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Monthly Test ( MARCH 2011 ) 1. Read the poem by Pablo Neruda and then answer the questions that follow.
Tonight I can write the saddest lines. Write, for example, 'The night is starry and the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.' The night wind revolves in the sky and sings. Tonight I can write the saddest lines. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too. Through nights like this one I held her in my arms. I kissed her again and again under the endless sky. She loved me, sometimes I loved her too. How could one not have loved her great still eyes. Tonight I can write the saddest lines. To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her. To hear the immense night, still more immense without her. And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture. What does it matter that my love could not keep her. The night is starry and she is not with me. This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance. My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her. My sight tries to find her as though to bring her closer. My heart looks for her, and she is not with me. The same night whitening the same trees. We, of that time, are no longer the same. I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her. My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing. Another's. She will be another's. As she was before my kisses. Her voice, her bright body. Her infinite eyes. I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her. Love is so short, forgetting is so long.

Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her. Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer and these the last verses that I write for her.

( a ) What is the theme you could draw out from the poem? ( 5 marks ) ( b ) What are the literary devices used by the poet to describe his relationship? ( 10 marks ) ( c ) This poem is a tragic love story. Discuss your answer with close reference to the poem. ( 10 marks )

2. Read the extract below and then answer the questions that follow. iii you could have made a most royal subject worn your armour and charged your steed you could have swept me off my feetinstead you wore your heart on a sleeve and asked for love i could not give so i left you a broken king wounded your pride when i could not queen iv between us there are bridges of words your eyes could never burnit isn't through a lack of desire to set up what is a fire but where lips touch and hands meet can never hope to reach 2

the loneliness beneath the loneliness beneath

( a ) What is the mood expressed by the poet? ( 5 marks ) ( b ) The love relationship could have been built in Heaven. Discuss your answer with close reference to the poem. ( 10 marks) ( c ) In your opinion, is there a possibility the relationship could be mended ? ( 10 marks )

3. Read the extract from the poem by Yeats and then answer the questions that follow.
ONCE more the storm is howling, and half hid Under this cradle-hood and coverlid My child sleeps on. There is no obstacle But Gregory's wood and one bare hill Whereby the haystack- and roof-levelling wind. Bred on the Atlantic, can be stayed; And for an hour I have walked and prayed Because of the great gloom that is in my mind. I have walked and prayed for this young child an hour And heard the sea-wind scream upon the tower, And-under the arches of the bridge, and scream In the elms above the flooded stream; Imagining in excited reverie That the future years had come, Dancing to a frenzied drum, Out of the murderous innocence of the sea. May she be granted beauty and yet not Beauty to make a stranger's eye distraught, Or hers before a looking-glass, for such, Being made beautiful overmuch, Consider beauty a sufficient end, Lose natural kindness and maybe The heart-revealing intimacy That chooses right, and never find a friend. ( a ) What is the message the poet trying to convey to us? ( 5 marks ) ( b ) Why does Yeats describe a storm in his piece? What is the significance? ( 10 marks )

( c ) Yeats is a pessimistic man. Discuss your point of view with close reference to the poem. ( 10 marks )

4. Read the extract below and answer the questions that follow.

Flavius Hence! Home, you idle creatures, get you home. Is this a holiday? What, know you not, Being mechanical, you ought not to walk Upon a labouring day without the sign Of your profession? Speak, what trade art thou? First Citizen Why, sir, a carpenter, Marullus Where is thy leather apron, and thy rule? What dost thou with thy best apparel on? You, sir, what trade are you? ( a ) Who are Flavius and Marullus? Where are they? What are they doing there? Why? ( 5 marks )
( b ) Brutus is believed to be talking to himself about his plan to kill Caesar . With close reference to the

play, justify his conscience on the matter .

( 10 marks )

( c ) Caesar is offered the throne of Rome three times yet he refuses it. With close reference to the play, describe the good nature of Caesar. ( 10 marks )

END OF EXAM PAPER

Prepared by Mr Chan Chee Kong

Checked by Gogilavani Head of English Language Panel