1

BBA PRACTICE EXAMINATION

2013
ENGLISH
Scholarship
QUESTION BOOKLET
93001
Time allowed: Three hours
This examination paper has THREE sections:
Section A Close Reading of unfamiliar texts
Section B Response to literature and language
Section C Exploring issues in literature and language
Write THREE essays in total, ONE for EACH question, in the separate Answer
Booklet. If you need more rell paper, ask the Supervisor. Name any extra sheets
you use, and hand all of these in with your Answer Booklet at the end of the
examination.
Each essay is worth eight marks.
Check that this Question Booklet has pages 2-6 in the correct order.
.............................................................................................................................................................
STUDENTS NAME

BBA Educational Resources 2013

Outcome Description
The student will respond critically to demanding texts and questions by means of extended
and informed argument
Scholarship Criteria
The student will:
demonstrate extensive knowledge of texts and methods used in crafting them
respond critically with mature ideas and independent refection
sustain coherent, substantiated and engaging argument
Scholarship with Outstanding Performance Criteria
In addition to meeting the criteria for Scholarship, the student will:
demonstrate an exceptional level of sustained critical response showing consistent
ability to synthesize knowledge, understanding and argument
HAND THIS BOOKLET TO THE SUPERVISOR AT THE END OF THE ASSESSMENT.
2
You have three hours to answer THREE questions from this booklet.
Write a response, in the form of an essay of at least 800 words, to EACH of the following:
SECTION A
ONE topic from SECTION B (topics 1-14)
ONE topic from SECTION C (topics 15-26)
You must write a total of THREE essays.
Each essay should:
demonstrate an extensive knowledge of the texts and the methods used in crafting
them
respond critically with mature ideas and independent refection
sustain coherent, substantiated and engaging argument
show accurate use and control of the conventions of academic writing
USE THIS SPACE FOR PLANNING.
3
SECTION A: CLOSE READING OF UNFAMILIAR TEXTS
Write an essay comparing the ways that the writers explore their evolving perspectives on life in Text A and Text B.
The essay must focus on the way(s) each writer has crafted the text by using techniques to reinforce the content. Techniques
include phrasing, vocabulary, point of view, positioning of the reader, gurative language, and structure.
TEXT A: (from Hitch-22, a memoir)
To announce that one has painfully learned to think for oneself might seem an unexciting conclusion
and, anyway, I have only my own word for it that I have in fact taught myself to do so. The ways in
which the conclusion is arrived at may be interesting, though, just as it is always how people think
that counts for so much more than what they think. I suspect that the hardest thing for the idealist
to surrender is the teleological, or the sense that there is some feasible, lovelier future than can be
brought nearer by exertions in the present, and for which sacrices are justied. With some part
of myself, I still feel, but no longer really think, that humanity would be the poorer without this
fantastically potent illusion. A map of the world that did not show Utopia, said Oscar Wilde, would
not be worth consulting. I used to adore that phrase, but now refect more upon the shipwrecks and
prison islands to which the quest has led.
But I hope and believe that my advancing age has not quite shamed my youth. I have actually
seen more prisons broken open, more people and territory liberated, and more taboos broken and
censors fouted, since I let go of the idea, or at any rate the plan, of a radiant future. Those simple
ordinary propositions of the open society, especially when contrasted with the lethal simplications
of that societys sworn enemies, were all I required. This wasnt a dreary shuffe to the Right, either.
It used to be that the Right made tactical excuses for friendly dictatorships, whereas now most
conservatives are frantic to avoid even the appearance of doing so, and at least some on the Left
can take at least some of the credit for at least some of that. It is not so much that there are ironies of
history, it is that history itself is ironic. It is not that there are no certainties, it is that it is an absolute
certainty that there are no certainties. It is not only that the test of knowledge is an acute and cultivated
awareness of how little one knows (as Socrates knew so well), it is true that the unbounded areas
and elds of ones ignorance are now expanding in such a way, and at such a velocity, as to make
the contemplation of them almost fantastically beautiful. One reason, then, that I would not relive my
life is that one cannot be born knowing such things, but must nd them out, even when they seem
obvious, for oneself. If I had set out to put this on paper so as to spare you some or even any of the
effort, I would be doing you an injustice.
I began this highly selective narrative by citing Auden of the inadvisability of being born in
the frst place a view from which he quickly waltzed to Plan B, make the most of the dance (or, as
Dorothy Parker elsewhere phrased it, you might as well live). In better moments I prefer the lyrical
stoicism of my friend and ally Richard Dawkins, who never loses his sense of wonder at the sheer
unlikelihood of having briefy made it on a planet where crude extinction has held such sway, and
where the chance of being conceived, let alone safely delivered, is so innitesimal.
Hitch-22, a Memoir, Christopher Hitchens, Twelve, New York, 2010
5
10
15
20
25
30
4
TEXT B:
Wabi-sabi
I was thirty-three before I learned
people stuck in snow
can die from dehydration.
I would melt icicles
on my tongue for you, resist
the drinking down, drip it
into you. Then repeat, repeat
until my lips were raw.
Deep snow squeaks. We
stop on the Desert Road
because of the snow. You
throw snowballs at the
Warning: Army Training Area sign.
I take macro-photographs of
icicles on tussock.
When we drive up the Desert Road
we lose National Radio, we lose
cellphone reception, we lose
all hope. I was thirty-seven before
I considered not trying to always x
things. I read an article in the New Yorker
about wabi-sabi* the beauty in the
broken and the worn. The integrity
of the much-used utilitarian object.
But then there was another article
about a woman fying to Mexico
to be put into a coma
so she can wake up mended. It is
like rebooting a computer, said the doctor.
Despite wabi-sabi, I want that.
To live in snow and not be thirsty.
I want good reception all the way
up the country. I want a shiny, clean
version of myself. Closedown,
hibernate, restart.
5
10
15
20
25
Helen Lehndorf (NZ poet), Best NZ Poems 2011, International Institute of Modern Letters,
Victoria University. http://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/iiml/bestnzpoems/BNZP11/t1-g1-t15-body-d1.
html. Accessed 3/2/2013
Glossed word:
* wabi-sabi= a way of thinking which centres on accepting imperfections and transience.
30
35
5
SECTION B: RESPONSE TO LITERATURE AND LANGUAGE
Write a coherent and engaging essay in response to ONE of the statements numbered 114. Use the
statement as the focus for an in-depth discussion of one or more long texts OR a range of short texts.
Your essay should refect independent thinking and show extensive knowledge of appropriate text(s), their
purposes, and the methods used in crafting them.
Note: No content or quotations used in your answer to this section should be repeated in Section C.
STATEMENTS (Choose ONE)
1. Poems always contain an embedded story that requires interpretation.
2. In poems we can see that the poets pen has chiselled away at the clichs of ordinary speech to
sculpt important new insights for intrepid readers.
3. Non-ction texts have the advantage over ction texts in that readers of non-ction can say, This is
true.
4. Film is engaging but its defect is that although it holds the attention of viewers more powerfully than
any other medium it is not transformative of their lives.
5. Films are still predominantly constructed through the male gaze and therefore we constantly nd
ourselves resisting the insights of directors.
6. Drama must show characters in situations that readers or audiences have not previously considered
or imagined.
7. The way the theatrical space is used is a major factor in how we interpret the action of drama.
8. Shakespeares plays are more important as family dramas than as political ones.
9. There is no sure moral centre from which to evaluate Shakespeares plays because his villains are
disconcertingly attractive.
10. Novels are like debating chambers where important social issues can be discussed.
11. The paradox of the novel is that novelists invent imaginative worlds to provide opportunities to explore
the real one.
12. Unlike the sprawling novel, the focus of short stories is the present moment.
13. The proliferation of media has meant that reading media texts is like eating fast food immediate and
instantly gratifying, but not nourishing of mind.
14. Social media and the internet have ensured that democracy is as strong as ever because of the
mass of information and plurality of viewpoints.
6
Write a coherent and engaging essay in response to ONE of the statements numbered 15 26.
Your essay should refect independent thinking about an issue and show extensive knowledge of a range
of appropriate texts, their purposes, and the methods used in crafting them.
Note: No content or quotations used in your answer to Section B should be repeated in this section.
STATEMENTS (Choose ONE)
SECTION C: EXPLORING ISSUES IN LITERATURE AND LANGUAGE

BBA Educational Resources 2013

15. With the rise of the internet, literature and its study is beautiful but no longer part of the mainstream - like
mansions in a cul-de-sac.
16. Fantasy, although set in richly imaginative places, still deals with relevant issues.
17. The focus for the study of literature is on the individual coming to terms with forces attempting to thwart his
or her development.
18. Irony is salt in the diet, the indispensable ingredient of literary texts.
19. Modern texts have an ending, but they usually resist closure.
20. The most important strategy for understanding literature consists not in accumulating facts about it or
opining on it but in developing theories to interpret it.
21. Intertextuality shows us that literary works are part of a vast network of creativity.
22. The essential function of art is not aesthetic; it is to point a moral.
23. We all long for words that show us what it is like to live in this country.
24. The liberality of modern democracy does not mean that consideration of issues associated with race and
gender is still not essential.
25. To what extent do texts set up problems that have to be solved?
26. In contemporary texts writers are confessional, and so for readers the process of reading is therapeutic.