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Comprehension

Images and words

Movie posterLook at the movie poster and answer the questions that follow.

2 Complete English Basics 2

1 What is the advertiser’s purpose in creating this poster?

2 What first attracts the audience’s attention in the poster? Why?

3 Where is the audience positioned in relation to the two characters in the poster?

4 How does the poster’s image show that the film is a love story?

5 What words in the poster indicate that the young woman is attracted to Edward?

6 What words tell the audience about the character of Edward?

7 ‘… an uncommonly gentle man.’ Why do we wonder whether Edward can be gentle?

8 How does the film image suggest that Edward is the main character?

9 Why do you think the advertiser mentions two of the director’s previous films, Batman

and Beetlejuice?

10 Why do you think the title has ‘edward’ in lower case and ‘SCISSORHANDS’ in capital

letters?

11 What emotion is presented in the image?

12 What else in the image, other than his hands, suggests that Edward is an unusual

character?

12 marks

Reading for understanding

1 Images and words 3

Cartoon

Reading for understanding

1 What is the cartoonist’s purpose?

2 How do the survivors know that they have reached civilisation?

3 How does the cartoonist show that the survivors have endured much hardship?

4 What emotions do the survivors experience when they see the garbage floating on the

water?

5 What has the cartoonist identified about our society’s values?

5 marks

4 Complete English Basics 2

Spelling and vocabulary

guess defiance gratitude similarity trulyperfection juvenile confiscate observant anonymouspraise resistance impostor prohibit amiablestupidity minority completely prevention degradationunanimous rejection noisily patriotism compulsoryrespectable impulsive permit difficulties hurriedly

Behaviour

Finding list words

Use list words to complete these sentences.

1 is the opposite of majority.

2 is the adverb formed from hurry.

3 is the plural of difficulty.

4 is the opposite of quietly.

5 is the adjective formed from impulse.

6 means having no name or authorship.

7 is the adverb formed from true.

8 means of, or for, young people.

9 means love of one’s country.

10 is the noun formed from defy.

11 is the adjective formed from observe.

12 means everyone is in complete agreement.

13 is the adverb formed from complete.

14 means to take and keep.

15 is the state of being similar.

16 means to express approval or admiration of.

17 is the adjective formed from compel.

18 means friendly and good-natured.

19 is a verb meaning to forbid or prevent.

20 means good, or worthy of respect.

20 marks

1 Images and words 5

Word skills

1 Form nouns ending in ‘-ion’ for each of the following list words:

a permit d confiscate

b prohibit e compulsory

c observant f completely

2 Write down a list word similar in meaning to each of the following:

a allow c totally

b sincerely d foolishness

3 Write down a list word opposite in meaning to each of the following:

a voluntary c slowly

b noisily d ingratitude

14 marks

Adding list words

Complete the following by using words from your list. The first letter of each word has been given to help you. Each list word is to be used once only.

The quest for freedom

The r group had made a u decision to depose

the i who was trying to p them from gaining a democracy.

An a letter had been h circulated and the people

showed their d by an i attack on government house.

A r member of the community pleaded that the dictator should

recognise the d faced by the people and demanded that he no longer

should have the power to c their properties.

11 marks

Back-of-the-book dictionaryThe list word ‘permit’ is made up of two Latin words, per meaning ‘through’ and mitto, ‘I send’. ‘To permit’ is to ‘send somebody through’ or ‘to let someone pass through’. There are many words in English that begin with the Latin prefix per-. Here are a few of them. Using the back-of-the-book dictionary, write down their meanings.

percolate:

perennial:

perforate:

persist:

permeable:

5 marks

6 Complete English Basics 2

LanguageWhat is a clause?

A clause is a group of words expressing a complete thought. A clause contains a subject and a verb.

Clauses often are joined together to form sentences. The following sentence is made up of a main clause and two dependent clauses:

Owls are able to catch small animals because of their strong night vision, which enables them to see in the dark.

(The first dependent clause begins with the conjunction ‘because’ and the second with the relative pronoun ‘which’.)

Main clausesA main clause (also called a principal clause or independent clause) contains a verb and a subject. It usually makes sense on its own and may also form a complete sentence in itself.

A burst of lightning lit up the sea.

It very often combines with other main and dependent clauses to form sentences.

Falcons are not huge birds, but they can fly very fast.

Please note: in the above sentence the two main clauses are joined by the co-ordinating conjunction ‘but’.

Dependent (subordinate) clausesA dependent clause (also known as a subordinate clause) is a group of words that has both a subject and a verb, but it cannot stand alone as a sentence.

It is not able to function by itself. It usually begins with a conjunction or a relative pronoun as seen in the dependent clauses in heavy black.

Dark clouds scudded across the horizon as the storm approached.

The old man, who was smiling happily, hugged his grandchild.

Identifying clauses

Identify the clauses as set out in each example.

1 When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow.

from To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Dependent clause:

Main clause:

Main clause

Main clause Main clauseConjunction

Dependent clause

Dependent clause

1 Images and words 7

2 Once there were four children whose names were Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy. from The Lion, The Witch And the Wardrobe by CS Lewis

Main clause:

Dependent clause:

3 He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-

four days now without taking a fish. from The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway

Main clause 1:

Dependent clause:

Main clause 2:

4 Once upon a time there were four little rabbits, and their names were Flopsy, Mopsy,

Cotton-tail, and Peter. from The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter

Main clause 1:

Main clause 2:

5 When Mr. Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his

eleventy-first birthday with a party of special magnificence, there was much talk and

excitement in Hobbiton. from Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien

Dependent clause 1:

Dependent clause 2:

Main clause:

6 All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others. from Animal Farm by George Orwell

Main clause 1:

Main clause 2:

7 The drought had lasted now for ten million years, and the reign of the terrible lizards had

long since ended. from 2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke

Main clause 1:

Main clause 2:

8 A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction. from A Room of her Own by Virginia Woolf

Main clause:

Dependent clause:

16 marks

8 Complete English Basics 2

PunctuationHow well do you punctuate?

Imagine where we’d be without punctuation. We’d have no sentences or paragraphs. There would be no capital letters to tell us where to begin a sentence, no full stops to tell us where to end one, and no commas to tell us where to pause. There would just be a never-ending block of print or writing. Reading a book, newspaper or magazine would be intolerable.

To give you an idea of what it would be like, here is a dramatic paragraph taken from the classic novel Swiss Family Robinson by Johann Rudolf Wyss. Your task is to rewrite the paragraph adding capital letters, full stops and commas. The number of sentences that you need to use is indicated in the brackets at the end.

Encounter with a boa constrictor

after the donkey ran from the beach it arrived at the lair of the snake and stopped although

the donkey realized its danger it could not move the poor animal should have fled but it

stood fascinated and uttered a low groan the boa its hungry jaws wide open approached

steadily until it was within striking distance the donkey could not move because it was

paralysed with fear it gazed at the monster that quickly wound its long scaly body around

him and then suffocated him in the horrible embrace we shuddered as we looked at the

fearful sight

(seven sentences)

7 marks

from Swiss Family Robinson by Johann Rudolf Wyss