UNSEEN HSC 2021 Flashcards
Explain how DGray uses langge to invte the redr to share his expriences.
Text 1 — Nonfiction extract
New books find their way to us via a number of routes. Most obvious is
bricks-and-mortar store browsing. There we are, in a shop, reading the
back cover, brushing fingers over embossed titles, handling and patting,
appreciating the book as an object. We can tickle spines and open up to brush
pages, and – if no one’s looking – devour their smell. If everything chimes
then the book is placed in a wrestler’s headlock, claimed as a joey kangaroo
in its mother’s pouch. Chances are that it will soon have siblings – our eyes
are bigger than our bedside tables.
Or perhaps a new book may be fostered from a library or foisted* upon you
by a friend who insists you will appreciate it. On the way home, blurbs are
again consumed, and other furnishings idly absorbed – the review quote and
the About the Author, the writer dedication and the font declaration.
Then there is that saintly thud of an online order plummeting from the
letterbox, or the luscious scrape of cardboard on floor as, on returning home,
you push the front door against the package. To buy online leaves you blind
in comparison with bookshop scrutiny, but the gamble is surely worth the
prize of feverishly setting about unwrapping the parcel. We are Charlie
Bucket unwrapping a Wonka Bar, and there is a golden-ticket feeling every
time.
By whichever route a book finds us, in our hands we now hold, we hope, a
future escape.
DANIEL GRAY
3 MARKS: Your response should include:
A specific idea about what “experience” is being shared in – this should not only be literal (shopping for a new book) but **emotional (how does the author feel during this experience?)
A focus on how language choices** capture this experience – this means including quotes, techniques and their specific effect on the audience.
SAMPLE ANSWER:
In Text 1, Daniel Gray immerses the reader in the pleasure and fulfilment of acquiring a new book. Throughout the piece, Gray uses **adjectives **such as “saintly,” “luscious” and “feverish” to describe the process of acquiring and unwrapping a new book. These words connote an exaggerated sense of ecstasy that causes the reader to share in Gray’s feelings of excitement and bliss during this experience. Gray also alludes to Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate factory: “We are Charlie Bucket unwrapping a Wonka Bar, and there is a golden-ticket feeling every time.” The collective pronoun “we” directly invites the reader to partake in the experience, while the literary allusion reinforces the sense of delight and exhilaration that accompanies book-buying.(DYMOCKS)
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Gray uses a wide range of **sensory imagery **to share his experience of obtaining new books with his readers, such as ‘brushing fingers over embossed titles’, ‘devour their smell’ and ‘luscious scrape of cardboard on floor’. These phrases invite the reader to imagine how the physical experience of touching and smelling books is an integral part of Gray’s reading experience. (HSC PAPER)
**In better responses, students were able to:
clearly explain how the experience of reading books was also a sensory experience that provided an escape into literary worlds, and the power of literature generally
support the identification of the experience with textual references rather than description of the text.
Areas for students to improve include:
avoiding generic terms such as ‘this** reveals **Gray’s human experience’
developing more effective explanations that go beyond general statements such as ‘this shows Gray likes books’ or, ‘he likes reading’
avoiding listing techniques without **linking **them to the question.
How effectively does the use of imagery convey a human experience? 3 MK
Text 2 — Poem ( 3 MARKS)
For B, at Plaza Blanca, New Mexico*,
having known each other three days.
Here, you said, this is a piece of quartz.
Take it, and close your hand around it.
The rock was heavy for something so small. Its rough
edges pressed my outline, changed my shape in a small way.
I turned it over. I closed my hand around it.
The rock made me think of difficult work
like lowering yourself into a bath. The quartz made me think
of the enormous past, a vast plateau, on which the present moment holds still—
full and complete. I looked around. We were wrapped in the loose embrace
of the ground, and the bare trees, and the low-slung clouds. The rock
is ancient. The white formations of Plaza Blanca are ancient, as sleep is ancient—
and our young lives are winks in a deep night, wrinkles
on a long green sea. The sea is more alien than the moon to that white place. You
smiled. You smiled as if to say we are two odd birds, aren’t we?
I unclosed my hand
and the quartz bloomed there—
CHARLOTTE GUEST
How effectively does the use of imagery convey a human experience?
Your response should include:
Identification of what the ‘human experience’ being conveyed in the poem is, since the question does not mention it – this will show that you have a specific argument, and that you have understood the poem.
Focus on** ‘imagery **‘as a technique, but with reference to specific images and their unique effect on the reader.
SAMPLE ANSWER:
The poet’s use of imagery in Text 2 vividly captures the sense of wonder and awe that can be felt in a natural environment, causing the persona to reflect on human lives. The quartz is the catalyst for the persona to think about humans’ relationship to time and mortality, and the metaphorical image of the “enormous past” as “a vast plateau, on which the present moment holds still” evokes the immensity of time. This causes the reader to reflect both on the fragility of a single moment, yet how it can simultaneously be full of meaning, as the moment is described as “full and complete.” The poet goes on to use further natural metaphors to compare “young lives” to “winks in a deep night, wrinkles/on a long green sea.” This use of imagery highlights how small and fleeting human life is in comparison to the entirety of time, and immerses readers in the existential reflection that is experienced when in an overwhelming and ancient natural environment.(DYMOCKS)
**In better responses, students were able to:
consider the human experience, moving beyond simple recount to the larger conceptual meanings
suitably integrate ideas about human experiences with detailed explanation of how meaning was shaped through language
provide a balance between the human experience they considered and how ideas were represented
use aptly chosen evidence to support their response.
** Areas for students to improve** include:
responding to the question
clearly defining the human experience rather than writing in general terms
**avoiding recounting the examples **from the text such as “he holds a rock in his hand” and instead consider how imagery brings us to a larger understanding of the experience of reflection, awe, contemplation, etc.
ensuring that explanations align to any textual references.
How does Ocean Vuong represent the relationship between the characters?
Text 3 — Prose fiction extract 4 MARKS
With Lan, one of my tasks was to take a pair of tweezers and pluck, one by
one, the grey hairs from her head. “The snow in my hair,” she explained, “it
makes my head itch. Will you pluck my itchy hairs, Little Dog? The snow
is rooting into me.” She slid a pair of tweezers between my fingers, “Make
Grandma young today, okay?” she said real quiet, grinning.
For this work I was paid in stories. After positioning her head under the
window’s light, I would kneel on a pillow behind her, the tweezers ready
in my grip. She would start to talk, her tone dropping an octave, drifting
deep into a narrative. Mostly, as was her way, she rambled, the tales cycling
one after another. They spiraled out from her mind only to return the next
week with the same introduction: “Now this one, Little Dog, this one will
really take you out. You ready? Are you even interested in what I’m saying?
Good. Because I never lie.” A familiar story would follow, punctuated with
the same dramatic pauses and inflections during moments of suspense or
crucial turns. I’d mouth along with the sentences, as if watching a film for
the umpteenth time—a movie made by Lan’s words and animated by my
imagination. In this way, we collaborated.
As I plucked, the blank walls around us did not so much fill with fantastical
landscapes as open into them, the plaster disintegrating to reveal the past
behind it. Scenes from the war, mythologies of manlike monkeys, of ancient
ghost catchers from the hills of Da Lat* who were paid in jugs of rice wine,
who traveled through villages with packs of wild dogs and spells written on
palm leaves to dispel evil spirits.
OCEAN VUONG
Your response should include:
An argument about what type of relationship the two characters have, to create a specific response to the question and show that you have understood the text.
Analysis of** language techniques** sued to capture that relationship – the question asks “how” the author has “represented” the relationship, so you must identify specific examples and explain their effect on the reader’s understanding.
SAMPLE ANSWER:
In Text 3, Ocean Vuong captures how the sharing of memories between a grandparent and grandchild creates a sense of intimacy and connection. The **metaphor **of tales “(spiralling) out from her mind” and the **listing **of “scenes from the war, mythologies of manlike monkeys, of ancient ghost catchers…” represents the wealth of knowledge held by the grandmother, including both historical events and cultural myths, which can be shared with her grandchild through the process of storytelling. Vuong reveals how this process of sharing results in a close relationship between the characters, through the **simile **comparing the storytelling process to “a film” that is “made by Lan’s words and animated by my imagination… we collaborated.” The word choice of ‘collaborated’ emphasises that this is a two-way process forged by the unique connection between the grandparent and grandchild. Furthermore, the metaphor of the wall “disintegrating to reveal the past behind it” creates a sense of immediacy, suggesting the past is not something distant but kept alive due to the process of sharing memories. The relationship between the characters’ is therefore seen as integral in maintaining the next generation’s understanding of their family’s culture and past.(DYMOCKS)
In better responses, students were able to:
insightfully explore the relationship between the characters, going beyond that they were ‘close’, and between grandparent and grandson
provide textual evidence that is accurate and strongly aligned to the relationship being explored
consider the multifaceted nature of the relationship
recognise the cultural aspects of the relationship
identify and explain the representation of ideas with clarity and understanding.
**Areas for students to improve **include:
avoiding listing techniques without explaining how they address the relationship being explored
avoiding describing or recounting events in the extract.
Analyse how Didm Cia uses literary devices to reflect on her experience.
Text 4 — Nonfiction extract- 4 MARKS
I was hiking. A familiar path in the Otway ranges. The mist had set in. I
sometimes drift into a kind of mental autopilot when hiking here because
I’ve experienced it so often. This particular time, however, I found myself
looking up into an unfamiliar area about half an hour in, not knowing exactly
where I was. It was a simple mistake, I hadn’t been paying enough attention
to where I was going, and consequently I veered off the path. When I glanced up and realised the woods did not look as I was expecting them to I felt a rush of exhilaration. The woods became instantaneously new . . . My sense memory was momentarily destabilised, and the resulting experience was a reminder of how the familiar can suddenly appear as new. I’d walked here many times before, and the scent of hung-over raindrops, the sound of gravel, touch of leaves, tree trunks and the sight of falling sunshine diamonds, had picture booked their way into my mind’s eye. But in this moment that eye was suddenly and unexpectedly awakened to a new way of seeing . . .
I’ve left out a step. Before I experienced the release of being disoriented,
before I surrendered to it, I felt intensely frustrated. I experienced the rigidity of my own consciousness, how instinctively resistant I was to something unexpected. Something was happening in this swirl of frustration; I wasn’t on autopilot any more. I was out of my comfort zone, and I had to participate in that instant, participate in making meaning of my surroundings in order to understand where I was. My mind had been disrupted. I looked up, I looked around, and I felt as if a force was enabling me to see the woods,
not just look at them. I experienced an instantaneous transformation of
consciousness; a blip in which the latent* enchantment of the everyday world manifested vividly, even if just for a fleeting moment. The woods were the
stage, I was the audience, and I experienced the great creative tension of the Theatre: severed from my filter of expectation, I temporarily experienced the transformation of my own reality.
DIDEM CAIA
(Effectively analyses how Didem Caia uses literary devices to reflect on
her experience using well-chosen supporting evidence)
Your response should include:
What the ‘experience’ was, as the question doesn’t specify – you must articulate what happened to the composer, what she is ‘reflecting’ on and what realisation she comes to.
A close focus on literary devices, as per the question – identify** three quotes, explain what device is used in them, and be very specific about what effect** they have on the audience.
SAMPLE ANSWER:
In Text 4, Didem Caia reflects on a transformative moment in which her perception of her surroundings shifted, causing her to realise how the disruption of comfort and familiarity can result in a more vivid, meaningful perception of one’s world. Caia uses an immersive sensory image to depict the initial familiarity of the woods: “The scent of hung-over raindrops, the sound of gravel, touch of leaves, tree trunks and the sight of falling sunshine diamonds, had picture booked their way into my mind’s eye.” The use of listing creates a rhythmic sentence structure that conjures a sense of routine, heightened by the tranquil atmosphere of beauty evoked by the image of ‘falling sunshine diamonds.’ The metaphor of these images “picture booking” themselves in her mind shows Caia’s consciousness that this routine had become engrained and unchangeable. Caia reflects on how this leads to a resistance to** change, captured through the negative emotive language in “I felt intensely frustrated” and the tactile image of “(experiencing) the rigidity of my own consciousness.” Despite this initial resistance, Caia ruminates on how being forced to confront change can result in an increased appreciation of one’s surroundings: the word choices of “surrender” and “release” connote a newfound freedom. She states that she could “see the woods, not just look at them.” **Creating a distinction between two seeming synonyms, ‘see’ and ‘look,’ suggest to the reader that she has transcended a simple physical response to her surroundings and is undergoing a more meaningful connection with the natural landscape. **
(DYMOCKS TUTORING)
In better responses, students were able to:
demonstrate a conceptual understanding of the text
provide insight into Caia’s purposeful crafting of language through carefully selected literary devices to reveal the speaker’s transformative experience
skilfully select evidence to support their analysis.
Areas for students to improve include:
providing sufficient textual evidence to support their ideas
developing a better understanding of a range of effective literary devices to support the response.
6 MARKS
Text 5 – Prose fiction extract
People ask me, ‘What was she like?’ and I try to figure out if they mean as a normal person: what was she like in her slippers, eating toast and marmalade, or what was she like as a mother, or what was she like as an actress – we did not use the word star. Mostly, though, they mean what was she like before she went crazy, as though their own mother might turn overnight, like a bottle of milk left out of the fridge. Or they might, themselves, be secretly askew.
Something happens as they talk to me. I am used to it now. It works in them slowly; a growing wonder, as though recognising an old flame after many years.
‘You have her eyes,’ they say.
People loved her. Strangers, I mean. I saw them looking at her and nodding, though they failed to hear a single word she said.
And, yes, I have her eyes. At least, I have the same colour eyes as my mother; a hazel that, in her case, people liked to call green…
So all right. Here she is, Katherine O’Dell making her breakfast, requiring her breakfast from the fridge and the cupboards, some of which delight her and some of which let her down. Where is it, where is it, here it is! Yes! The marmalade. The sun is coming through the window, the smoke from her cigarette rises and twists in an elegant, double-strand. What can I say? When she ate toast and marmalade she was like anyone else eating toast and marmalade, though the linen between lip and skin, whatever that is called, is very precise, even when you are not seeing it on a cinema screen, twelve feet long.
So, here she is, eating toast. She works fast. She holds the slice of toast to her mouth, bites and chews, then bites again. Swallows. She does this maybe three or four times, sets the thing back on the plate. She takes it up for one more bite: leaves it down. After which, there is a little tug of love which the toast loses, a little wavy-over thing she does with her hand, a shimmy of rejection or desire. No, she will not have any more toast.
She picks up the phone receiver and dials. Everything was ‘marvellous!’ when she was out on this phone; a beige thing on the kitchen wall with a long clapped-out curly cord that you had to duck under as she paced and smoked, saying ‘marvellous!’ while giving me the wink, indicating her coffee, or a glass of wine that was out of reach, with a pointed finger and a rolling hand.
‘Just marvellous,’ she might say.
Or she talks to me, a girl of eight or nine sitting at the table in a pink cotton dress brought back from America. She involves the dog who waits under the table, like a dog in the movies, for scraps and crumbs. Mostly she speaks to the ceiling, at the place where it meets the wall. Her eyes rove along this line as though looking for ideas up there, or for justice. Yes, that is what she wants. She tucks her face down quickly to light another cigarette. She exhales.
The toast is now fully ignored. The toast is dead to her now. The chair is pushed back, the cigarette stubbed out on the actual plate. After which she gets up and walks away. Someone else will dispose of all that. Because I think I mentioned that my mother was a star. Not just on screen or on the stage, but at the breakfast table also, my mother KAaherine O’Dell was a star.
ANNE ENRIGHT
Extract from Actress
Skilfully evaluates how the writer uses narrative voice to shape the
character using well-chosen supporting evidence -6 MARKS
The writer effectively uses the begrudging yet admiring narrative voice of Katherine O’Dell’s daughter to depict her mother as an actress in both her public and private worlds. The narrator vividly describes O’Dell’s actions in her everyday world as a performance. In response to the common question asked of her ‘what was she like?’ the narrator **recounts **the domestic act of O’Dell ‘eating toast’ to dramatise even this simple task as a performance.
The narrator cynically describes how O’Dell ‘holds the slice of toast to her mouth, bites and chews, then bites again. Swallows’. This deliberately portrays her mother as a star ‘not just on screen or on the stage, but at the breakfast table also.’ Additionally, Enright successfully uses the adult narrator to reflect on a bittersweet childhood anecdote which describes how
her mother fed ‘the dog who waits under the table, like a dog in the movies, for scraps and crumbs.’ The inclusion of this detail highlights how the resigned narrator perceives that Katherine O’Dell prioritised her role as a radiant actress over her motherly duties. (HSC SAMPLE)
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**In better responses, **students were able to:
provide a sustained evaluation of how multiple language forms and features created the narrative voice that constructed the character of Katherine O’Dell
demonstrate a clear understanding of how the author crafts character using relevant textual evidence
address all aspects of the question.
Areas for students to improve include:
using evaluative language to answer the question
using well-chosen textual evidence to support their ideas.
Evaluate Anne Enright’s use of narrative voice in shaping the character of Katherine O’Dell.
Your response should include:
Specific ideas about what sort of character Katherine O’Dell is, including her qualities or relationship to the narrator. This will result in a precise argument rather than a vague repetition of the question.
A focus on the ‘narrative voice’ – this means discussion of what devices are used to construct the character who is speaking, and what they reveal about her view of her mother.
A range of ideas to create a sustained argument – as a 6-mark response this must be a longer answer, but we do not want to be repeating the same point over and over.
SAMPLE ANSWER:
Text 5 captures the character of Katherine O’Dell, a famous actress, through the eyes of her daughter, and in doing so reveals the multifaceted nature of her identity and her relationship with her child.
Initially, the extract focuses on the narrator’s response to others asking about her mother: “I try to figure out if they mean as a normal person… as a mother, or… as an actress.” Listing establishes three different elements to Katherine’s identity, suggesting a sense of conflict between her celebrity ‘facade’ and authentic identity. The narrator’s frustration towards strangers’ curiosity is crafted through her narrative voice: “So all right. Here she is… so, here she is.” The use of anaphora draws attention to these more conversational, direct-addresses to the reader, and creates a tone of resignation, implying that the ‘truth’ about Katherine is about to be revealed.
When describing her mother, the narrator’s voice evolves to capture her perspective of her mother. She shifts into internal dialogue: “Where is it, where is it, here it is! Yes!” to reveal her mother’s “delight,” suggesting the intensity of the emotions Katherine experienced even when undergoing routine tasks such as eating breakfast. Despite this, the narrator deliberately humanises Katherine and suggests that elements of her life were as quotidian as anyone else’s: “She holds the slice of toast to her mouth, bites and chews, then bites again. Swallows… sets the thing back on the place… takes it up… leaves it down.” The mixture of run-on and truncated sentences mirrors the rhythm of her mother’s movements and creates a mocking tone, lavishing excessive description on a mundane moment to emphasise that despite her celebrity status she was ultimately an ordinary human.
In the final paragraphs, the narrative voice becomes critical, shaping audiences to see Katherine as self-absorbed by her own fame. The dismissive tone in “Someone else will dispose of all that” imagines her mother’s internal dialogue and thoughts as self-centred and disregarding others’ efforts. This becomes more acute in the final lines: “I think I mentioned that my mother was a star. Not just on the screen or on the stage, but at the breakfast table.” The callback to her earlier words establishes a circular structure that emphasises the consequences of her mother’s fame, and the contrast between the public world of the “screen” and the domestic world of the “breakfast table” contributes to the narrator’s bitter tone. Audiences are positioned to see Katherine as egotistical, bringing her sense of fame even to the domestic space of the home where she should simply be a mother. As such, the changing narrative voice imagines Katherine O’Dell as a complex character and shapes her relationship with her daughter through slowly unfolding the latter’s perception of her.(DYMOCKS)
