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    13+ English Entrance Exam Test Paper

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    Jennifer
    The tunnellers in "The Tunnel" are described as dressed in patched woollen clothes, wearing caps or handkerchiefs on their heads and no shoes. They work in a team under Tyson's instruction to tunnel underground. Jack Firebrace works alone in "Birdsong", 45 feet underground, loosening soil into bags as hundreds of tons of earth press above him. He works in difficult conditions, sweating profusely with little air. Both passages describe the dangerous and physically demanding work of tunneling underground, though Jack faces greater isolation and risk working alone at the tunnel face.

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    13+ English Entrance Exam Test Paper

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    Jennifer
    48 views3 pages
    The tunnellers in "The Tunnel" are described as dressed in patched woollen clothes, wearing caps or handkerchiefs on their heads and no shoes. They work in a team under Tyson's instruction to tunnel underground. Jack Firebrace works alone in "Birdsong", 45 feet underground, loosening soil into bags as hundreds of tons of earth press above him. He works in difficult conditions, sweating profusely with little air. Both passages describe the dangerous and physically demanding work of tunneling underground, though Jack faces greater isolation and risk working alone at the tunnel face.

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    The tunnellers in "The Tunnel" are described as dressed in patched woollen clothes, wearing caps or handkerchiefs on their heads and no shoes. They work in a team under Tyson's instruction to tunnel underground. Jack Firebrace works alone in "Birdsong", 45 feet underground, loosening soil into bags as hundreds of tons of earth press above him. He works in difficult conditions, sweating profusely with little air. Both passages describe the dangerous and physically demanding work of tunneling underground, though Jack faces greater isolation and risk working alone at the tunnel face.

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    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    48 views3 pages

    13+ English Entrance Exam Test Paper

    Uploaded by

    Jennifer
    The tunnellers in "The Tunnel" are described as dressed in patched woollen clothes, wearing caps or handkerchiefs on their heads and no shoes. They work in a team under Tyson's instruction to tunnel underground. Jack Firebrace works alone in "Birdsong", 45 feet underground, loosening soil into bags as hundreds of tons of earth press above him. He works in difficult conditions, sweating profusely with little air. Both passages describe the dangerous and physically demanding work of tunneling underground, though Jack faces greater isolation and risk working alone at the tunnel face.

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    of 3

    1 hr 15 mins

    From ‘The Tunnel’ by Eric Williams

    The tunnellers were dressed in woollen undervests and long pants, patched
    like harlequins, bright yellow from the puddled clay. On their heads they
    wore woollen caps or handkerchiefs knotted at the corners and, dancer-
    like, they wore no shoes.
    Tyson, already in his tunnelling clothes, was waiting for them. ‘Hurry 5
    up, chaps,’ he said.
    Peter and John quickly took off their outer clothing and joined the new
    shift, who were waiting to go below. It was cold and they shivered as
    Tyson slid under the boiler and, after much grunting and straining,
    disappeared from view. Peter, following, found a hole in the floor about 10
    two feet square. There was a rough ladder fixed to the side of the shaft, at
    the bottom of which the flickering rays of a lamp showed Tyson’s legs as he
    crawled out of sight. Presently his face appeared where his legs had been.
    ‘Go easy down the ladder,’ he said.
    At the bottom of the shaft was a square chamber about six feet by four in 15
    which a man crouched, working a crude concertina-like air pump made
    from a canvas kit-bag. By his side the goon lamp cast its lurid glow across
    his sweating face as he as he swung to the rhythm of the creaking pump.
    The walls and ceiling of the chamber and the mouth of the tunnel which
    opened from it were of solid wood, bed-boards jammed together side by 20
    side; but the floor was liquid clay.
    Tyson was crouching half in and half out of the tunnel. In his hands he
    had two smoking lamps, one of which he passed to Peter. ‘Follow me!’ He
    spoke in a whisper, as though he could be heard through twelve feet of
    solid earth. 25
    The tunnel, once they had left the chamber, was no longer lined with
    wood. The walls and ceiling dripped with water which gathered in long
    puddles on the floor and, as he wriggled after Tyson into the blackness,
    Peter felt this water soak through his woollen vest and cold grip him with
    its icy fingers. 30

    2
    From ‘Birdsong’ by Sebastian Faulks

    Jack Firebrace lay forty-five feet underground with several hundred


    thousand tons of France above his face. He could hear the wooden
    wheezing of the feed that pumped air through the tunnel. Most of it was
    exhausted by the time it reached him. His back was supported by a
    wooden cross, his feet against the clay, facing towards the enemy. With an 5
    adapted spade, he loosened quantities of soil into a bag which he passed
    back to Evans, his mate, who then crawled away in the darkness. Jack
    could hear the hammering of timbers being used to shore up the tunnel
    further back, through where he worked, at the face, there was no guarantee
    that the clay would hold. 10
    The sweat ran down into his eyes and stung them, making him shake his
    head from side to side. At this point the tunnel was about four feet across
    and five feet high. Jack kept sticking the spade into the earth ahead of him,
    hacking it out as though he hated it. He had lost track of how long he had
    been underground. He found it easier not to think when he might be 15
    relieved, but to keep digging. The harder he worked, the easier it seemed.
    It must have been six hours or more since he had seen daylight, and even
    then not much of it, but a thin green haze across the lowlands of the
    French-Belgian border, lit by the spasmodic explosion of shells.
    His unit had not been able to return to its billet in the local village. So 20
    intense was the activity in this part of the line that the surface troops would
    not stay in their trenches without the protection of the men underground.
    The miners had to sleep, for the time being, in chambers at the top of their
    shafts or in the trenches with the infantry.
    Jack felt a hand clutch his elbow. ‘Jack. We need you. Turner’s heard 25
    something about 20 yards back. Come on.’
    Evans pulled him off the cross, and Jack turned stiffly, easing the sweat-
    soaked vest off his shoulders, and following Evans’s crawling buttocks
    until he could stand. Even the murk of the timbered tunnel was bright to
    him after the clay face. He blinked in the gloom. 30

    3
    Answer all of the following questions.

    1. How does the author describe the men in “The Tunnel” and their
    relationship with each other?

    [5 marks]

    2. How does the author convey a sense of mystery and tension in the
    passage “The Tunnel”? You should look at the language and imagery in
    the passage.

    [5 marks]

    3. How does the author describe the potential dangers and difficulties Jack
    faces in “Birdsong” and how does he deal with them?

    [5 marks]

    4. Both passages are concerned with working underground.

    What similarities can you see between the character’s experiences?


    What are the differences?

    Which would you find easier to withstand and why?


    [10 marks]

    5. Have you ever been in a physically challenging situation? Write an


    account of the event (real or imaginary) explaining what was difficult
    about the experience. You should convey the mood of the event as well
    as giving detailed of what happened. You should aim to write about 200
    words.

    [25 marks]

    END OF PAPER

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