A family holiday (2007 exam paper)Two days before the last day of the holidays I lost my nerve. It was summer on the West
Coast. Bush crowded down to the sea mostly. But there were quiet roads and paddocks and spitty gravel we drove over in a dull green station wagon. Mum held her hand up to the windscreen and pressed it with her fingers if a car came towards us. She wasn’t (5) waving though. I got stuck out in the middle of the long swing bridge over the Heaphy River. Dad went over first with the baby in his pack and my big brother and sister went over on their own, yelling and laughing and bouncing on the ropes. I was right out in the middle when I just froze. I couldn’t move. Mum was stuck there too. She had my little brother in front and me (10) behind. The bridge bucked and rolled to the side. It was too flimsy. You shouldn’t make a bridge out of ropes if there is deep water underneath and it’s churning. * On the first day of the holidays a wave leapt up onto the beach at the other side of the lagoon and took away my sister’s jandal. Dad ran down to the water but his feet sank into millions of tiny pebbles. He couldn’t save it. The waves crashed down and sucked (15) everything away, even the sand. ‘It drops away pretty sharply,’ Dad said. He said that under the water the waves rolled and rolled at the bottom of a steep wall. The jandal was probably trapped there going around and wouldn’t come back up. Mum waved my sister’s other jandal at us and said, ‘Don’t go too close!’ Then Dad caught two kahawai fish and Mum gutted them. Dad always said I had an enquiring mind; so I watched as Mum cut off the fish heads. Then I took a picture of one (20) of them with my camera. Mum said I was too close and it wouldn’t come out. Part of the innards of the fish spilled out from the ragged edge of grey and red skin. Mum said, ‘Leave it.’ READING WRITTEN LANGUAGE TEXT A: Family Holiday (extract from a short story) 1. Identify TWO events that the writer suggests might be dangerous. (1) (2) 2. (a) Identify ONE verbal language feature used to describe the sea in lines 12– 18 (“On the first day of the holidays … ‘Don’t go too close!’”). Give an example of this feature. Verbal feature: Example: (b) Explain how the writer uses this verbal feature to develop her feelings about what happens on their family holiday. 3. (a) Identify ONE event that happens during the holiday, and describe the way in which the mother AND the father each react to the event. Event: Reaction of mother: Reaction of father: (b) Explain how the writer shows you that the mother and father are different from each other. ANSWERS (NCEA Level 1 English revision guide. 2009 edition, Really Useful Resources, pg. 32) (NCEA Level 1 English revision guide. 2011 edition, Really Useful Resources, pg. 14) |