Year 9 English practice questions

Lock in’s Year 9 English course has 6 units with 98 flashcards and 104 practice questions, plus timed exams built fresh each time.

• Language techniquesSound devices; Figurative language; Word choice and sentence structure; Imagery, symbolism and motif
• Visual and film techniquesComposition: salience, vectors and layout; Gaze, shot size and angle; Colour, lighting and typography; Film and multimodal techniques
• Analysing unseen textsReading strategies: purpose, audience, form, context; Prose fiction; Poetry; Non-fiction and visual texts; Answering short-answer questions
• Persuasive writing and speechesRhetorical appeals; Persuasive devices; Structuring an argument; Speeches: writing for the ear
• Imaginative writingNarrative structure; Voice, point of view and tense; Character and setting; Crafting sentences, dialogue and endings
• Analytical writing and comparing textsEssays and theses; TEEL and PETAL paragraphs; Comparing texts; Context and representation

Try each question before you open the answer. Written answers show what a full-marks response needs to include.

1. Question 1. Language techniquesMultiple choice

   “The leaves danced in the wind” uses…

   1. ASimile
   2. BOnomatopoeia
   3. CPersonification
   4. DAlliteration
   Show answer

   C. Personification

2. Question 2. Visual and film techniquesMultiple choice

   A figure looking directly at the viewer uses…

   1. AA demand gaze
   2. BA vector
   3. CA long shot
   4. DAn offer gaze
   Show answer

   A. A demand gaze

3. Question 3. Visual and film techniques: film and multimodal techniques2 marks

   Explain the difference between diegetic and non-diegetic sound, with an example of each.

   Show model answer and marking criteria

   Model answer. Diegetic sound exists in the world of the film, so characters can hear it, such as dialogue or a door slamming. Non-diegetic sound is added for the audience only, such as background music or a narrator’s voice-over.

   A full-marks answer:

   • Diegetic: sound in the story world that characters can hear, with an example (dialogue, footsteps, a car radio)
   • Non-diegetic: sound added for the audience, with an example (soundtrack, narrator voice-over)
4. Question 4. Analysing unseen textsMultiple choice

   For a 3 mark “ONE quote, technique and effect” question, how many quotes should you use?

   1. ANone
   2. BOne
   3. CAs many as possible
   4. DThree
   Show answer

   B. One

5. Question 5. Analysing unseen texts: poetry3 marks

   How does the poet criticise shopping centres? Use ONE quote, a technique and its effect.

   Escalators carry us up like offerings, bags in our hands, cards in our pockets, under a sky of fluorescent light that never rains, never darkens, never ends. A child presses her face to the glass of the pet shop, where a puppy sleeps in a box of shredded paper, priced at twelve hundred dollars. We buy, we buy, we buy. Outside, the car park shimmers in the heat and a magpie picks at a chip like it’s the only real thing left.

   Show model answer and marking criteria

   Model answer. Shoppers rise on escalators “like offerings”. The simile uses religious imagery, suggesting shopping has become a kind of worship and that people sacrifice themselves to consumerism.

   A full-marks answer:

   • Accurate quote, such as “like offerings”, “never rains, never darkens, never ends” or “We buy, we buy, we buy”
   • Names the technique correctly, such as simile, tricolon/anaphora or repetition
   • Explains the effect: presents consumerism as empty, endless or like a religion
6. Question 6. Persuasive writing and speechesMultiple choice

   An appeal to the speaker’s credibility is…

   1. APathos
   2. BBathos
   3. CEthos
   4. DLogos
   Show answer

   C. Ethos

For analysis questions, use the same three parts each time: name the technique, quote the words that show it, and explain the effect on the reader. Short quotes you can explain beat long ones you can’t. For writing tasks, plan for two minutes before you start.

In Lock in, every English topic has short notes, then flashcards that use spaced repetition: rate each card Again, Hard, Good or Easy and it comes back just before you would forget it. Practice questions come in three levels, Foundation, Standard and Complex. Three right in a row moves you up a level, and two wrong moves you back.

Press Study for me and the app builds a 15 to 20 minute session from the cards that are due, the mistakes that are due and questions on your weakest topics. Anything you get wrong comes back 1, 3 and 7 days later until you get it right. When an exam is close, sit a timed practice exam with AI marking.

More Year 9 subjects

Year 9 Maths practice questions, Year 9 Science practice questions, Year 9 History practice questions, Year 9 Geography practice questions, Year 9 PDHPE practice questions.

English in other years

Year 7 English practice questions, Year 8 English practice questions, Year 10 English practice questions, Year 11 English practice questions, Year 12 English practice questions.