SECONDARY SCHOOL

ACADEMIC YEAR 2020-2021

Midterm Test
Year 7
Name of Student : _____________________________________
Class : __________
Date of Exam : 4th February, 2021
Subject : English Language
Teacher : Venera Mukhtarzadeh
HOD : Sabina Farajova

Duration: 70 minutes
Total: ______ marks
SECTION 1: Read the following passage carefully, and then answer all the questions.

Sheryl Garratt, her husband and five-year-old son Liam visit an eccentric Dutch theme park

Soon after arriving at the Dutch theme park, Efteling, we were in a boat on a man-made
waterway which is pretty much as you’d expect of a trip to Holland. Apart from the camels
and the crocodiles…

Floating through the bazaar of the fictional Arabian town of Fata Morgana, we passed
hordes of shoppers and beggars crowding the bazaar while a man screamed in agony as a
robotic dentist administered to him in an open-air surgery. Women in exotic dresses danced
in the courtyards and prisoners groaned in the dungeons. A tiger was shot and snakes were
charmed. We even got to drift between the legs of a giant.

An hour or so later, we were floating again, this time in the air in open-fronted cable cars.
The fairytale scenes before us on the Dream Flight were cheesy but charming, and
beautifully done: the smells and temperature changed as we moved from one set to another;
fairies perched in trees in a rainy wood full of goblins and trolls.

These state-of-the-art rides are recent additions to a fairytale-themed park that is almost 50
years old, set in the Brabant region near the Belgian border. Efteling’s mature woods make it
less artificial than most theme parks, with clever details like talking litter bins to keep little
minds occupied and little legs walking. Wholesome and quietly appealing, it’s a great place
to blow away the winter cobwebs.

My five-year-old son’s favourite spot was the Fairytale Forest, featuring low-tech tableaux
from various fairy stories. A fakir [magician] who was charming tulips from the ground before
flying from one side of his home to another on a creaky magic carpet had Liam transfixed.
He also liked Laafland, an imaginative playground that is home to a ‘lost tribe’, with statues
of grotesquelooking little folk called Laafs.

We stayed in the Golden Tulip Efteling Hotel, well suited for children. It has a generous play
area with actors dressed as fairies and trolls. The family rooms were large and comfortable
and the hotel has its own entrance to the park, allowing guests to get to some of the more
popular rides before queues build up.

The next morning, my husband played with our son in a nearby maze, whilst I rode on the
stomach-churning Bird Rok, an indoor rollercoaster which lurches around for much of the
time in total darkness, leaving you disorientated. ‘Mum, you look funny,’ observed Liam
cheerfully as I got off; ignoring my pale smile he dragged me on to the nearby Carnival
Festival ride. He loved it and wanted to go on again immediately

This is only the second year the park has opened during the winter months, as ‘Winter’
Efteling. The response during the school holiday exceeded all expectations: there were
25,000 people inside; the car parks had to be closed and the resulting traffic jams made the
national news bulletins.
Although the majority of the rollercoasters and white-knuckle rides are closed, and can be
seen only from the carriages of a steam train which chugs around the park, there is plenty
added on to compensate. There’s a huge indoor skating rink, where small children glide
along holding on to chairs and parents can have hot drinks in the ‘après-ski’ bar. An indoor
winter wonderland playground provides huge inflatables, snowball-throwing stalls and a
snow slide that children can hurtle down on tyres.

As darkness falls, lights come on in the trees and along the pathways, and bonfires are
tended in the big open squares. Then the musicians and entertainers who have performed
around the park all day really come into their own, entrancing children with fire-eating and
juggling. The beautifully lit Flying Pagoda ride glides high in the sky, hovering over the park
like a UFO, and everything stays open till 8pm, offering a long, good value day out.

On the crisp, clear winter days we were there, we were warmed up by frequent visits to
reasonably priced stalls selling hot chocolate and delicious hot snacks (from doughnuts to
French fries with mayonnaise). However, there is plenty to do under cover, so even rain
wouldn’t have dampened our spirits. We spent more than an hour, for instance, in a building
housing a glorious 150-year old steam carousel, an ornate miniature railway, a theatre
where fountains danced to music and several refreshment bars.

This was a winter day out with parents and children happy, and not a TV or computer screen
in sight. Now that’s magic!

(a)​ In what country would you find Efteling? [1]

Holland
(b) ​Give two words from the second paragraph (‘Floating through … legs of a giant’) which
tell you that what you can see from the boat is not real. [2] Fictional and robotic.

(c)​ Using your own words, explain fully the purpose of the talking litter bins (paragraph 4,
‘These state-of-the-art … winter cobwebs’). [2] They are there to keep children interested

(d)​ Give two effects that the Bird Rok roller coaster ride had on the writer (paragraph 7, ‘The
next morning … again immediately’). [2]

(e) ​Apart from the Bird Rok roller coaster, state four things on which visitors can ride within
Efteling. [4] A boat,Dream Flight, Carnival Festival, roller coasters;

(f) ​In the introduction, the writer describes Efteling as ‘eccentric’. Choose three words or
phrases used by the writer and explain how each conveys the unusual and unexpected
nature of the park. [6] apart from the camels and crocodiles,
fairy tale scenes were cheesy but charming,
talking litter bins
(g)​ Explain, using your own words, what the writer means by: [4]

(i)​ “blow away the winter cobwebs” (lines 16-17)

Freshen you up in mind and body during the gloom of winter
(ii)​ “grotesque-looking little folk” (lines 21-22)
Wonderfully formed little people, ugly in apperance
(h)​ From the whole passage, write a summary of what parents would particularly like about
Efteling. [7]

Write a paragraph of about 50-70 words.

(i) ​What effects does the writer achieve by ending her article with the statement, ‘Now that’s
magic!’? [2]

SECTION 2: READ THE PASSAGE CAREFULLY AND THE ANSWER QUESTION 1

The narrator gives an account of his walk with a friend through the Californian desert.

Death Valley

The desert is hateful. In the desert, at high noon, there are no shadows, and the sun weighs
on you with the weight of centuries. The land seems dead or dying, and the desert is like an
ageing movie star, an eroded landscape under merciless light. It is not the heat, the great
convection oven of desert valleys, that kills, so much as the ground temperature. In Death
Valley ground temperatures as high as 90 degrees have been recorded. Don’t fall here.
Don’t faint. A few hours lying on unshaded ground can kill very easily. It can literally bake the
brain inside the skull. Even walking – slow, steady walking – can become painful. A burning
plain is not kind to the feet and gives literal meaning to the word ‘tenderfoot’.

Nick Nichols and I started walking through Death Valley in midsummer. My boots gave out
on the first day. They were light ankle-high canvas affairs, and the glue that held the thick
soles to the body of the boot had begun to melt. I took the boots off and doctored them a bit
with some tape from the first-aid kit. This was a mistake. My feet had expanded a size or so
in the heat, and I couldn’t get the boots back on. After some sitting on the burning ground
under the burning sun, it seemed a good idea to keep walking no matter what. I used my
knife to cut several portholes in the canvas to make the boots somewhat wearable.

Originally, we had intended to sleep during the heat of the day, but our tents concentrated
the ground heat and baked us until we felt woozy and barely conscious. It was safer to walk.
So there we were, Nick and I, limping down the western flank of the Panamint Mountains
under a cloudless sky at high noon. Little else seemed to live on the face of that burning rock
and sand.

To pass the time, we began playing the Game of Living Things. We were moving due west,
and Nick had the entire world to the south. The north belonged to me. One living creature
was worth one point. I had seen a dull grey sparrow-like bird and was way ahead, one point
to zero.

Suddenly a rabbit, grey as the dull desert rock, burst out from under some sage between us.
It broke northwest, nearly crossed my path, then cut south into Nick’s world.
My point,’ Nick said. ‘That was my rabbit,’ I pointed out. I noticed that my teeth were tightly
clenched.

‘I scared him up.’ Half an hour later Nick said, ‘The rabbit ran south. It’s my rabbit.’

Half an hour after that I said, ‘He ran north first.’ The tape had come off my right boot so that
the rubber sole flopped annoyingly. My feet were being chafed badly by the holes in the
boots, and I was walking in a sore-footed shuffle, rather like Charlie Chaplin except that I
had to lift the right foot high above the ground to avoid getting burning pebbles in between
the flopping sole and my foot. If I had that shuffling, hopping walk on video, I suspect I’d be
able to see some small comedy there. As it was, the sun had baked me sour.

‘So it’s one to one,’ Nick said some time later. I could feel the muscles bunching up in my
back and found it necessary to shuffle-hop a hundred paces north into my own world and out
of conversational range. An hour later, I heard myself shout, ‘Just shut up about the stupid
rabbit!’

The desert is lovely. At dusk, when the sun sets and the sky explodes into gaudy pastels,
when shadows mirror the colour of the sky, when the breeze is a cooling purple caress, the
desert is beautiful. We were eating, Nick and I, and laughing. It’s amazing what the desert
does to you: it focuses wants and needs. At noon I had wanted no more than shade and
water. It was absolutely all I could think about, and I knew then that if I’d had a cool place to
sit and a jug of liquid life, I would have been happy. Now, from outside our tent in the
campsite, with both water and the blessing of night, I felt certain new needs creep into the
equation. A soft drink would be nice. If I had that, I would be happy. A chair to sit on… A
table with some proper utensils… A white linen tablecloth… A house with a pool….

Q: ​Imagine that you are Nick Nichols, the friend of the narrator of ​SECTION B​, at the end of
the day. ​Write a letter home about your walk through Death Valley.

In your letter you should:

• describe the mistakes made before and during the walk

• explain how and why your attitude to the desert changed at the end of the day
• give your thoughts and feelings about your companion’s behaviour and your friendship.

Base your letter on what you have read in SECTION B. Address all three bullet points.
Be careful to use your own words.​ [160 words]