Six short texts and thirty-two questions. Not one of them asks what happened. Every single one asks why the writer wrote it that way — which is the question most readers never get taught to answer.
Every question in this set is one of these. After you answer, the badge in the explanation tells you which one it was — and at the end you get a score for each.
Spot it: the writer puts two things next to each other that do not match — loud/quiet, inside/outside, kind/disastrous. The answer is always about the difference, and about what the difference makes you feel.
Spot it: like, as, the way that. Then ask the only question that matters: which single quality is shared? Never ‘they are the same’ — a comparison only ever borrows one thing.
Italics, bold, a one-line paragraph, a repeated word, a dash. None of these are accidents. Ask: what would be lost if it were written normally? That loss is the answer.
Do not pick the line that sounds most like the idea. Test each option on its own: if I only had this line, would I know it for certain? Only one option survives that.
Purpose questions are why questions, never what questions. Stop hunting for facts and ask what the writer was trying to do to you — make you curious, believe her, keep reading, say yes.
Ask two things: who is telling me this, and how do they sound — amused, careful, angry, fair. A text about someone is not automatically told by them.
A diagram, a heading, a caption, a subheading. Ask: what does this do that the words alone could not? Usually it either splits the ideas up, or shows a thing that is hard to describe.
Read the whole text first, once, without looking at the questions. Then answer. Every explanation names the move as well as the answer, because the move is the part you take to the next paper.
A spinner takes five minutes to build and about an hour to get right. The secret is not the shape. It is where the weight sits.
You will need: stiff card · a sharp pencil · a ruler · scissors
Warning: a blunt pencil tears the card instead of piercing it. Sharpen it first.
The opening says a spinner takes ‘five minutes to build and about an hour to get right’. The writer puts those two together to
D. Five minutes against an hour is a contrast, and the contrast carries a message: the hard bit is hiding somewhere else. That is why the very next line tells you where. The answer to a contrast question is never the two things — it is what the gap between them tells you.Setting two unlike things side by side
The diagram is included mainly to
A. Ask what the picture does that the words alone could not. ‘Draw a line from corner to corner’ is hard to follow in words and obvious in one drawing. It is not decoration, and it is not showing the finished thing.What the heading or picture adds
‘Do not guess.’ is printed in bold because
C. Ask: what would be lost in ordinary type? The urgency. Bold is the writer tapping the page — this is where you will go wrong. Being short is a fact about the sentence, not a reason for the bold.Marks the writer leaves on purpose
The purpose of the warning at the very end is to
C. Purpose = why is this here at all? A blunt pencil ruins the card — after every step is done. It is placed last because that is when the damage happens.Why this bit is here at all
The writer says ‘you’ all the way through in order to
D. Instructions speak to the person doing the job. The tone is friendly, but that is a side effect — the reason for ‘you’ is that somebody is being told what to do.Whose eyes, and what tone
The bake sale is over. I would like to be able to say it went well.
We planned it for three weeks. Three weeks. Posters, prices, a float of coins, a tablecloth. What we had not planned for was rain, and at ten past nine the sky opened.
Mrs Okafor said we could move inside. That was kind of her, and it was also the end of us — because inside is the hall, and the hall is where the Year 6 stall was already set up, with their lemon drizzle and their queue.
I sold four cupcakes. Four.
Priya sold none at all, and spent the last hour telling me it did not matter, which is how I knew that it did.
‘Three weeks.’ is repeated on its own, in italics, to
A. Repetition plus italics is the writer pressing down hard. Read it aloud and you can hear the outrage: three whole weeks, for four cupcakes. Reading it slowly is how it works, not why it is there.Marks the writer leaves on purpose
‘That was kind of her, and it was also the end of us.’ The writer joins those two halves to show that
C. Two opposite things about the same act, in one sentence. That is contrast used at close range, and it is far sharper than saying ‘unfortunately it went badly’. Nothing suggests Mrs Okafor meant harm.Setting two unlike things side by side
Which quotation proves that the writer knew Priya was upset?
D. Test each on its own. Selling none is a fact. Saying it did not matter could be true. Only ‘which is how I knew that it did’ tells you the writer saw through it. Take the line away from the paragraph and ask whether it still proves the point.Which quotation proves it
The diary form lets the writer do something a report could not, which is
C. A report gives events. A diary gives you the inside of somebody’s head — I would like to be able to say it went well. The other three are all things a report does perfectly well.Whose eyes, and what tone
‘I sold four cupcakes. Four.’ sits on its own short line in order to
A. White space is loudness. Standing alone, the number has nowhere to hide — and repeating it makes you look at it twice. Purpose questions about layout are nearly always about emphasis.Why this bit is here at all
Which quotation shows that the writer does not blame her own planning?
C. The list of what they did prepare comes close, but only this line names the one thing outside their control and puts the blame there. Pick the line that makes the claim by itself.Which quotation proves it
Why would an animal with no shell, no spines and no poison last five minutes in open water? The mimic octopus has an answer nothing else has thought of. It becomes somebody else.
Faced with a predator, it flattens its arms, tucks six of them out of sight and trails the other two behind it. Seen from the front it now has the outline of a banded sea snake — an animal almost nothing will attack. It can also fold flat like a sole, or spread wide like a lionfish, spines and all.
Here is the strange part. Attacked by a damselfish, it does not reach for a disguise at random. It picks the sea snake — and sea snakes eat damselfish. It is not copying something. It is copying the one animal that this particular attacker is afraid of.
Not bad for a creature with a brain the size of a walnut.
The writer opens with a question in order to
B. An opening question is bait. You cannot read ‘why would an animal with no shell last five minutes?’ without wanting the next line. When a text opens with a question, the purpose is almost always to pull you in.Why this bit is here at all
‘it now has the outline of a banded sea snake’. What exactly is being compared?
A. A comparison only ever borrows one quality. Here it is the outline — the shape seen from the front. It is not claiming the octopus is poisonous or fast. Always ask which single thing is shared.Saying one thing is like another
The two subheadings are there to
D. One heading covers how it disguises itself; the other covers which disguise it chooses. They are different ideas, and the subheadings keep them from running together. Headings organise — they do not rank.What the heading or picture adds
‘It is not copying something.’ The italics are there to
B. Lean on the word as you read: not just anything — and the next sentence delivers the point, that it picks the one animal this attacker fears. Italics here are a run-up, not a decoration.Marks the writer leaves on purpose
‘Not bad for a creature with a brain the size of a walnut.’ This last line is
D. The tone shifts at the end — the writer steps out and grins at you. It is still true, but the job of the line is humour. Last lines of science articles very often do this; look for the change in voice.Whose eyes, and what tone
‘a brain the size of a walnut’ compares the octopus’s brain to a walnut to show
A. The shared quality is size, nothing else. The writer is not saying the brain is hard or brown. A comparison borrows one thing — decide which before you look at the options.Saying one thing is like another
The new boy stood at the gate for a long time.
Inside, the yard was all noise — a football banging off a wall, a skipping rope, someone shrieking with laughter over by the bins. Outside, on his side of the gate, there was nothing but the creak of his own bag strap as he moved it from one shoulder to the other, and then back again.
He had rehearsed a sentence on the bus. One sentence. ‘I’m Theo, I’ve come from Marsden.’
It had sounded fine on the bus.
A girl broke away from the football and walked over. ‘You waiting for someone?’
‘I’m Theo,’ he said. ‘I’ve come from Marsden.’ And then, because his mouth had run out of sentence, ‘From Marsden.’
The writer sets the inside of the yard against the outside of the gate mainly to
D. Noise on one side, one creaking bag strap on the other. The gate is a real gate and also the line between in and out. When a setting is split in two, the split is usually about the character.Setting two unlike things side by side
Which quotation proves that Theo’s nerves got the better of him?
B. Standing still and rehearsing show he was nervous. Only the last one shows the nerves actually winning — he runs out of prepared words and repeats himself. Match the quotation to the exact claim, not to the general mood.Which quotation proves it
‘It had sounded fine on the bus.’ is given a paragraph of its own because
C. Put it back inside the paragraph above and it disappears. Alone, it thuds. A one-line paragraph is always doing emphasis — ask what feeling it is holding up.Marks the writer leaves on purpose
The events are shown to us through
A. We hear his rehearsed sentence, and we are told his mouth ran out. Nobody else in the yard could know that. Perspective is settled by asking whose private thoughts you are allowed to see.Whose eyes, and what tone
The story is called ‘The gate’. That title works because the gate is
B. A good title usually names the thing that is doing two jobs — one real, one about the feeling. Take the gate out and the story loses its whole shape. When a title names an object, ask what else that object stands for.What the heading or picture adds
Ade Kemi has done something difficult. She has written an entire book about a child waiting, and made it impossible to put down.
Nothing happens to Bea. That is the point. Her mother is in hospital, her aunt has moved into the spare room, and Bea’s job for a hundred and fifty pages is to wait for a phone call. Kemi fills that waiting the way real waiting gets filled: with counting, with bargains nobody agreed to, and with a fury at a broken toaster that is not about the toaster at all.
The writing is plain. There is not one clever sentence in this book, and that is a compliment.
At £8.99 it is not a cheerful read, and younger readers may find the first fifty pages slow. But it is honest, and a week later I have still not stopped thinking about that toaster.
‘There is not one clever sentence in this book, and that is a compliment.’ The reviewer adds the second half in order to
D. Without the second half it reads as an insult. The reviewer knows that, and heads it off in the same breath. Whenever a sentence turns on itself like this, ask what it is protecting against.Marks the writer leaves on purpose
‘Kemi fills that waiting the way real waiting gets filled’. This compares
B. ‘The way…’ is the signal. The shared quality is what waiting is actually made of — counting, bargaining, being furious at the wrong thing. It is praise for how true the book feels.Saying one thing is like another
The reviewer mentions that younger readers may find the first fifty pages slow. The purpose of this is to
C. A review that only praises is not trusted. Naming a real fault buys the reviewer credit, and she spends it in the very next line. An admitted weakness in a persuasive text is nearly always there to make the strengths land.Why this bit is here at all
Which quotation proves the book stayed with the reviewer after she finished it?
B. ‘Impossible to put down’ is about reading it; the claim is about afterwards. Only the toaster line is dated — a week later. Watch for the small word that matches the exact claim.Which quotation proves it
The review begins with the book’s title and the author’s name on a line of their own. That line is there to
C. Ask what it does that the words alone could not: it separates what from what I think of it. Every review opens this way, and it is why you always know what is under discussion by the second line.What the heading or picture adds
I am writing about the empty lot on Bramble Road.
Forty-one children live on our street. I counted. There is nowhere for any of us to go that is not a road, a car park or somebody’s front step, and the nearest playground is a twenty-five minute walk along a route with no crossing.
I know a skate ramp costs money. I know some people will say we would make noise. They are right — we would. But we already make noise, and at the moment we make it on the pavement outside their windows.
The lot has been empty for six years. Please come and stand in it.
Yours sincerely,
Nia Adeyemi (aged 11)
‘I counted.’ is a separate short sentence because it
B. Two words, doing the work of a paragraph. It answers the objection the councillor was about to make — where did you get that figure? Short sentences in persuasive writing usually carry the proof.Marks the writer leaves on purpose
The writer brings up the noise complaint herself in order to
A. She raises it, agrees with it, and then turns it round — the noise already exists, just in a worse place. Naming the objection before your reader can is one of the strongest moves in persuasive writing.Why this bit is here at all
‘we already make noise, and at the moment we make it on the pavement outside their windows.’ The contrast here is between
B. Both sides of the contrast are noise — the difference is where it happens. That turns her weakest point into her best one. Find both halves before you answer; three of these options only name one.Setting two unlike things side by side
Which quotation shows that the writer expects to be argued with?
D. She is answering an objection nobody has made yet — which means she is expecting it. The other three are her own points. ‘I know some people will say…’ is the standard signal that a writer is arguing with someone off the page.Which quotation proves it
Signing off ‘Nia Adeyemi (aged 11)’ strengthens the letter because it
A. The whole letter is about children having nowhere to go, and it is written by one of them. Held back to the very last line, the age is the evidence. Pity is not the point — standing is.Whose eyes, and what tone
Do the whole set first. On this set especially, a wrong answer you then understand is worth more than a lucky right one.
Set B — more evidence and comparison questions →
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These are the questions that feel like guessing. If one will not come, say it out loud instead — your helper knows every text here, and will not tell you the answer.
Tell it the set and the question number. Uses the microphone. Nothing is recorded.