3.1 Written Text 91472
Past exam questions
Exam questions from previous years.
Please note that the NCEA exam changed a few years ago to focus on "written text". Previously the exam separated texts as "extended text" and "short text".
Please note that the NCEA exam changed a few years ago to focus on "written text". Previously the exam separated texts as "extended text" and "short text".
Instructions
GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS
Write an essay on at least ONE written text that you have studied, in response to ONE of the statements below.
If you choose to write about more than one text, the texts may be:
Write an essay on at least ONE written text that you have studied, in response to ONE of the statements below.
If you choose to write about more than one text, the texts may be:
- The same type (eg two poems)
- A combination of different types (“intertextual studies” – eg a poem and a short story).
Sample Exam
Discuss the extent to which you agree with your chosen statement. Respond critically to the statement by making a close analysis of the text(s).
STATEMENTS (Choose ONE)
STATEMENTS (Choose ONE)
- Great literature deals more with emotions than with events.
- It is the passionate characters who are the most interesting.
- The literature of yesteryear gives us the greatest insight into who we are today.
- Literature is most successful when it is dealing with the big issues of the world.
- Central to the purpose of a text is the examination of a relationship in conflict.
- The key to understanding a writer’s concerns is in their use of simple and straightforward language.
- The most satisfying reading experience is one in which the message is delivered concisely.
- A successful text will most often follow traditional expectations of literature.
- The reader’s experience is heightened when they are asked to closely examine the setting of a text.
- A writer needs to have a strong opinion on their subject in order to engage their audience.
2013 NCEA exam
Discuss the extent to which you agree with your chosen statement. Respond critically to the statement by making a close analysis of the text(s).
STATEMENTS (Choose ONE)
STATEMENTS (Choose ONE)
- The opinions of a writer are made powerful for an audience only when they are presented using a clever or engaging writing style.
- Deep down, we are more excited by the attributes of the villain than those of the hero.
- Language must be carefully selected and specifically crafted if it is to affect our emotions.
- A writer’s task is to make insignificant things significant.
- Appreciating the setting of a text is the key to unlocking the writer’s purpose.
- Written texts warn us that the greatest danger is often what people say, not what they do.
- The brevity of a text enables us to empathise more easily with the experiences of the characters.
- Literature offers us the opportunity to view protagonists breaking boundaries or taboos.
- The use of symbolism is the best way to shed light on the darker or deeper messages of a text.
- Regardless of the genre, the writer’s ‘voice’ will always be unique and distinctive.
2014 NCEA exam
Discuss the extent to which you agree with your chosen statement. Respond critically to the statement by making a close analysis of the text(s).
STATEMENTS (Choose ONE)
STATEMENTS (Choose ONE)
- Great literature deals more with emotions than with events.
- It is the passionate characters who are the most interesting.
- The literature of yesteryear gives us the greatest insight into who we are today.
- Literature is most successful when it is dealing with the big issues of the world.
- Central to the purpose of a text is the examination of a relationship in conflict.
- The key to understanding a writer’s concerns is in their use of simple and straightforward language.
- The most satisfying reading experience is one in which the message is delivered concisely.
- A successful text will most often follow traditional expectations of literature.
- The reader’s experience is heightened when they are asked to closely examine the setting of a text.
- A writer needs to have a strong opinion on their subject in order to engage their audience
2015 NCEA exam
Discuss the extent to which you agree with your chosen statement. Respond critically to the statement by making a close analysis of the text(s).
STATEMENTS (Choose ONE)
STATEMENTS (Choose ONE)
- The characters we respond to the most sympathetically are those who experience both suffering and triumph.
- Effective writers communicate with a voice that is personal and distinct.
- It is not until the closing of the text that we truly understand the importance of the opening.
- The most significant text is one which challenges us to reassess our thinking.
- What matters most in a text is what goes on beneath the surface.
- The most rewarding reading experience is one in which the language is plain or direct.
- Paying attention to detail is the key to unlocking our understanding of a text.
- The setting of a text is a rich resource for understanding significant ideas.
- It is through minor characters that we gain valuable insight into the world of the text.
- The most satisfying texts feature only one turning point.
2016 NCEA exam
Discuss the extent to which you agree with your chosen statement. Respond critically to the statement by making a close analysis of the text(s).
STATEMENTS (Choose ONE)
STATEMENTS (Choose ONE)
- Our reading experience is heightened when we care about the fate of the protagonist.
- For a text to be successful, elements of the setting must be recognisable.
- The most challenging ideas in a text are found in the detail.
- A successful text helps us to think but it doesn’t tell us what to do.
- The most important texts are those that criticise the present.
- The most effective villain is one who both attracts and repels.
- The most engaging writers will make themselves known through their text(s).
- To communicate ideas well, a text must have a recognisable shape.
- The most satisfying text is one that is uplifting or optimistic.
- Effective writers use images that provoke us.
2017 NCEA exam
Discuss the extent to which you agree with your chosen statement. Respond critically to the statement by making a close analysis of the text(s).
STATEMENTS (Choose ONE)
STATEMENTS (Choose ONE)
- An effective narrative structure is the key to maintaining the audience’s attention.
- It is the way that characters change in a text that makes it worth reading.
- New Zealand writing gives us a lens through which we can see ourselves.
- A successful text skilfully combines moments of darkness and light.
- A text set in a challenging environment has much to teach us.
- By paying attention to the minor characters, we gain a deeper understanding of a text.
- The careful use of language is what makes a text valuable.
- The role of a good writer is to challenge the audience’s preconceptions.
Mock exam questions
The following exam questions have been used in the mock exams from various schools
2013
- Characters in contemporary texts can find themselves in isolation and fragmentation with a corresponding quest for integration and healing.
- Readers must sense there is both sympathy and criticism in the voice of the narrator or persona within written texts.
- Fantasy worlds offer new scope for storytelling but we must still sense that they allow readers to reflect on their own lives.
- To sustain interest in a plot with ever increasing suspense and tension is still the indispensable ingredient of successful narration.
- The use of figurative language ensure a text is dynamic.
- Whereas doctors are necessary for bodily complaints, writers are extra diagnosticians of the ills within their societies.
- Texts that are grounded in fact speak to us best because they feed our appetite for real knowledge, not fake knowledge, across imagined worlds.
- How understanding of ideas of a text comes mainly from the way conflict is constructed and resolved.
2015
- Serious literature prompts us to examine the nature of leadership.
- Contemporary literature is at its best when it alerts readers to social problems.
- Settings contain the seeds of the storyline's growth.
- Written texts show us that the truth is hidden beneath false appearances.
- Readers of written texts trace the fates of characters in the grip of obsession.
- Written texts do their job when they show the little people taking revenge on big people.
- Readers are encouraged to sympathise with the narrative voice's persuasive style.
- Written texts show us that the self is always a work in progress.
- Written texts often defy traditional genres to get their effects.
- A writer needs to make subtle language choices in order to reveal a distinctive voice.