SAINT PETER’S EDUCATION FOUNDATION

SPK SAINT PETER’S SCHOOL

REVISION
First Language English / Year 10
Term 1

Name: __________________________________ Date: _____________________

Text A: Snow

In this passage, the writer remembers the experience of an unusually heavy snowfall.

The snow had started the day before. The sun was bright in a clear sky and it snowed! Each flake
caught the sun. Sparkles swam in the air, carried by the wind. People passing on Cottage Street
looked up into the clear air to let the cold colours hit them in the eye, or on their glasses. They
smiled, admiring their shadows, as they walked in the sunny, sunny snowstorm falling around
them. A genuine curiosity, Grandpa called it.

Soon, though, the sky turned grey and the snow continued into the dark. This was more like it.
The falling snow stopped the litter that blew and rolled down the streets and pinned it to the
ground. Everything, the litter, fire hydrants, the bins that stood at street corners and in house
yards, was transformed into mysterious white lumps.

It snowed all through supper and after. It snowed through the radio and Grandpa’s reading. It
snowed even harder when I went to bed. All night, I’d wake and go to the window to wish for more;
I pressed my face against the cold glass to peer at the sky above the roof. I wanted there to be
more snow to come. And there was. The sky was black but the air was lit by the streetlight at the
end of the alley. Flakes of white day fell through the night and brushed against the glass. I thought
the wet chill would crack my cheek when I smiled.

In the morning the world was new. Yesterday’s lumps were now smooth and the spaces between
them were even and white. In the yard, the snow had rolled in on waves of wind from over the far
fence and dropped quietly and deeply. It filled the space from the back of the house to the alley,
then buried the fence and the alley. Then it buried Aunt and Uncle Erby’s fence across the way;
then it buried their yard, too. Then everything was all the same.

The wind blew hard enough to make the electricity pole at the corner of the street sway. The wires
clacked and chattered, their icy silver loads that had been building through the storm, trembling.
Grandpa looked up and down the alley. He shook his head, grimacing.

‘We’d best stay in,’ he said.

‘All of us. Falling wires,’ he said.

Grandma looked into the cupboards and shook her head.

‘Food’ll never last,’ she said.

When the wind howled, the snow rose alive, spinning and swirling, and the world went white. So
big a thing as Mount Amos disappeared. So too, did Aunt and Uncle Erby’s house across the
alley. Our yard began, now, at the back door and went on forever, around other houses and on
forever. The world was just our place, just our house and the smoothly shaped mounds of snow
stretching forever. A few black lines crossed above, or rose from it. A pole down the way had
fallen across the path. Dead black vines were hanging in tatters from the back fence. Then
nothing. The end of the world. Our place only; we could only wait.

Text B: The Viking explorer who beat Columbus to North America

In this article, the writer describes the Viking discovery of North America.

Nearly five hundred years before the birth of Christopher Columbus, a band of European sailors
left their homeland behind in search of a new world. The high prows of the Viking ships sliced
through the deep, blue waters of the Atlantic Ocean as winds billowed the boats’ enormous sails.
After crossing unfamiliar waters, the Norsemen, led by Leif Erikson, spied a new land, dropped
anchor and went ashore. Five hundred years before Columbus ‘discovered’ America, those Viking
feet may have been the first European ones ever to have touched North American soil.

Icelandic legends, called sagas, recounted Erikson’s exploits in the New World around C.E.1000.
These Norse stories were spread by word of mouth before being written down in the 12th and
13th centuries.

Two sagas give differing accounts as to how Erikson arrived in North America. According to the
‘Saga of Erik the Red’, Erikson crossed the Atlantic unintentionally after sailing off course on his
return voyage from Norway following his conversion to Christianity. The ‘Saga of the
Greenlanders’, however, recounts that Erikson’s voyage to North America was no accident.
Instead, the Viking explorer had heard of a strange land to the west from Icelandic trader Bjarni
Herjólfsson, who more than a decade earlier had overshot Greenland and sailed by the shores of
North America without setting foot upon it. Erikson bought the trader’s ship, raised a crew of 35
men and retraced the route in reverse.

After crossing the Atlantic, the Vikings encountered a rocky, barren land to which Erikson gave a
name as uninteresting as the surroundings – Helluland, Norwegian for ‘Stone Slab Land’.
Researchers believe this location could possibly have been what is now known as Baffin Island.
The Norsemen then voyaged south to a timber-rich location they called Markland (Forestland),
most likely in present-day Labrador, before finally settling in a base camp most likely on the
northern tip of the island of Newfoundland. The Vikings spent an entire winter there and benefited
from the milder weather compared to their homeland. They explored the surrounding region
abounding with lush meadows, rivers teeming with salmon, and wild grapes so suitable for wine
that Erikson called the region Vinland (Wineland).
 Text C: The mountain lake

In this passage, the writer describes a remote mountain lake in Ireland and tells what happened
on a family trip to fish for brown trout.

There is a lake, halfway up a mountain, where my family and I spend a day or two fishing each
year. The climb, over waterlogged ground, drains the energy from our legs and makes us pause
every now and then to catch our breath. During these short breaks we turn our backs on the
mountain, and face, instead, the open country beneath us. There is plenty to see. The flat green
country is divided by the River Shannon. There are lakes everywhere. Some of the larger ones
we can name, but the small ones are too many to count; each one a jewel nestled into a fold in
the velvet landscape. All around us the air carries the sound of the tiny streams which gather the
water from the mountain and begin to steer it, well beyond our vision, towards the ocean.

The mountain lake is not easy to find. It seems unusual to locate a lake by climbing upward and,
in many ways, we were lucky to find it at all on our first trip. It is very small and seemingly invisible
until you arrive at a ridge and discover it, quite suddenly, at your feet. Sometimes it is not there at
all. The dark clouds that graze the mountaintops here may decide to throw a protective fog around
it, and steal it back. On such days we are forced to turn away and leave the local fish, the brown
trout, to cruise the dark waters undisturbed.

This isolated lake is fed only by a stream which gathers rainfall from the mountain ridge above.
How did the trout get here? They are not big fish: the heaviest we have caught is probably just
under half a kilo. With their black backs, copper sides and two rows of red spots, they are all very
similar in appearance. It seems to me that their strict conformity to a shared dress code might say
something about their history. Scientists suggest that fewer physical differences are to be
expected in a small population long isolated from others. In my imagination, they are the
descendants of ancestors which colonised these waters in prehistoric times; ancestors which
swam through channels long since vanished in a landscape of ice and glaciers and a wilderness
unseen by human eyes.

I had taken my son, Leo, on a short fishing trip and had decided to go to the mountain lake as its
eager fish might offer him the greatest hope of an early catch. Here the brown trout always rise
freely, as though to reward us for the effort we have made to reach them. Would these bold trout
oblige us by rising to the water’s surface as we had hoped? I need not have worried. Sure enough,
within ten minutes or so of our arrival, a swirl distorted the mirror of the mountain lake’s surface.
A few moments later, we were admiring the varnished scales of Leo’s first trout before he gently
lowered it into the lake once more and let the black water reclaim it.

To celebrate Leo’s first trout, I painted a watercolour picture of it. It is framed now and hangs on
his bedroom wall. It is not a good painting. While its proportions are approximately correct and its
colours resemble the original, I could no more capture its beauty using paints than I now can,
using words. If you wish to see for yourself how beautiful these trout really are, you must go there
– and hope that, for a few hours at least, the clouds will surrender the mountain lake to you.
Read carefully Text A, Snow, in the Reading Booklet Insert and then answer Questions 1 (a) –
(g).

Question 1

(a) Using your own words, explain why Grandpa calls the event described in paragraph 1, ‘A
genuine curiosity ... ’ (line 5), and how people reacted to this event.

[2]
(b) Using your own words, explain the effects of the falling snow on the surrounding
environment (paragraph 2, ‘Soon, though, the sky ... ’).

[2]

(c) Give two detail from paragraph 3, ‘It snowed all ... ’, that tells you the narrator was excited
by the falling snow.

[2]

(d) Give one detail mentioned by the narrator in paragraph 4, ‘In the morning ... ’, that tells you
that the snow was very deep.

[1]
(e) (i) Which one word in paragraph 5, ‘The wind blew hard ... ’, tells you that Grandpa was
concerned about the possible effects of the snowfall?

[1]
(ii) Using your own words, explain why Grandpa had cause for concern (paragraph 5,
‘The wind blew hard ... ’)?

[2]
(f) From the final paragraph, ‘When the wind howled ... ’, explain:

(i) How have the weather conditions changed from the first paragraph?
(ii) What do the final three sentences of the passage tell you about the effect of the snow
on the family’s situation?

[2]
(g) Re-read paragraph 3, ‘It snowed all ... ’, and the final paragraph, ‘When the wind ... ’.
Using your own words, explain what the writer means by the words underlined in
each of the following quotations:

• ‘Flakes of white day fell through the night and brushed against the glass.’ (lines
14–15)
• ‘... the snow rose alive, spinning and swirling, and the world went white.’ (lines
32–33)
• ‘Dead black vines were hanging in tatters from the back fence.’ (lines 37–38). [3]

Total: 15 marks
Read Text B: The Viking explorer who beat Columbus to North American, then answer
Question 1(h).

Question 1

(h) write a summary of what Text B tells you about the Vikings’ discovery of North America and
what they found there.

You must use continuous writing (not note form) and use your own words as far as possible.

Your summary should not be more than 120 words.

Up to 10 marks are available for the content of your answer and up to 5 marks for the
quality of your writing.

Total: 15 marks
Read carefully Text C, The mountain lake, and then answer Question 2.

Question 2

2 (a) Re-read the passage. Using your own words, explain what the writer means by the
words underlined in the following quotations:

(i). ‘ … the brown trout, to cruise the dark waters undisturbed.’ (lines 13–14)
(ii). ‘ … the brown trout always rise freely, as though to reward us for the effort … ’
(lines 25–26)
(iii). ‘ … admiring the varnished scales of Leo’s first trout … ’ (line 29)
(iv). Which four-word phrase in paragraph 1 suggests that the water in the tiny streams cannot
be seen by the narrator (paragraph 1, ‘There is a lake … ’)?

[ 4 marks ]

(b) State three features of the walk which made it difficult for the narrator to reach the mountain
lake (paragraph 1, ‘There is a lake … ’).

[ 3 marks ]

(b) Using your own words, explain what the narrator can see as he faces the open country
(paragraph 1, ‘There is a lake … ’).

[ 3 marks ]

(d) Re-read paragraph 3 and 5.

 Paragraph 3 begins “This isolated lake…”

Explain how the writer uses language to convey meaning and to create effect in these
paragraphs. Choose three examples of words or phrases from each paragraph to support
your answer. Your choices should include the use of imagery.

Write about 200 to 300 words.

Up to 15 marks are available for the content of your answer.

Total: 25 marks
Re-read Text C, The Mountain Lake, and then answer Question 3.

Question 3

Imagine that you are Leo, the narrator’s son in Text C. You have decided to write a journal
entry, describing the fishing trip to the mountain lake with your father.

In your journal entry you should:

Write your journal entry.

Write about 250 to 350 words.

Up to 15 marks are available for the content of your answer and up to 10 marks for the
quality of your writing.

Total: 25 marks