STUDENT NUMBER/NAME:

English (Standard)
and English (Advanced)
Paper 1 – Area of Study

2015 Practice Examination

Total marks – 45

Section I Pages 2-8

15 marks
• Attempt Question 1
• Allow about 40 minutes for this
section

General Instructions
Section II Page 9
• Reading time – 10 minutes
• Working time – 2 hours
• Write using black or blue pen 15 marks
• Write your student number on the • Attempt Question 2
top of this page • Allow about 40 minutes for this
section

Section III Page 10-11

15 marks
• Attempt Question 3
• Allow about 40 minutes for this
section

Exam developed by C. Santhaseelan (2015)

Section I

15 marks
Attempt Question 1
Allow about 40 minutes for this section

In your answers you will be assessed on how well you:

! demonstrate understanding of the ways perceptions of discovery are shaped in and
through texts
! describe, explain and analyse the relationship between language, text and context

Question 1 (15 marks)

Examine Texts one, two, three and four carefully and answer the questions on page 8.

Text one – Book cover

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Text two – Poem from Two Centuries of Australian Poetry

Egrets

Once as I travelled through a quiet evening,

I saw a pool, jet-black and mirror-still.
Beyond, the slender paperbarks stood crowding;
each on its own white image looked its fill,
and nothing moved but thirty egrets wading -
thirty egrets in a quiet evening.

Once in a lifetime, lovely past believing,

your lucky eyes may light on such a pool.
As though for many years I had been waiting,
I watched in silence, till my heart was full
of clear dark water, and white trees unmoving,
and, whiter yet, those thirty egrets wading.

JUDITH WRIGHT

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Text three – Short story

The Little Match Girl

Most terribly cold it was; it snowed, and was nearly quite dark, and evening-- the last
evening of the year. In this cold and darkness there went along the street a poor little
girl, bareheaded, and with naked feet. When she left home she had slippers on, it is true;
but what was the good of that? They were very large slippers, which her mother had
hitherto worn; so large were they; and the poor little thing lost them as she scuffled
away across the street, because of two carriages that rolled by dreadfully fast.

One slipper was nowhere to be found; the other had been laid hold of by an urchin, and
off he ran with it; he thought it would do capitally for a cradle when he some day or
other should have children himself. So the little maiden walked on with her tiny naked
feet, that were quite red and blue from cold. She carried a quantity of matches in an old
apron, and she held a bundle of them in her hand. Nobody had bought anything of her
the whole livelong day; no one had given her a single farthing.

She crept along trembling with cold and hunger--a very picture of sorrow, the poor little
thing!

The flakes of snow covered her long fair hair, which fell in beautiful curls around her
neck; but of that, of course, she never once now thought. From all the windows the
candles were gleaming, and it smelt so deliciously of roast goose, for you know it was
New Year's Eve; yes, of that she thought.

In a corner formed by two houses, of which one advanced more than the other, she
seated herself down and cowered together. Her little feet she had drawn close up to her,
but she grew colder and colder, and to go home she did not venture, for she had not sold
any matches and could not bring a farthing of money: from her father she would
certainly get blows, and at home it was cold too, for above her she had only the roof,
through which the wind whistled, even though the largest cracks were stopped up with
straw and rags.

Her little hands were almost numbed with cold. Oh! a match might afford her a world of
comfort, if she only dared take a single one out of the bundle, draw it against the wall,
and warm her fingers by it. She drew one out. "Rischt!" how it blazed, how it burnt! It
was a warm, bright flame, like a candle, as she held her hands over it: it was a
wonderful light. It seemed really to the little maiden as though she were sitting before a
large iron stove, with burnished brass feet and a brass ornament at top. The fire burned
with such blessed influence; it warmed so delightfully. The little girl had already
stretched out her feet to warm them too; but--the small flame went out, the stove
vanished: she had only the remains of the burnt-out match in her hand.

She rubbed another against the wall: it burned brightly, and where the light fell on the
wall, there the wall became transparent like a veil, so that she could see into the room.
On the table was spread a snow-white tablecloth; upon it was a splendid porcelain
service, and the roast goose was steaming famously with its stuffing of apple and dried
plums.
Text three continues on page 5

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Text three (continued)

And what was still more capital to behold was, the goose hopped down from the dish,
reeled about on the floor with knife and fork in its breast, till it came up to the poor little
girl; when--the match went out and nothing but the thick, cold, damp wall was left
behind.

She lighted another match. Now there she was sitting under the most magnificent
Christmas tree: it was still larger, and more decorated than the one which she had seen
through the glass door in the rich merchant's house.

Thousands of lights were burning on the green branches, and gaily-colored pictures,
such as she had seen in the shop-windows, looked down upon her. The little maiden
stretched out her hands towards them when--the match went out. The lights of the
Christmas tree rose higher and higher, she saw them now as stars in heaven; one fell
down and formed a long trail of fire.

"Someone is just dead!" said the little girl; for her old grandmother, the only person
who had loved her, and who was now no more, had told her, that when a star falls, a
soul ascends to God.

She drew another match against the wall: it was again light, and in the lustre there stood
the old grandmother, so bright and radiant, so mild, and with such an expression of
love.

"Grandmother!" cried the little one. "Oh, take me with you! You go away when the
match burns out; you vanish like the warm stove, like the delicious roast goose, and like
the magnificent Christmas tree!" And she rubbed the whole bundle of matches quickly
against the wall, for she wanted to be quite sure of keeping her grandmother near her.
And the matches gave such a brilliant light that it was brighter than at noon-day: never
formerly had the grandmother been so beautiful and so tall. She took the little maiden,
on her arm, and both flew in brightness and in joy so high, so very high, and then above
was neither cold, nor hunger, nor anxiety--they were with God.

But in the corner, at the cold hour of dawn, sat the poor girl, with rosy cheeks and with
a smiling mouth, leaning against the wall--frozen to death on the last evening of the old
year. Stiff and stark sat the child there with her matches, of which one bundle had been
burnt. "She wanted to warm herself," people said. No one had the slightest suspicion of
what beautiful things she had seen; no one even dreamed of the splendour in which,
with her grandmother she had entered on the joys of a new year.

HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN

End of Text three

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Text four – Feature article

Love and Memory

08 September 2015

With a GoPro camera strapped to her chest, Brenda L Croft is documenting her family
history straight from the heart.

Brenda L Croft’s father Joe was a Gurindji man and one of the Stolen Generations.
Now, many years after his death, Croft is piecing together the fragments of his life in a
complex multimedia work Solid/Shifting Ground.

For the past three years Croft has been trekking sections of the now heritage listed
Wave Hill Walk-Off Route in Gurindji mapping what she calls her “memory-scape”
with audio-visual media and photography captured with a camera strapped onto her
chest, near her “heart and heartbeat”.

“Walking the Wave-Hill Track is a performative act that has helped connect me to my
father’s birthplace and the strength of our people,” says Croft. “When you walk you
think differently … it changes the way you breathe.”

The partially overgrown, 22km track is significant to Croft’s people who walked the
same path from Wave Hill Station in 1967 to strike against the poor conditions and
brutality they had experienced as pastoral workers for more than 40 years. It was a
strike that eventually led to the passing of the 1976 Northern Territory Aboriginal Land
Rights Act, a moment immortalised in the now iconic photo of Gough Whitlam pouring
sand through the hands of Vincent Lingiari.

Croft, a Research Fellow with UNSW Art & Design’s National Institute for
Experimental Arts, has been awarded a prestigious Australia Council National
Indigenous Arts Award Fellowship to develop Solid/Shifting Ground, a combination of
performance, creative narrative, moving and still imagery, and sound.

Like many descendants of the Stolen Generations, Croft grew up far from her
customary homelands and is of mixed heritage. “Gurindji/Malngin/Mudpurra on my
father’s side and Anglo-Australian/Irish/German on my mum’s,” she says.

Her parents, Joe and Dorothy, were keen photographers and Croft says her interest in art
and photography was sparked by the “bed-sheet-pinned-to-the-lounge-room-wall slide
nights” her mother regularly organised.

Where Croft’s childhood was relatively stable, her father’s was the opposite.

Joe was removed from his mother aged around four years and grew up in government
institutions including Kahlin Compound in Darwin and The Bungalow Half-caste
Children’s Home in Alice Springs.

Text four continues on page 7

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Text four (continued)

One of the first Aboriginal people to attend university, Joe was a surveyor and then
public servant with the Department of Aboriginal Affairs and the Aboriginal
Development Commission in Canberra. He was a close ally of Indigenous leader
Charles Perkins, a childhood friend from Bungalow.

Croft recalls crying in Darwin’s National Archives of Australia when she found the
original records documenting her father’s removal from his community in the Police
Station Timber Creek Letterbook, 1926–1928.

“It was dated July 1, 1927. My father was listed as Joe (quadroon), and his (half-caste)
mother, Bessie. It was the most significant moment I’ve experienced in my research.”

There have been other unsettling moments.

The artist recounts stumbling upon archival photos of her grandmother that were part of
a medical research expedition documenting diseases in Aboriginal communities.

“This was the era when Indigenous people were dehumanised and basically framed as
remnants of a dying race – my grandmother was photographed because she had a
condition called ‘boomerang legs’, which is like rickets,” she says.

Croft will respond to these medical images using 19th century wet-plate/collodian
processing for aspects of Solid/Shifting Ground.

“Indigenous history through an Indigenous research paradigm is often denied or

denigrated so it’s very important to allow different ways of telling stories, in this case
visually,” she says.

Telling her family’s story also creates a lasting record for her nieces and nephew so
“they know they are following in the footsteps of those who fought for equal rights for
all of us”.

“I’ve discovered things during my research that have taken me on different tracks –
that’s why the work is called what it is. At times I’ve felt like I’m in an earthquake and
the ground, and what I thought I knew about my family, is literally shifting and
changing underneath me.”

For Croft the final works, which will be staged in an exhibition in partnership with
Karungkarni Art and Culture Aboriginal Corporation at the UNSW Galleries in 2017,
are political as well as personal.

“This is part of a bigger, ongoing story, not just my family’s, but the history of this
country and the ongoing impact of colonisation.

“Ultimately, I want to dispel the fear of difference that’s still so inherent in our society,
as this is a shared history that affects all of us.”
FRAN STRACHAN

End of Text four

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In your answers you will be assessed on how well you:
! demonstrate understanding of the ways perceptions of discovery are shaped in and
through texts
! describe, explain and analyse the relationship between language, text and context

Question 1 (continued)
Marks
Text one – Book cover
(a) Explain how a sense of adventure has been created in the image. 2

Text two – Poem

(b) Identify ONE aspect of discovery that is revealed in this poem and explain 2
how the poet has communicated it.

Text three – Short story

(c) “No one had the slightest suspicion of what beautiful things she had 3
seen…”

How does Andersen convey the intensely personal nature of discoveries in

this text?

Text four – Feature article

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(d) Explore how the writer captures the process of discovery in the article.

Texts one, two, three and four – Book cover, Poem, Short story and Feature
article
(e) Analyse how TWO of these texts portray the significance of discovery to 5
individuals.

End of Question 1

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Section II

15 marks
Attempt Question 2
Allow about 40 minutes for this section

In your answers you will be assessed on how well you:

! express understanding of discovery in the context of your studies
! organise, develop and express ideas using language appropriate to audience, purpose
and context

Question 2 (15 marks)

Use ONE of the sentences below as the FIRST sentence in a piece of imaginative writing
that explores the following idea:

Discoveries change the way we think about ourselves.

Use ONE of these sentences as your FIRST sentence:

(a) No one else would ever understand.

or

(b) I had never expected that I would feel this way.

or

(c) After so long, it was a relief to uncover the truth.

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Section III

15 marks
Attempt Question 3
Allow about 40 minutes for this section

In your answers you will be assessed on how well you:

! demonstrate understanding of discovery in the context of your studies
! organise, develop and express ideas using language appropriate to audience, purpose
and context

Question 3 (15 marks)

Ultimately, there are no insignificant discoveries.

How is this perspective represented in prescribed text and ONE other related text of your
own choosing?

The prescribed texts are:

• Prose Fiction - James Bradley, Wrack

- Kate Chopin, The Awakening
- Tara June Winch, Swallow the Air

• Nonfiction - Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything

- Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara, The Motorcycle Diaries

• Drama - Michael Gow, Away

- Jane Harrison, Rainbow’s End
from Vivienne Cleven et al. (eds), Contemporary Indigenous Plays

• Film - Ang Lee, Life of Pi

• Shakespeare - William Shakespeare, The Tempest

Question 3 continues on page 10

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• Poetry - Rosemary Dobson
* Young Girl at a Window
* Wonder
* Painter of Antwerp
* Traveller’s Tale
* The Tiger
* Cock Crow
* Ghost Town: New England

- Robert Frost
* The Tuft of Flowers
* Mending Wall
* Home Burial
* After Apple-Picking
* Fire and Ice
* Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

- Robert Gray
* Journey: The North Coast
* The Meatworks
* North Coast Town
* Late Ferry
* Flames and Dangling Wire
* Diptych

• Media - Simon Nasht, Frank Hurley, The Man Who Made History
- Ivan O’Mahoney, Go Back To Where You Came From,
Series 1, Episodes 1, 2, 3 and The Response

End of paper

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