eyes and watch the branches of the storm-
tossed trees dance behind curtains as the moonlight illuminates them. A lone twig
pokes at the glass and I watch it idly, thankful I dont have to endure such weather.
Hail pelts the tin roof above, and the scent of melting ice drifts through the crack
between the window and ledge.
For now, I am content to lie here, relaxed in the darkness, with only myself for
company. But I dont. Slowly but surely the ghosts in the darkness come back to
haunt my mind, but they are different monsters than fourteen years ago. Now I am
petrifed with thoughts of school and exams and meeting new people and trying new
things. The fears I had when I was three now seem silly and absurd, but way back
then they werent. I guess each age has its own wisdom. The smart thing to do now,
it seems, is sleep.
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Then and Now
Jaimee Knyn, Palmerston North Girls High School, Year 13, Through a Gap in the Fence
A Journal of Secondary Students Writing, 2008,Learning Media, Wellington
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TEXT C: POETRY
Refer to this text to answer Question Three for English 91100.
TEXT C
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Four-thirty, autumns early dusk.
Sunset simmers
hung just behind the turning trees;
they fll and glow like yellow lamps
High time to lif the small one from his nap,
catch his sleep scent;
sea salt and grasses, bark and sand,
crumpled sycamores, three-berry jam
he mews, burrows,
and when I whisper again
time to get up, love,
the long sobs start.
His small form quakes, his limbs fail;
what blood-dark possession,
what twisting tunnel do I pull him from?
Those great racking cries:
Ive taken him from some vision
far deeper than where mine can fnd him;
Ive stolen him, some faery frightener,
and it shakes me, what he can see,
this botched and blighted place
we strange, grown ones have come from.
I tuck him to me in a hug
to comfort us, to hide our eyes,
the worlds old bruises his cries fnd out there,
rock and sway.
the bodys poem reads itself to him.
Rock and sway,
hush and swing.
And now some quiet grows.
And some new thought forms:
he says we are a cradle, a boat,
a dobbin-horse, a real horse,
starts to chant rocketty-bump, rocketty-bump.
Soon, stares around himself
weary and yet
like a rider on a dusty mile
in some foreign, mountain pass
blinks fresh into awe: look, he says
at this one lighted room
how far we are.
By Emma Neale Spark, Steele Roberts, Wellington, 2008
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Banbury Cross is a reference to the childs nursery-rhyme, Ride a cock-horse to Banbury Cross
Banbury Cross*
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