ADMISSION

NUMBER

MONTHLY TEST - OCTOBER 2021

GRADE 9 (CAMBRIDGE)

LITERATURE IN ENGLISH
POETRY AND PROSE

Duration : 1 hour and 30 minutes

INSTRUCTIONS

Answer two questions in total:

Section A: answer one question.
Section B: answer one question.

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SECTION A: POETRY
SONGS OF OURSELVES VOLUME 1: from Part 4

Answer one question from this section.

Remember to support your ideas with details from the writing.

Either

1. Read this poem, and then answer the question that follows it:

The City Planners

Cruising these residential Sunday

streets in dry August sunlight:
what offends us is
the sanities:
the houses in pedantic rows, the planted
sanitary trees, assert
levelness of surface like a rebuke
to the dent in our car door.
No shouting here, or
shatter of glass; nothing more abrupt
than the rational whine of a power mower
cutting a straight swath in the discouraged grass.

But though the driveways neatly

sidestep hysteria
by being even, the roofs all display
the same slant of avoidance to the hot sky,
certain things:
the smell of spilled oil a faint
sickness lingering in the garages,
a splash of paint on brick surprising as a bruise,
a plastic hose poised in a vicious
coil; even the too-fixed stare of the wide windows

give momentary access to

the landscape behind or under
the future cracks in the plaster

when the houses, capsized, will slide

obliquely into the clay seas, gradual as glaciers
that right now nobody notices.

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That is where the City Planners

with the insane faces of political conspirators
are scattered over unsurveyed
territories, concealed from each other,
each in his own private blizzard;

guessing directions, they sketch

transitory lines rigid as wooden borders
on a wall in the white vanishing air

tracing the panic of suburb

order in a bland madness of snows

(Margaret Atwood)

How does Margaret Atwood vividly convey her thoughts and feelings in “The City Planners”?

Or

2. What impressions about city planning are presented in “The Planners” by Boey Kim
Cheng?

The Planners

They plan. They build. All spaces are gridded,

filled with permutations of possibilities.
The buildings are in alignment with the roads
which meet at desired points
linked by bridges all hang
in the grace of mathematics.
They build and will not stop.
Even the sea draws back
and the skies surrender.

They erase the flaws,

the blemishes of the past, knock off
useless blocks with dental dexterity.
All gaps are plugged
with gleaming gold.
The country wears perfect rows
of shining teeth.
Anaesthesia, amnesia, hypnosis.
They have the means.
They have it all so it will not hurt,

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so history is new again.

The piling will not stop.
The drilling goes right through
the fossils of last century

But my heart would not bleed

poetry. Not a single drop
to stain the blueprint
of our past's tomorrow.

Boey Kim Cheng

SECTION B: PROSE
STORIES OF OURSELVES- VOLUME 2

Answer one question from this section.

HENRY HANDEL RICHARDSON: “And Women Must Weep”

Remember to support your ideas with details from the writing.

Either

3. Read this extract, and then answer the question that follows it:

“Now, Dolly, remember not to look too serious. Or you’ll frighten the gentleman off.”
She was only doing it now because of a dress: cabs were so cramped, the seats so narrow.
Alas! In getting out a little accident happened. She caught the bottom of one of her flounces- the
skirt was made of nothing else-on the iron step, and ripped off the selvedge, Auntie Cha said:
“My dear, how clumsy!” She could have cried with vexation.
The women who took their clocks hunted everywhere, but I could only find black cotton; so the
torn selvedge-there is nearly half a yard of it-had just to be cut off. This left a raw edge and
when they went into the hall and walked across the enormous floor, with people sitting
all-round, staring, it seemed to Dolly as if everyone had their eyes fixed on it. Auntie Cha sat
down in the front row of chairs beside a lady-friend; but she slid into a chair behind.
The first dance was already over, and they were hardly seated before partners began to be taken
for the second. Shyly she mustered the assembly. In the cloakroom, she had expected the
woman to exclaim: "What a sweet pretty frock!” when she handled it. (When all she did say
was: “This sort of stuff's bound to fray.") And now Dolly saw that the hall was full of lovely
dresses, some much, much prettier than hers, which suddenly began to seem rather too plain,
even a little dowdy; perhaps after all it would have been better to have chosen silk.
She wondered if Aunt Cha thought so too. For Auntie suddenly turned and looked at her, quite
hard, and then said snappily: ‘Come, come, child, you mustn’t tuck yourself away like that, or
the gentlemen will think, you don’t want to dance.’ So she had to come out and sit in the front;
and show that she had a programme, by holding it open on her lap.

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When other ladies were being requested for the third time, and still nobody has asked to be
introduced, Auntie began making signs and beckoning with her head to the Master of
Ceremonies- a funny little fat man with a bright red beard. He waddled across the floor, and
Auntie whispered to him… behind her fan. (But she heard. And heard him answer: ‘Wants a
partner? Why, certainly?’) And then he went away and they could see him offering her to
several gentlemen. Some pointed to the ladies they were sitting with or standing in front of;
some showed their programmes were full.

One or two turned their heads and looked at her. But it was no good. So he came back and said:
‘Will the little lady do me the favor?’ and she had to look glad and say: ‘With pleasure,’ and get
up and dance with him. Perhaps she was a little slow about it… at any rate Auntie Cha made
great round eyes at her. But she felt sure everyone would know why he was asking her. It was
the lancers, too, and he swung her off her feet at the corners, and was comic when he set to
partners- putting one hand on his hip and the other over his head, as if he were dancing the
hornpipe-and the rest of the set laughed. She was glad when it was over and she could go back
to her place.

Auntie Cha’s lady-friend had a son, and he was beckoned to next and there was more
whispering. But he was engaged to be married, and of course preferred to dance with his fiancée.
When he came and bowed- to oblige his mother – he looked quite grumpy, and didn’t trouble to
say all of “May I have the pleasure?” but just “The pleasure?” while she had to say “Certainly,”
and pretend to be very pleased, though she didn’t feel it, and really didn’t want much to dance
with him, knowing he didn’t, and that it was only out of charity. Besides, all the time they went
round he was explaining things to the other girl with his eyes… making faces over her head.
She saw him quite plainly.
After he had brought her back- and Auntie had to talk to him again- he went to a gentleman who
hadn’t danced at all yet, but just stood looking on. And this one needed a lot of persuasion. He
was ugly, and lanky, and as soon as they stood up, said quite rudely: “I’m no earthly good at
this kind of thing, you know.” And he wasn’t. He trod on her foot and put her out of step, and
they got into the most dreadful muddle, right out in the middle of the floor. It was a waltz, and
remembering what Miss Biddons had said, she got more and more nervous, and then went
wrong herself and had to say: ‘I beg your pardon,’ to which he said: ‘Granted.’ She saw them in
a mirror as they passed, and her face was red as red.

What does Richardson’s writing make you feel towards Dolly in “And women must weep”
at this moment in the story?

Or
4. Comment how Charlotte Perkins Gilman presents Mrs. McPherson as a memorable
character in “The Widow’s Might”?

END

Ref: CJ

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