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LS English 9 Diagnostic Check

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208 views2 pages

LS English 9 Diagnostic Check

Uploaded by

leahyao0807
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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CAMBRIDGE LOWER SECONDARY ENGLISH 9: DIAGNOSTIC CHECK

Part 2: Fiction
Section A: Reading
Spend around 20 minutes on this section.
Read this text (an extract from The Endless Steppe by Esther Hautzig), then answer questions
1–7. This is the opening of the novel, narrated by 10-year-old Esther. It is set in Poland in 1941,
during World War II.

The morning it happened – the end of my lovely world – I did not water the lilac bush
outside my father’s study.
The time was June 1941 and the place was Vilna, a city in the north-eastern corner of
Poland. And I was ten years old and took it for granted that all over the globe people
5 tended to their gardens on such a morning as this. Wars and bombs stopped at the
garden gates, happened on the far side of garden walls.
Our garden was the centre of my world, the place above all others where I wished to
remain forever. The house we lived in was built around this garden, its red-tiled roof
slanting towards it. It was a very large and dignified house with a white plaster façade.
10 The people who lived in it were my people, my parents, my paternal grandparents, my
aunts and my uncles and my cousins. My grandfather owned the house; my
grandmother ruled the house. They lived rather majestically in their own apartment,
and the rest of us lived in six separate apartments. Separate but not exactly private.
There were no locked doors; people were always rushing in and out of each other’s
15 apartments to borrow things, to gossip, to boast a bit or complain a bit, or to tell the
latest family joke. It was a great, exuberant, busy, loving family, and heaven for an only
child. Behind the windows looking out on our garden there were no strangers, no
enemies, no hidden danger.
Beyond the garden, beginning with the tree-lined avenue we lived on, was Vilna, my
20 city. For the best view of Vilna one went to the top of Castle Hill. Built along the banks
of the river Wilja in a basin of green hills, Vilna had been called a woodland capital. It
was a university town, a city of parks and lovely old houses hugging the hills and each
other. It was a spirited city for a child to grow up in.
From this hilltop I could make out the place where my family’s business took up half a
25 block, the synagogue we attended, the road that led to the idyllic country lake where
we had our summer house. When I stood on this hilltop everything was just as it should
be in this best of all possible worlds, my world.

Cambridge Lower Secondary English 9 – Creamer, Clare & Rees-Bidder © Cambridge University Press 2021 6
CAMBRIDGE LOWER SECONDARY ENGLISH 9: DIAGNOSTIC CHECK

1 Suggest one reason that paragraph 1 is an effective opening to the novel.

[1]

2 ‘And I was ten years old and took it for granted that all over the globe people tended to
their gardens on such a morning as this. Wars and bombs stopped at the garden gates,
happened on the far side of garden walls’ (lines 4–6).

What impression do you get of Esther from these lines?

[1]

3 a Which literary technique is ‘Our garden was the centre of my world’ (line 7) an
example of?

[1]

b Why is it effective?

[1]

4 a ‘My grandfather owned the house; my grandmother ruled the house’ (lines 11–12).
Suggest why this is an effective sentence.

[1]

b ‘They lived rather majestically in their own apartment’ (line 12).


What does the word ‘majestically’ suggest about Esther’s grandparents?

[1]

5 Explain, using your own words, two reasons for Esther describing her home as ‘heaven for
an only child’ (lines 16–17).

• [2]

6 Which literary technique is ‘a city of parks and lovely old houses hugging the hills and
each other’ (lines 22–23) an example of?

[1]

Cambridge Lower Secondary English 9 – Creamer, Clare & Rees-Bidder © Cambridge University Press 2021 7

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