E-School

British Department

Weekly assignment 5
English 0861
Date: 26 / 10 /2023

Name :…………………………………………………….

Year 8
 Smart E-School 26nd October 2023
British Department Y8 Weekly assignment 5

Section A: Reading
Spend 30 minutes on this section.

Then from somewhere, out of that howling darkness, a cry came to my ears, catapulting
me back into the present and banishing all tranquillity.

I listened hard. Nothing. The tumult of the wind, like a banshee, and the banging and
rattling of the window in its old, ill-fitting frame. Then yes, again, a cry, that familiar cry
of desperation and anguish, a cry for help from a child somewhere out on the marsh.

There was no child. I knew that. How could there be? Yet how could I lie here and
ignore even the crying of some long-dead ghost?

“Rest in peace,” I thought, but this poor one did not, could not.

After a few moments I got up. I would go down into the kitchen and make myself a
drink, stir up the fire a little and sit beside it trying, trying to shut out that calling voice
for which I could do nothing, and no one had been able to do anything for … how many
years?

As I went out onto the landing, Spider the dog following me at once, two things
happened together. I had the impression of someone who had just that very second
before gone past me on their way from the top of the stairs to one of the other rooms,
and, as a tremendous blast of wind hit the house so that it all but seemed to rock at the
impact, the lights went out. I had not bothered to pick up my torch from the bedside
table and now I stood in the pitch blackness, unsure for a moment of my bearings.

And the person who had gone by, and who was now in this house with me? I had seen
no one, felt nothing. There had been no movement, no brush of a sleeve against mine,
no disturbance of the air, I had not even heard a footstep. I had simply the absolutely
certain sense of someone just having passed close to me and gone away down the
corridor. Down the short narrow corridor that led to the nursery whose door had been

Weekly Assignment 6
 Smart E-School 26nd October 2023
British Department Y8 Weekly assignment 5

so firmly locked and then, inexplicably, opened.

For a moment I actually began to conjecture that there was indeed someone — another
human being — living here in this house, a person who hid themselves away in that
mysterious nursery and came out at night to fetch food and drink and to take the air.

Perhaps it was the woman in black? Had Mrs Drablow harboured some reclusive old
sister or retainer, had she left behind her a mad friend that no one had known about?
My brain span all manner of wild, incoherent fantasies as I tried desperately to provide
a rational explanation for the presence I had been so aware of. But then they ceased.
There was no living occupant of Eel Marsh House other than myself and Samuel Daily’s
dog. Whatever was about, whoever I had seen, and heard rocking, and who had passed
me by just now, whoever had opened the locked door was not “real”. No. But
what was “real”? At that moment I began to doubt my own reality.

The first thing I must have was a light and I groped my way back across to my bed,
reached over it and got my hand to the torch at last, took a step back, stumbled over
the dog who was at my heels and dropped the torch. It went spinning away across the
floor and fell somewhere by the window with a crash and the faint sound of breaking
glass. I cursed but managed, by crawling about on my hands and knees, to find it again
and to press the switch. No light came on. The torch had broken.

For a moment I was as near to weeping tears of despair and fear, frustration and
tension, as I had ever been since my childhood. But instead of crying I drummed my fists
upon the floorboards, in a burst of violent rage, until they throbbed.

It was Spider who brought me to my senses by scratching a little at my arm and then by
licking the hand I stretched out to her. We sat on the floor together and I hugged her
warm body to me, glad of her, thoroughly ashamed of myself, calmer and relieved,
while the wind boomed and roared without, and again and again I heard that child’s
terrible cry borne on the gusts towards me.

Susan Hill The Woman in Black (Vintage, 2007)

Weekly Assignment 6
 Smart E-School 26nd October 2023
British Department Y8 Weekly assignment 5

1. How does Susan Hill create tension the opening of the extract?
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2. Find one example of a rhetorical question, write it down and explain the effect it has
on the reader.

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3. Why could the author have chosen the name ‘Drablow’?

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4. Find two examples of personification and explain the effect they have.

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5. How does the author use sentence structure to heighten the suspense in the extract?
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6. Does the text have any features of gothic literature?

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7. The extract mentions a child and a nursery. Does this make the text more or less
spooky? Explain your reasons why.

Weekly Assignment 6
 Smart E-School 26nd October 2023
British Department Y8 Weekly assignment 5

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8. Find what emotions the narrator experiences and back your answer up with evidence
from the text (quotes).

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9.What is the immediate context for this passage?
a. Arthur is spending his first night in Eel Marsh House
b. Arthur is spending his second night in Eel Marsh House
c. Arthur is spending his third night in Eel Marsh House
d. Arthur realises that the mist will prevent his return to the town and has settled
down to read through Mrs Drablow's papers

10.What immediately follows this passage?

a. Arthur goes to the nursery
b. Spider chases out into the marshes after a whistle
c. The rocking sound begins again, even more loudly
d. Keckwick pounds on the front door

11.What is Arthur's first explanation for the other presence in the house?
a. He believes it to be a ghost
b. He believes an animal has entered the house
c. He believes a living person has been hiding in the house
d. He thinks the wind has been causing strange noises and disturbances in the
house

Weekly Assignment 6
 Smart E-School 26nd October 2023
British Department Y8 Weekly assignment 5

12.How does Arthur respond to breaking his torch?

a. He completely gives up
b. He loses control of his emotions
c. He remains calm and collected
d. He runs away in terror

Weekly Assignment 6
 Smart E-School 26nd October 2023
British Department Y8 Weekly assignment 5

13.Which of the following phrases offers a contrast to the ghostly presence in the
house?
a. "I began to doubt my own reality"
b. "Whatever was about, whoever I had seen, and heard rocking, and who had
passed me by just now, whoever had opened the locked door was not 'real'"
c. "No light came on. The torch had broken"
d. "We sat on the floor together and I hugged her warm body to me"

14."The first thing I must have was a light and I groped my way back across to my bed,
reached over it and got my hand to the torch at last, took a step back, stumbled over
the dog who was at my heels and dropped the torch. It went spinning away across the
floor and fell somewhere by the window with a crash and the faint sound of breaking
glass. I cursed but managed, by crawling about on my hands and knees, to find it again
and to press the switch. No light came on. The torch had broken." Which language
choices emphasise Arthur's loss of control in this scene?
a. first, light, reached, last, dropped
b. groped, reached, hand, step, managed
c. groped, stumbled, dropped, spinning, crawling
d. reached, hand, heels, faint, managed

15.Which of the following lines demonstrates Arthur's attempt to provide his own
comfort and reassurance?
a. "I listened hard. Nothing"
b. "I would go down into the kitchen and make myself a drink, stir up the fire a little
and sit beside it trying, trying to shut out that calling voice for which I could do
nothing"
c. "For a moment I was as near to weeping tears of despair and fear, frustration
and tension, as I had ever been since my childhood"
d. "It was Spider who brought me to my senses by scratching a little at my arm and
then by licking the hand I stretched out to her"

16.Why does Arthur begin to doubt his own reality?

a. He is grappling with the idea that something can be "real" even though it is
beyond any of the physical senses

Weekly Assignment 6
 Smart E-School 26nd October 2023
British Department Y8 Weekly assignment 5

b. He has utterly lost his mind

c. He begins to believe that he and Spider are ghosts in the house inhabited by Mrs
Drablow and the Woman in Black
d. The narrator is using hyperbolic language here. Arthur knows that he is solid and
real and still believes another person is physically present in the house

17.Who does Arthur wish would "rest in peace"?

a. Mrs Drablow
b. Jennet Humfrye
c. The child who drowned in the marsh
d. Mr Jerome's deceased child

18.What effect does the wind have in this passage?

1. It sounds like a spirit
2. It causes all the lights in the house to go out
3. It relentlessly brings the cries of the ghostly child to Arthur
4. All of the above

Weekly Assignment 6
 Smart E-School 26nd October 2023
British Department Y8 Weekly assignment 5

Section B: Writing
Spend 30 minutes on this section

19. Write an adventure story about Peter who had just walked into a room full of
antique mirrors, and there was one that caught his eyes specially .

Don’t forget to :
 Build tension
 Create suspense
 Use figurative language

 PLANNING

Spend up to five minutes making notes in the box below to plan your story.

Weekly Assignment 6
 Smart E-School 26nd October 2023
British Department Y8 Weekly assignment 5

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Weekly Assignment 6
 Smart E-School 26nd October 2023
British Department Y8 Weekly assignment 5

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Weekly Assignment 6
 Smart E-School 26nd October 2023
British Department Y8 Weekly assignment 5

Directions: Read the lines of poetry. Slashes represent line breaks. Figure out which
technique is being used: simile, metaphor, hyperbole, or personification. In the boxes,
explain how you figured out your answer. It is possible that more than one technique is
being used. If you can, explain each.
1. Like burnt-out torches by a sick man's bed

Which technique is being used?

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Simile, Metaphor, Personification, or Hyperbole

How do you figure?

(write a sentence explaining your answer)

2. Drip—hiss—drip—hiss fall the raindrops / on the oaken log which burns, and steams,
and smokes the ceiling beams. / Drip—hiss—the rain never stops.

Which technique is being used?

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Simile, Metaphor, Personification, or Hyperbole

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Weekly Assignment 6
 Smart E-School 26nd October 2023
British Department Y8 Weekly assignment 5

How do you figure?

(write a sentence explaining your answer)

3. When the stars threw down their spears, / And water'd heaven with their tears,
Which technique is being used?
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Simile, Metaphor, Personification, or Hyperbole

How do you figure?

(write a sentence explaining your answer)

4. The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,

The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,
Which technique is being used?
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Simile, Metaphor, Personification, or Hyperbole

How do you figure?

(write a sentence explaining your answer)

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Weekly Assignment 6
 Smart E-School 26nd October 2023
British Department Y8 Weekly assignment 5

5. I do not care to talk to you although / Your speech evokes a thousand sympathies,
Which technique is being used?
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Simile, Metaphor, Personification, or Hyperbole

How do you figure?

(write a sentence explaining your answer)

6. The sun was shining on the sea, / Shining with all his might:
Which technique is being used?
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Simile, Metaphor, Personification, or Hyperbole

How do you figure?

(write a sentence explaining your answer)

7. The leaves are little yellow fish / swimming in the river.

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Weekly Assignment 6
 Smart E-School 26nd October 2023
British Department Y8 Weekly assignment 5

Which technique is being used?

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Simile, Metaphor, Personification, or Hyperbole

How do you figure?

(write a sentence explaining your answer)

8. The old clock down in the parlor / Like a sleepless mourner grieves,
Which technique is being used?
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Simile, Metaphor, Personification, or Hyperbole
How do you figure?
(write a sentence explaining your answer)

9. By the lakes that thus outspread / Their lone waters, lone and dead / Their sad
waters, sad and chilly
Which technique is being used?
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Weekly Assignment 6
 Smart E-School 26nd October 2023
British Department Y8 Weekly assignment 5

Simile, Metaphor, Personification, or Hyperbole

How do you figure?
(write a sentence explaining your answer)

10. Fame is a bee. / It has a song -- / It has a sting --

Which technique is being used?
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Simile, Metaphor, Personification, or Hyperbole
How do you figure?
(write a sentence explaining your answer)

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Weekly Assignment 6