GCSE English: Unseen Fiction Extract Workout

In the fiction reading section of GCSE English Language you do not answer questions on a few isolated sentences: you read one unseen extract of several paragraphs and answer a sequence of questions on it, from finding information to judging the writer's success. In AQA's Paper 1, for example, the reading section is built on one literature fiction text and moves from a short retrieval question through questions on language and structure to an extended evaluation of a statement about the text. This material recreates that experience on a single original extract.

The extract, 'The Last Ferry', was written for Zestly. On a small island in winter, a teenage girl called Kit waits on the harbour bench for the ferry that should be bringing her mother home through a storm. In five paragraphs the story moves from a wide description of the island at dusk, to Kit and her refusal to admit how long she has been waiting, to a flashback of summer crossings with her mother, to the arrival of the harbourmaster, Duncan, and finally to a light appearing in the dark.

The questions follow the same order of skills as the exam. You retrieve explicit details (AO1); analyse how the writer uses imagery, personification, sentence forms and verbs to create atmosphere and character (AO2); explain how the extract is structured – the narrowing focus, the flashback, the turning point and the ending (AO2); and evaluate a statement about the text, deciding how far you agree and supporting your view with evidence (AO4). Each quiz question prints the paragraph it asks about, and the longer written questions on structure and evaluation print the whole extract, so you practise sustained reading rather than guessing from a single line.

The material offers a quiz, flashcards on the reading-paper skills and terms, a written work sheet with a full sequence of exam-style questions on the extract (retrieval, language, structure, evaluation, characters) and a linked creative-writing task, and an oral exam in which the examiner takes you through the extract question by question.

  • Retrieve explicit information accurately from a fiction extract
  • Analyse imagery, personification, verbs and sentence forms and their effects
  • Explain how a writer structures an extract: opening, shifts of focus, flashback, turning point, ending
  • Evaluate a critical statement about a text and support a judgement with evidence
  • Plan and write a story opening that uses a similar structure

Practice material written by Zestly, based on the DfE GCSE English language subject content (DFE-00232-2013: critical reading and comprehension of unseen texts; AO1, AO2, AO4). The extract 'The Last Ferry' is original.

Sample question

This is the second paragraph of 'The Last Ferry', an original story extract. Kit, a teenage girl, is waiting on an island harbour in a winter storm for the ferry that should be bringing her mother home. "Kit sat on the bench. She had been sitting there for an hour and forty minutes, which she knew because she had checked her phone thirty-one times, and because the battery had dropped from sixty per cent to twelve. Her coat was her mother's, too long in the arms, and she had pulled the sleeves down over her hands so that she could hold the cuffs from the inside. Every few minutes a wave came over the wall and the spray reached her boots. She did not move back. Moving back would have meant admitting that she was cold, and admitting that she was cold would have meant admitting how long she had been waiting." How long had Kit been sitting on the bench?

See the answer

An hour and forty minutes

The paragraph states: 'She had been sitting there for an hour and forty minutes'. Thirty-one is the number of times she checked her phone, forty minutes is not mentioned here, and sixty is the phone battery percentage.

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