TKSS Lit P1

2 CANDIDATE NAME CLASS INDEX NUMBER LITERATURE IN ENGLISH 2065/01 Paper 1 Prose and Unseen Texts 6 August 2020 1 hour 40 minutes Additional Materials: Answer Paper READ THESE INSTRUCTIONS FIRST Write your name, class and index number on the work you hand in. Write in dark blue or black pen on both sides of the paper. Do not use staples, paper clips, glue or correction fluid. Answer one question from Section A and one question from Section B. You are reminded of the need for good English and clear presentation in your answers. At the end of the examination, fasten all your work securely together. All questions in this paper carry equal marks. TANJONG KATONG SECONDARY SCHOOL Preliminary Examination 2020 Secondary 4

2 TKSS_Sec 4_Prelim_2020_Lit_Paper 1 SECTION A Answer one question from this section. RAY BRADBURY: Fahrenheit 451 Remember to support your ideas with relevant details from the text. 1 Either (a) How does Bradbury bring out the idea of injustice? Or (b) How does Bradbury make Faber such a significant character in the novel? Or (c) Read this passage carefully, and then answer the questions that follow it: Montag opened his mouth to answer Faber and was saved this error in the presence of others when the station bell rang. The alarm voice in the ceiling chanted. There was a tacking -tacking sound as the alarm report telephone - typed out the address across the room. Captain Beatty, his poker cards in one pink hand, walked with exaggerated slowness to the phone and ripped out the address when the report was finished. He glanced perfunctorily at it, and shoved it in his pocket. He came back and sat down. The others looked at him. “It can wait exactly forty seconds while I take all the money away from you,” said Beatty, happily. Montag put his cards down. “Tired, Montag? Going out of this game?” “Yes.” “Hold on. Well, come to think of it, we can finish this hand later. Just leave your cards face down and hustle the equipment. On the double now.” And Beatty rose up again. “Montag, you don’t look well? I’d hate to think you were coming down with another fever…” “I’ll be all right.” “You’ll be fine. This is a special case. Come on, jump for it!” They leaped into the air and clutched the brass pole as if it were the last vantage point above a tidal wave passing below, and then the brass pole, to their dismay, slid them down into darkness, into the blast and cough and suction of the gaseous dragon roaring to life! “Hey!” They rounded a corner in thunder and siren with concussion of tires, with scream of rubber, with a shift of kerosene bulk in the glittery brass tank, like the food in the stomach of a giant, with Montag’s fing ers jolting off the silver rail, swinging into cold space, with the wind tearing his hair back from his head, with the wind whistling in his teeth, and him all the while thinking of the women, the chaff women in his parlour tonight, with the kernels blown out from under them by a neon wind, and his silly damned reading of a book to them. How like trying to put out fires with water pistols, how senseless and insane. One rage turned in for another. One anger displacing another. When would he stop being entirely mad and be quiet, be very quiet indeed? “Here we go!” 5 10 15 20 25 30

3 TKSS_Sec 4_Prelim_2020_Lit_Paper 1 Montag looked up. Beatty never drove, but he was driving tonight, slamming the Salamander around corners, leaning forward high on the driver’s throne, his massive black slicker flapping out behind so that he seemed a great black bat flying above the engine, over the brass numbers, taking the full wind. “Here we go to keep the world happy, Montag!” Beatty’s pink, phosphorescent cheeks glimmered in the high darkness, and he was smiling furiously. “Here we are!” The Salamander boomed to a halt, throwing men off in slips and clumsy hops. Montag stood fixing his raw eyes to the cold bright rail under his clenched fingers. I can’t do it, he thought. How can I go at this new assignment, how can I go on burning things? I can’t go in this place. Beatty, smelling o f the wind through which he had rushed, was at Montag’s elbow. “All right, Montag.” The men ran like cripples in their clumsy boots, as quietly as spiders. At last Montag raised his eyes and turned. Beatty was watching his face. “Something the matter, Montag?” “Why,” said Montag slowly, “we’ve stopped in front of my house.” 35 40 45 50 (i) How does Bradbury vividly convey Montag’s thoughts and feelings in this passage? (ii) How does Bradbury memorably portray Montag in one other moment in the rest of the novel?

4 TKSS_Sec 4_Prelim_2020_Lit_Paper 1 SECTION B Answer either Question 2 or Question 3. Either 2 Read this poem carefully, and then answer the questions that follow it. Remember to support your ideas with relevant details from the poem. Mushroom Overnight, very Whitely, discreetly, Very quietly Our toes, our noses Take hold on the loam, Acquire the air. Nobody sees us, Stops us, betray us; The small grains make room. Soft fists insist on Heaving the needles, The leafy bedding, Even the paving. Our hammers, our rams, Earless and eyeless, Perfectly voiceless Widen the crannies, Shoulder through the holes. We Diet on water On crumbs of shadow, Bland-mannered, asking Little or nothing. So many of us! So many of us! We are shelves, we are Tables, we are meek, We are edible, Nudgers and shovers In spite of ourselves. Our kind multiplies: We shall by morning 5 10 15 20 25 30

5 TKSS_Sec 4_Prelim_2020_Lit_Paper 1 Inherit the earth. Our foot’s in the door. (by Sylvia Plath) (i) What impressions do you form of the mushrooms from lines 1 to 18? (ii) How does the poet strikingly convey a sense of tension in the poem?

6 TKSS_Sec 4_Prelim_2020_Lit_Paper 1 Or 3 Read this poem carefully, and then answer the questions that follow it. Remember to support your ideas with relevant details from the poem. Mass Rapid Trance A frigid blast of air; blessed relief from the muggy outside Cold, stale, air invades my nostrils, Penetrating my fluster, fatigue, funk, fugue Purging all traces of disorientation and aimlessness My movements instantly synchronised with the Mad rhythm of brisk walking Dodging past hordes of souls; it would be easier to stop traffic than these commuters; a road accident can deter a bus, a lorry. We stop for nothing but an untied shoelace. A dropped possession, a moment I can feel the inexorable pull of some invisible, inescapable current Speeding up to overtake the painfully slow person in front of me Slowing down only to sidestep someone in my way The only respite is when I join the clusters at the obsidian gates Workers learners revellers lovers parasites Sitters standers dreamers posers stoners Cold, blank, distant, robotic faces Some lost in a world of music, others in a sea of inner turmoil; Yet others just lost But they know their destination; their journey is insignificant Mere coming and going and coming and going Who? What? Where? How? They can answer all questions but one Why? (by Anonymous) 5 10 15 20 (i) What do you find powerful about the way in which the wri