Between A Rock and a Hard Place

Question 1

Q4 plan

Answer 1

P1: before injury - experience, skill but slight danger, difficulty, suspense
P2: reaction, danger, fear, pain

Question 2

‘Between a Rock and a Hard Place’

Answer 2

idiom for difficult decision
‘rock’ - literally & metaphorically
foreshadow bad thing/dilemma

Question 3

TAP

Answer 3

T: autobiographical account
A: national, adventurous people
P: to inform & entertain slightly bc dramatic

Question 4

P1:
‘another drop-off’, ‘another refrigerator chockstone’

Answer 4

‘another’ - done before, experience & knowledge
technical language & terminology - specific, expertise

Question 5

‘I’ll dangle off the chockstone, then take a short fall’

Answer 5

‘I’ll’ - confident
‘dangle’ - contrast assurance, dangerous, vulnerable, precarious, increase tension & suspense
‘short’ - easy, casual

Question 6

‘stemming’, ‘traverse’, ‘press’, ‘kick’

Answer 6

semantic field of action - swift movement, ease
technical verbs - stability & skilled
‘kick’ - not reserved

Question 7

‘with a scraping quake’

Answer 7

assonance of ‘scraping quake’ - movement & sound of rock moving - scary
‘quake’ - seismic shift, significant blunder, foreshadow trouble

Question 8

‘fear shoots my hands over my head.’

Answer 8

‘fear’ is subject - uncontrollable
‘shoots’ - power of fear
mainly monosyllabic - sharp movements, frantic
alliteration of ‘hands over my head’ - mirror heavy breathing? pressure

Question 9

‘smashes’, ‘ricochets’, ‘crushes’, ‘ensnares’

Answer 9

violent, graphic verbs - chalkstone active verbs - almost personification - predatory - devastating impact

Question 10

‘my disbelief paralyzes me’

Answer 10

‘disbelief’ - contrast previous confidence - show he thought he was initially secure & the event was a mistake
‘paralyzes’ - stunned, shock, pain

Question 11

‘the flaring agony throws me into a panic. I grimace and growl.’

Answer 11

assonance of ‘flaring agony’ - sound like a scream - immense pain
alliteration of ‘grimace and growl’ - animalistic, aggressive, loud instinctive reaction

Question 12

‘anxiety’, ‘frantic’, ‘desperate’

Answer 12

irrational due to fear

Question 13

‘grunting, ‘Come on…move! Nothing.’

Answer 13

exclamative - passion, strength of feeling, desperation, isolation, frustration
out loud - emotion
ellipsis - dramatic pause & think
‘nothing’ - single word sentence - danger, anticlimactic, abrupt - realise further danger
cliff-hanger

Question 14

structure

Answer 14

chronological & 1st person - readers experience events with author - drama, suspense, thrill, entertaining

start - complex sentences & terminology vs later longer sentences using semicolons, listing, colons (e.g. ‘time dilates) - slow reading pace allows readers to experience events as author did

short sentences - abrupt - lots of fearful thoughts interrupting mind - irrational spiral into pain - dramatic & alarming

passive voice - uncontrollable passive emotion - out of control