NYGH 2014-S3EOY-Adv Lit

ELDept.t/S3ALIT/2014 Nanyang Girls' High School 1 Class Register Number Name 南洋女子中学校 NANYANG GIRLS' HIGH SCHOOL SECONDARY THREE END-OF-YEAR EXAMINATION 2014 ADVANCED LITERATURE Thursday, 2 October 2 hours 08 00 – 10 00 READ THESE INSTRUCTIONS FIRST Write your name and register number on this question booklet and on every sheet of your answer script. Answer ONE question from Section A, and ONE question from Section B. Answer in total TWO questions. Label in the margin of the paper: question number and its parts (if relevant). Start Section B on a fresh sheet of paper. Sections A and B will be collected separately. Use only dark blue or black ink. Do not use correction fluid / tape. Plan and answer the question fully. INFORMATION FOR CANDIDATES Arrange and securely tie your answer scripts. You are reminded of the need for good handwriting. Marks will be credited for good use of English. A total possible mark for this paper is 60. Setter: CL / VMH This paper consists of 8 printed pages, including this cover page. NANYANG GIRLS' HIGH SCHOOL [Turn over

ELDept.t/S3ALIT/2014 Nanyang Girls' High School 2 SECTION A: SET TEXT [30 marks] William Golding, Lord of the Flies Choose either 1 or 2. EITHER 1. Professor Lars Gyllensen, at the 1983 Nobel Prize in Literature Ceremony, stated that the Golding’s novels are not overwhelmingly “depressing”. Do you agree with Professor Gyllensen? Discuss this in relation to Lord of the Flies. OR, 2. Read the following excerpt and then answer all parts of the question. Ralph spread his arms. ‘All ours.’ They laughed and tumbled and shouted on the mountain. ‘I’m hungry.’ When Simon mentioned his hunger the others became aware of theirs. ‘Come on,’ said Ralph. ‘We’ve found out what we wanted to know.’ They scrambled down a rock slope, dropped among flowers and made their way under the trees. Here they paused and examined the bushes around them curiously. Simon spoke first. ‘Like candles. Candle bushes. Candle buds.’ The bushes were dark evergreen and aromatic and the many buds were waxen green and folded up against the light. Jack slashed at one with his knife and the scent spilled over them. ‘Candle buds.’ ‘You couldn’t light them,’ said Ralph. ‘They just look like candles.’ ‘Green candles,’ said Jack contemptuously, ‘we can’t eat them. Come on.’ They were in the beginnings of the thick forest, plonking with weary feet on a track, when they heard the noises – squeakings – and the hard strike of hoofs on a path. As they pushed forward the squeaking increased till it became a frenzy. They found a piglet caught in a curtain of creepers, throwing itself at the elastic traces in all the madness of extreme terror. Its voice was thin, needle-sharp and insistent. The three boys rushed forward and Jack drew his knife again with a flourish. He raised his arm in the air. There came a pause, a hiatus, the pig continued to scream and the creepers to jerk, and the blade continued to flash at the end of a bony arm. The pause was only long enough for them to understand what an enormity the downward stroke would be. Then the piglet tore loose from the creepers and scurried into the undergrowth. They were left looking at each other and the place of terror. Jack’s face was white under the freckles. He noticed that he still held the knife aloft and brought his arm down replacing the blade in t he sheath. Then they all three laughed ashamedly and began to climb back to the track. ‘I was choosing a place,’ said Jack. ‘I was just waiting for a moment to decide where to stab him.’ ‘You should stick a pig,’ said Ralph fiercely. ‘They always talk abou t 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40

ELDept.t/S3ALIT/2014 Nanyang Girls' High School 3 sticking a pig.’ ‘You cut a pig’s throat to let the blood out,’ said Jack, ‘otherwise you can’t eat the meat.’ ‘Why didn’t you –?’ They knew very well why he hadn’t: because of the enormity of the knife descending and cutting into living flesh; because of the unbearable blood. ‘I was going to,’ said Jack. He was ahead of them and they could not see his face. ‘I was choosing a place. Next time – !’ He snatched his knife out of the sheath and slammed it into a tree trunk. Next time there would be no mercy. He looked round fiercely, daring them to contradict. Then they broke out into the sunlight and for a while they were busy finding and devouring food as they moved down the scar towards the platform and the meeting. 45 50 55 (a) In what ways does Golding make this such a significant moment in the novel? (b) How does Golding explore the theme of civilization in the rest of the novel? [TURN OVER

ELDept.t/S3ALIT/2014 Nanyang Girls' High School 4 SECTION B: UNSEEN TEXTS [30 marks] Choose either 3 or 4. Please write your answer to this section on a fresh sheet of paper. EITHER 3. Read this poem carefully and then answer all parts of the question that follow: “Broken Moon” For Emma Twelve, small as six, strength, movement, hearing all given in half measure, my daughter, child of genetic carelessness, 5 walks uphill, always. I watch her morning face; precocious patience as she hooks each sock, creeps it up her foot, aims her jersey like a quoit1. 10 My fingers twitch; her private frown deters. Her jokes can sting: 'My life is like dressed crab --lot of effort, rather little meat.' 15 Yet she delights in seedlings taking root, finding a fossil, a surprise dessert. Chopin will not yield to her stiff touch; I hear her cursing. 20 She paces Bach exactly, firm rounding of perfect cadences. Somewhere inside she is dancing a courante2. In dreams she skims the sand, 25 curls toes into the ooze of pools, leaps on to stanchions3. Awake, her cousins take her hands; they lean into the waves stick-child between curved sturdiness. 30 1 A game where one throws a rubber hoop over and through a spike 2 Court dance for couples 3 A sturdy upright structure that provides support

ELDept.t/S3ALIT/2014 Nanyang Girls' High School 5 She turns away from stares, laughs at the boy who asks if she will find a midget husband. Ten years ago, cradling her, I showed her the slice of silver in the sky. 35 'Moon broken,' she said. Carole Satyamurti (a) What impression do you have of the speaker’s daughter in the first two stanzas (line 1 to 12)? (b) Explore the speaker’s feelings towards her daughter. Explain the imagery she uses. OR, 4. Read this extract carefully and then answer all parts of the question that follow: Above the old man's head was the dovecote, a tall wire -netted shelf on tilts, full of strutting, preening birds. The sunlight broke on their grey breasts into small rainbows. His ears were lulled by their crooning, his hands stretched up towards the favorite, a homing pigeon, a young plump-bodied bird which stood still when it saw him and cocked a shrewd bright eye. 'Pretty, pretty, pretty,' he said, as he grasped the bird and drew it down, feeling the cold coral claws tighten around his finger. Content, he rested the bird lightly on his chest, and leaned against a tree, gazing out beyond the dovecote into the landscape of a late afternoon. His eye s travelled homewards along the road until he saw his granddaughter swinging on the gate underneath a frangipani tree. His mood shifted. He deliberately held out his wrist for the bird to take flight, and caught it again at the moment it spread its wings. He felt the plump shape strive and strain under his fingers; and, in a sudden access of troubled spite, shut the bir