10 questions🇬🇧English
🔭 Analysing Narrative Structure – GCSE
English · GCSE — foreshadowing, shifts in focus, flashbacks and other structural features for the language paper
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Questions
In a narrative, what is foreshadowing?
Describing a setting in close detail
Repeating the opening at the very end
Hinting at events that will happen later
Returning to events from the past
20s
What is a flashback?
A hint about events still to come
A final scene that ties up the plot
A scene that moves back to earlier events
A sudden shift to a new narrator
20s
A story begins and ends on the same deserted beach at dawn. What kind of structure is this?
Episodic structure
Dual narrative structure
Cyclical structure
Linear structure
20s
A story opens in the middle of a chase, with no background given. Which term describes this opening?
In media res
Exposition
Prologue
Denouement
20s
An opening describes a whole city skyline, then narrows to one cracked window. How is this shift in focus best described?
Switching from one narrator to another
Moving back in time from present to past
Zooming out from a close detail to a wide view
Zooming in from a wide view to a close detail
30s
After a long descriptive paragraph, a writer adds a one-sentence paragraph: 'Then the lights went out.' What is the main effect?
It slows the pace by adding extra detail
It isolates a key moment for emphasis and shock
It shows a change of narrative viewpoint
It signals a flashback to earlier events
30s
In a traditional story structure, which stage comes directly after the climax?
Exposition
Falling action
Rising action
Inciting incident
30s
A writer spends two pages describing just a few seconds as a character waits for a door to open. What is the structural effect?
It creates a cyclical link with the opening
It moves the reader back to an earlier time
It slows the pace to stretch out the tension
It speeds up the pace to rush the reader on
30s
A paragraph moves from describing a storm outside to a girl's worries about tomorrow. What structural shift is this?
From the climax to the resolution
From the outside world to inner thoughts
From first-person to third-person narration
From dialogue to physical description
30s
For a question on structure, which sentence comments on structure rather than language?
The simile comparing waves to wolves sounds threatening
The verb 'clawed' suggests the violence of the sea
The alliteration 'silent, still sea' creates a calm mood
The focus shifts from the lighthouse to the keeper inside
30s