NYGH 2015-S3EOY-Adv Lit HP

Nanyang Girls' 1 ALIT (HP) EOY 201 5 VH/SK Class Register Number Name   End-of-Year Examination 2015 Secondary Three Advanced Literature (HP) Thursday 8th October 2015 2 hours 0800 - 1000 hrs READ THESE INSTRUCTIONS FIRST 1. Write your name on your answer script. 2. Use dark blue or black ink. 3. Do not use correction fluid / tape. INFORMATION FOR CANDIDATES 1. Answer one question from Section A and one question from Section B. 2. Begin your answer to Section B on a fresh sheet of paper. 3. Number your answers clearly. 4. You are reminded of the need for good English and legible handwriting. Setters: V Heng/S Kaur This document consists of 9 printed pages, including this cover page. [Turn over]

Nanyang Girls' 2 ALIT (HP) EOY 201 5 VH/SK SECTION A: SET TEXT Answer ONE question from this section A Streetcar Named Desire – Tennessee Williams 1. ‘And so it was I entered the broken world To trace the visionary company of love, its voice An instant in the wind [I know not wither hurled] But not for long to hold each desperate choice.’ Hart Crane The Broken Tower Pg XII, A Street Car Named Desire Consider the above verse as a perspective on Blanche and her tragedy. In what way is Blanche a victim of culture? [30] OR The Turn of the Screw – Henry James 2. Read the extract below and answer the question that follows. It struck me that at this he just faintly coloured. He gave, at any rate, like a convalescent slightly fatigued, a languid shake of his head. “I don’t – I don’t . I want to get away.’ ‘You’re tired of Bly?’ ‘Oh no, I like Bly.’ ‘Well then -?’ ‘Oh you know what a boy wants!’ I felt I didn’t know so well as Miles, and I took temporary refuge. “You want to go to your uncle?’ Again, at this, with his sweet ironic face, he made a movement on the pillow. ‘Ah you can’t get off with that!’ I was silent a little, and it was I now, I think, who changed colour. ‘My 10

Nanyang Girls' 3 ALIT (HP) EOY 201 5 VH/SK dear, I don’t want to get off!’ ‘You can’t even if you do. You can’t, you can’t! ‘ – he lay beautifully staring. My uncle must come down and you must completely settle things.’ ‘If we do,’ I returned with some spirit, ‘you may be sure it will be to take you quite away.’ ‘Well don’t you understand that that’s exactly what I’m working for? You’ll have to tell him – about the way you’ve let it all drop: you’ll have to tell him a tremenduous lot!’ The exultation with which he uttered this helped me somehow for the instant to meet him rather more. ‘And how much will you, Miles, have to tell him? There are things he’ll ask you!’ He turned it over. ‘Very likely. But what things?’ ‘The things you’ve never told me. To make up his mind what to do with you. He can’t send you back –‘ ‘I don’t want to go back!’ he broke in. ‘I want a new field.’ He said it with admirable serenity, with positive impeachable gaiety; and doubtless it was that very note that most evoked for me the poignancy, the unnatural tragedy, of his probable reappearance at the end of three months with all this bravado and still more dishonor. …I threw myself upon him and in the tenderness of my pity I embraced him. ‘Dear little Miles, dear little Miles -- !’ My face was close to his, and he let me kiss him, simply taking it with indulgent good humour. ‘Well, old lady?’ ‘Is there nothing – nothing at all that you want to tell me?’ he turned off a little, facing round toward the wall and holding up his hand to look at as one had seen sick children look. ‘I’ve told you – I told you this morning.’ Oh I was sorry for him! ‘That you just want me not to worry you?’ He looked round at me now as if in recognition of my understanding him; then ever so gently, ‘To let me alone,’ he replied. There was even a strange little dignity in it, something that made me release him, yet, when I had slowly risen, linger beside him. ‘I’ve just begun a letter to your uncle,’ I said ‘Well then, finish it!’ I waited a minute. ‘What happened before?’ He gazed up at me again. ‘Before what?’ ‘Before you came back. And before you went away.’ For sometime he was silent, but he continued to meet my eyes. ‘What happened?’ ‘Dear little Miles, dear little Miles, if you knew how I want to help you! It’s only that,it’s nothing but that, and I’d rather die than give you a pain or do you a wrong – I’d rather die than hurt a hair of you. Dear little Miles’ – oh I brought it out now even if I should go too far – ‘I just want you to help me save you!’ But I knew in a moment after this that I had gone too far. The 20 30 40 50

Nanyang Girls' 4 ALIT (HP) EOY 201 5 VH/SK answer to my appeal was instantaneous, but it came in the form of an extraordinary blast and chill, a gust of frozen air and a shake of the room as great as if, in the wild wind, the casement had crashed in. The boy gave a loud high shriek which, lost in the rest of the shock of sound, might have seemed, indistinctly, though I was so close to him, a note either of jubilation or of terror. I jumped to my feet again and was conscious of darkness. So for a moment we remained, while I stared about me and saw the drawn curtains unstirred and the window still tight. ‘Why the candle’s out!’ I then cried. ‘It was I who blew it, dear!’ said Miles. Extract adapted from The Turn of the Screw by Henry James 60 a. Examine the extract carefully and state your impression of Miles. b. How does this extract foreshadow the increasing tension in the novel? [30]

Nanyang Girls' 5 ALIT (HP) EOY 201 5 VH/SK SECTION B: LITERARY RESPONSE Answer either question 3 or 4 Question 3 Read the texts below and answer the question that follows. (i) WHAT I LEARNED FROM MY MOTHER by Julia Kasdorf (1992) I learned from my mother how to love the living, to have plenty of vases on hand in case you have to rush to the hospital with peonies cut from the lawn, black ants still stuck to the buds. I learned to save jars large enough to hold fruit salad for a whole grieving household, to cube home-canned pears and peaches, to slice through maroon grape skins and flick out the sexual seeds* with a knife point. I learned to attend viewings even if I didn’t know the deceased, to press the moist hands of the living, to look in their eyes and offer sympathy, as though I understood loss even then. I learned that whatever we say means nothing, what anyone will remember is that we came. I learned to believe I had the power to ease awful pains materially like an angel. Like a doctor, I learned to create from another’s suffering my own usefulness, and once you know how to do this, you can never refuse. To every house you enter, you must offer healing: a chocolate cake you baked yourself, the blessing of your voice, your chaste touch. * sexual seeds – for pollination or reproduction of grapes

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