GCE O Level English Paper 1 - Sample Question with Answers

This is a sample passage followed by questions and answers in the model of the new syllabus of GCE O level English paper 1- reading.

The Ultimate Wish

1. From time to time, I have encountered deaths. You would think that by now I would be indifferent to it, but the pain is raw at each death. All the misery and sadness I witness points to the truth that we should cherish the time we have with our loved ones and never take them for granted.

2. I recall one of the patients I attended to in the Intensive Care unit. He was an eighty-year-old man and an architect by profession. He reminded me of a gnarly tree with hardly any leaves. Sadness enveloped him completely, and his eyes were like bottomless pools of sorrow. When he moved, I felt he would crack and break. His limbs were like reeds. He was suffering from a stroke, and his heart being weak, was advised not to aggravate his critical condition with unnecessary anxieties. Yet, this man seemed to be a melancholic soul who would often gaze out of the window into the distance, lost in silent contemplation, and seemingly tormented by great sorrow. I often caught him quietly wiping his tears away. It moved me to see an elderly person like him crying, and not having children to visit him, though there were friends. He was also a reserved person; the only time we talked was when he had to take his medicine.

3. One night, however, after having had the doctor and some of us nurses attend to him over a pseudo-seizure, he requested for me to stay behind. “On my deathbed I am,” he said with great difficulty. With a quivering voice and tears streaming down his face, he said, “My only wish is to see my daughter.” I said I would contact her immediately. With great distress, he recounted that he had not met her for years ever since their quarrel over her boyfriend made her leave home. They had parted on very unfriendly terms, vowing never to see each other again. They had not spoken to each other since that fateful day. Mustering the little energy he had left, he managed to give me her contact number. As I hurriedly got up to give her a call, he tugged at my uniform and asked for a piece of paper. I had with me just a blue piece of paper, the kind which doctors use to write prescriptions.

4. As I sailed out of the room, I thought about the parents-to-be whom I often encountered at the gynaecology ward and the anticipation that always filled them during the pregnancy. I thought about how much joy the daughter must have brought him once upon a time, and the distress and hurt he must have undergone ever since she left home. My heart went out to this man with an ailing heart. Within an hour, I managed to contact the daughter and heard her tormented voice on the other end.

5. The man had passed out when I got back to the ward. I frantically checked for his pulse. There was none. I felt as though time stood still. I could hear my own heart beating, and the room seemed to spin. Feeling absolutely aghast that he should die before the daughter could see him, I pressed the emergency button with prayerful fervour. Two doctors and their medical team rushed in like a gale and tried to resuscitate him, but all attempts were in vain. We finally resorted to electric shock, but to no avail. He was finally pronounced dead. As I left the room feeling cold and numb, I noticed a girl slumped against a wall in the corridor. It was the man’s daughter. I helped her up and learnt that she had already been told of the news. She wanted to see her father badly, but I refused initially for fear that it might cause her greater devastation, but later relented due to her persistence.

6. She staggered into the room and sobbed with intense pain as she buried her face in the sheets on which he was laid. After some time, she noticed the piece of paper on the bed. She picked it up, and alongside the different names of medicine were the weak scrawls, “Dear Helen, I love you and I forgive you. Please forgive me too. Dad.” She began sobbing with heart-wrenching sorrow. I was witnessing raw emotion; the girl cried as though she had lost a child. As though her heart was being sliced open by cruel, evil fate. She collapsed in a heap at the foot of the bed. Then she began wailing loudly.

7. At that moment, a tall man came in with a boy of about 6 years old with curly brown hair. I guessed that this would be the daughter’s husband and son. I looked at the son as he ran to his mother. ‘Mama, Mama,’ he called out. Then he too began to cry. I guessed that he was just mirroring his mother’s sorrow. The mother and the son were now crying, their wails echoing in the room, reverberating. I felt helpless in the face of such sorrow. I was also overwhelmed by the tragedy, and could not find a way to console the family.

Questions

• Why does the writer say that one would expect her to be ‘indifferent’ (paragraph 1) to death?
• Why is the old man described as ‘melancholic’ (paragraph 2)?
• Identify one example of how the writer uses language effectively to convey how the old man appeared to the writer (paragraph 2 - He reminded me ……reeds).
  Explain the impression the writer creates in the example you have identified.
• Why did the old man ask the writer for a piece of paper (paragraph 3)?
• “I felt as though time stood still. I could hear my own heart beating, and the room seemed to spin.” (paragraph 5) What does the writer want to suggest to us about the situation at this point in the story?
• Why do you think the daughter’s voice was ‘tormented’ (paragraph 4)?
• Using your own words, explain what the writer means when she ‘relented due to her persistence’ (paragraph 6).
• The old man’s daughter ‘staggered’ (paragraph 6) into the room. What does the word ‘staggered’ suggest that would not have been achieved by the word ‘went’?
• What two emotions does the writer feel in paragraph 7?

Answer Scheme

• The writer had encountered death from time to time.
• The writer had seen him crying/ He would gaze out of the window into the distance in silent contemplation.
• (Any of the following answers is possible)
  a) Example – ‘gnarly tree’
  impression – Like a tree that was old, bent and twisted, the old man was bent and twisted.
  b) Example – ‘with hardly any leaves’
  impression – A tree is dying when it does not have any leaves. The old man did not have any life left in him and was about to die.
  c) Example – “Sadness enveloped him completely”
  impression – Enveloping something is covering it completely. The old man’s face and body showed that he was going through great sadness.
  d) Example – “his eyes were like bottomless pools of sorrow.”
  Impression – If a pool is bottomless, the amount of water it contains is unmeasurable. The old man’s sadness was not measurable. It was unending.
  e) Example – “When he moved, I felt he would crack and break.”
  Impression – Something cracks and breaks when it is thin and brittle. The old man looked very thin and devoid of any flesh in his body. His bones could be seen.
  f) Example – “His limbs were like reeds”
  Impression – Reeds are very thin. The old man’s hands and legs were very thin.
• He wanted to write a message for his daughter.
• The writer suggests that this is a critical moment / anything could happen/ dramatic moment / turning point / there was potential for disaster/ something bad was happening.
• Having got a call from a nurse in a hospital, the daughter would have guessed that it was regarding her ailing father, and she would have been upset by the troubled relationship with her father.
• The writer gave in to the daughter’s request for visiting her dead father even though initially she refused, because the daughter repeatedly asked for permission to visit him.
• The word ‘staggered’ means that she walked unsteadily, as though about to fall. The use of this word suggests that the girl was overwhelmed by emotion, which in this case was sadness.
• The writer felt helpless because she could not find a way to console the family. She also felt overwhelmed by the tragedy.