RI H2 Literature 9509 P1 Prelim 2024

[Turn over RAFFLES INSTITUTION 2024 YEAR 6 PRELIMINARY EXAMINATION HIGHER 2 LITERATURE IN ENGLISH 9509/01 Paper 1 Reading Literature Tuesday 10 September 2024 3 hours 1330-1630 No Additional Materials are required. Set texts may be taken into the examination room. They may bear underlining or highlighting. Any kind of folding or flagging of papers in texts (e.g. use of post-its, tape flags or paper clips) is not permitted. READ THESE INSTRUCTIONS FIRST Writing paper will be provided. If you need additional paper ask the invigilator. Write your name and CT group on all the work you hand in. Answer three questions: one question from Section A, one question from Section B, and one question from Section C. You are reminded of the need for good English and clear presentation in your answers. At the end of the examination tie your answer sheets to each section securely. Hand in your answers separately. All questions in this paper carry equal marks. This document consists of 9 printed pages and 1 blank page.

2 ©RI 2024 H2 P1 RI LIT PRELIM 9509/01/24 Section A 1 Either (a) Write a critical comparison of the following poems, considering in detail ways in which language, style and form contribute to each poet’s portrayal of a father-son relationship. A THE HARP When he was my age and I was already a boy my father made a machine in the garage. A wired piece of steel with many small and beautiful welds ground so smooth they resembled rows of pearls. He went broke with whatever it was. He held it so carefully in his arms. He carried it foundry to foundry. I think it was his harp, I think it was what he longed to make with his hands for the world. He moved it finally from the locked closet to the bedroom to the garage again where he hung it on the wall until I climbed and pulled it down and rubbed it clean and tried to make it work. 5 10 15 Bruce Weigl (born 1949) B ORNAMENT My father has few things to protect. In our house where laughter flirts effortlessly with a history of loneliness, sometimes edifying each other, as two people stranded on an island may behave, the magnificent koi pond is his honour and glory. Cut in black marble, water unloosed over imposing shoulders of an obsidian1 wall, it seems, as I grow older, to be more perfect for my father’s affections than I can ever be, how virtuous its talent for turning the commonplace beautiful. On nights when my father is somewhere else I stoop over its edge, cautious as deer approaching the open, water so still it could be land, my body ready to navigate a world he has carved out of absence and longing, where we are together again. 5 10 15 20 Jerrold Yam (born 1991) 1 Obsidian: a hard, black or dark, glasslike volcanic rock formed from cooling lava.

3 ©RI 2024 H2 P1 RI LIT PRELIM 9509/01/24 Or (b) Write a critical comparison of the following poems, considering in detail ways in which language, style and form contribute to each poet’s portrayal of childhood. A CHILDHOOD How I could see through and through you! So unconscious, tender, kind, More than ever was known to you Of the pure ways of your mind. We who long to rest from strife Labour sternly as a duty; But a magic in your life Charms, unknowing of its beauty. We are pools whose depths are told; You are like a mystic fountain, Issuing ever pure and cold From the hollows of the mountain. We are men by anguish taught To distinguish false from true; Higher wisdom we have not; But a joy within guides you. 5 10 15 George William Russell (1867 – 1935) B IN CHILDHOOD things don't die or remain damaged but return: stumps grow back hands, a head reconnects to a neck, a whole corpse rises blushing and newly elastic. Later this vision is not True: the grandmother remains dead not hibernating in a wolf's belly. Or the blue parakeet does not return from the little grave in the fern garden though one may wake in the morning thinking mother's call is the bird. Or maybe the bird is with grandmother inside light. Or grandmother was the bird and is now the dog gnawing on the chair leg. Where do the gone things go when the child is old enough to walk herself to school, her playmates already pumping so high the swing hiccups? 5 10 15 20 Kimiko Hahn (born 1955) [Turn over

4 ©RI 2024 H2 P1 RI LIT PRELIM 9509/01/24 Section B JANE AUSTEN: Pride and Prejudice 2 Either (a) “In Pride and Prejudice, marriage as an ideal is exalted, but as a reality is shown to be seriously deficient.” How far do you agree with this reading of the novel? Or (b) Write a critical commentary on the following passage, relating it to the presentation of manners, here and elsewhere in the novel. Mrs. Bennet, all amazement, though flattered by having a guest of such high importance, received her with the utmost politeness. After sitting for a moment in silence, she said very stiffly to Elizabeth, “I hope you are well, Miss Bennet. That lady I suppose is your mother.” Elizabeth replied very concisely that she was. “And that I suppose is one of your sisters?” “Yes, madam,” said Mrs. Bennet, delighted to speak to a lady Catherine. “She is my youngest girl but one. My youngest of all, is lately married, and my eldest is somewhere about the grounds, walking with a young man, who I believe will soon become a part of the family.” “You have a very small park here,” returned Lady Catherine after a short silence. “It is nothing in comparison of Rosings, my lady, I dare say; but I assure you it is much larger than Sir William Lucas’s.” “This must be a most inconvenient sitting-room for the evening in summer; the windows are full west.” Mrs. Bennet assured her that they never sat there after dinner; and then added, “May I take the liberty of asking your ladyship whether you left Mr. and Mrs. Collins well.” “Yes, very well. I saw them the night before last.” Elizabeth now expected that she would produce a letter for her from Charlotte, as it seemed the only probable motive for her calling. But no letter appeared, and she was completely puzzled. Mrs. Bennet, with great civility, begged her ladyship to take some refreshment; but Lady Catherine very resolutely, and not very politely, declined eating anything; and then rising up said to Elizabeth, “Miss Bennet, there seemed to be a prettyish kind of a little wilderness on one side of your lawn. I should be glad to take a turn in it, if you will favour me with your company.” “Go, my dear,” cried her mother, “and shew her ladyship about the different walks. I think she will be pleased with the hermitage.” Elizabeth obeyed, and, running into her own room for her parasol, attended her noble guest downstairs. As they passed through the hall, Lady Catherine opened the doors into the dining-parlour and drawing-room, and pronouncing them, after a short survey, to be decent looking rooms, walked on. Her carriage remained at the door, and Elizabeth saw that her waiting-woman was in it. They proceeded in silence along the gravel walk that led to the copse; Elizabeth was determined to make no effort for conversation with a woman, who was now more than usually insolent and disagreeable. “How could I ever think her like her nephew?” said she, as she looked i