UNIT 2 Answers to Coursebook activities

1 A tale usually has no known author, has been passed around countries and
communities for many years, and contains a degree of fantasy or exaggeration.
Tales include:
cautionary tales fairy tales camp fire tales
fables myths bedtime stories
urban legends legends anecdotes
nursery rhymes religious parables family memories
Tales are told to pass the time, to distract, to entertain, to share pleasure or fear, to
form a bond with an audience, and also to teach and warn.
Good tales rely on suspense. Their endings are usually predictable, yet satisfying
because characters get what they deserve. They usually contain elements of either
humour or horror, or both.

2 a A cautionary tale, often in verse when humorous, warns children about the punitive
consequences of an aspect of their behaviour considered by adults to be unacceptable.

3 a relate – narrate (verb) morsel – mouthful (noun)

foible – weakness (noun) reluctant – unwilling (adjective)
gradual – slow (adjective)
b Nouns, and adjective + noun phrases. The capitalisation of nouns and epithets
makes the text seem archaic and didactic, as this was a traditional device used in
older texts to emphasise these parts of speech, since they were the ones which
carried the moral meaning (e.g. in a religious parable or essay).
c dreadful – terrible detested – hated
befell – happened to rage – fury
inauspicious – unlucky

Moral / Message Content / Events Characters Form / Layout

• listeners (children) • spoilt child runs • a naughty only • rhyming couplets
warned by adults of away from his child • rhymes add to comic
the dangers of not nurse on trip to zoo • an effect, e.g. ‘Bang!’
following rules and • swift retribution unsympathetic and mis-rhyme of
not doing as you are for this act of nurse ‘foible’/‘able’
told by your elders disobedience: • an unemotional • metre – iambic
• tale makes fun lion eats him zoo-keeper tetrameter
of the original slowly; lion-keeper • ‘respectable’ • direct speech
cautionary tales, powerless to save parents who are included
which were serious him in fact sadistic • narrator has
and originated at a • nurse reports to and uncaring interpolated his
time when parenting boy’s parents own voice to call
was much stricter • parents utter moral for audience’s
statements attention (helps to
create schoolroom
atmosphere)

© Cambridge University Press 2013 Cambridge Checkpoint English 7: My World 1

 UNIT 2 Answers to Coursebook activities

5 a Direct speech adds drama, immediacy and variety of voice, and it can be humorous.
b Example answers
answered interrupted shrieked announced
replied informed wailed moaned
cried lamented begged insisted
shouted murmured demanded responded
ordered whispered complained commanded
c A variety of verbs avoids repetition, predictability and monotony, and allows
the volume and tone of the utterance to be conveyed, as well as the actual
words. Humour can be created by the choice of an extreme or unexpected and
inappropriate speech verb which overstates or understates the situation. In verse,
the metre may influence the choice of verb, according to the number of syllables
it contains.

8 a Urban legends are also called urban myths or contemporary legends. They are a form
of modern folklore consisting of events believed by their tellers to be true. They are
told briefly and concisely, and end with a strong climax of horror or relief. There
are usually two characters, and they contain a little dialogue. The victims are always
unsuspecting and vulnerable, usually the young or the elderly.
b Urban legends are a modern replacement for cautionary tales and serve a similar
social purpose. They change over time in their detail, keeping up with technology,
but not in their basic idea, which is to confront a universal fear. The narrator says
that it happened to someone they know and that the listeners should be warned.
They are also entertaining and people enjoy telling them and hearing them, as we
like it when something frightening happens to someone else.
c Example answer
• They take place in ordinary, familiar surroundings (in houses/on the road).
• The featured events could happen to anyone – there is little specific information
(e.g names, dates and exact locations) regarding the incident.
• It is difficult to prove they didn’t happen because of the lack of detail/specific
information.
• They often involve someone getting into and lurking in someone’s home, which
is a fundamental fear and a staple of horror stories and films, with which they
share many other features.

10 a The first three mini-sagas trick the reader into thinking the subject is not what it
seems by using double meanings which would apply in another context as well, or
by using a pronoun which gives a misleading impression (e.g. calling a tooth ‘him’).
The unexpected ending is caused by the revelation of the narrator and situation in
each case.
b There are unusual subjects in the first and third mini-sagas (a tooth and a teacher
and class). There is an unusual narrator in the second (a sock). The effect of these
is to create ambiguity and then surprise. It can be an effective narrative fantasy
device to give a voice to an inanimate object.
c The original titles are: 1 Painful experience, 2 Dying?, 3 Shattered dreams and
false dawns, 4 Mrs Bailey’s glasses, 5 Nameless fate.

© Cambridge University Press 2013 Cambridge Checkpoint English 7: My World 2

 UNIT 2 Answers to Coursebook activities

11 a The recurring image of battle is created in mini-saga 3 by the words ‘front line’,
‘onslaught’, ‘missiles’, ‘enemy’, ‘counter-attack’, ‘defeat’.
b Mrs Bailey suddenly realises that she is wasting her life and not enjoying her job.
She can now see this clearly, even though her glasses are broken. She now only has
half her mind on the class in front of her. The other half is dreaming of warmer
and more exciting places.
c When re-arranged as a poem, centred or not, the saga seems more poignant.
Rhymes and contrasts have appeared, run-on lines achieve ‘growing’ effects, and
the deliberate repetition is highlighted.

Sitting, watching,
Goggling at the box,
His legs begin to shrink.
His bottom grows fatter and
Fatter, filling the armchair he sits
In, slowly at first, then faster
And faster. His eyes grow square
Instead of round.
His head slowly turns to jelly –
From sitting in front
Of the telly.

12 a Present participles are used as connectives to save joining words and convey
meaning at the same time. They give a fluency and sense of action to the story.
Examples: ‘Gasping for air’ (mini-saga 2); ‘awaiting the inevitable onslaught’,
‘already knowing the futility and tasting defeat’ (3); ‘glaring at you’ (4); ‘Sitting,
watching, goggling at the box’, ‘filling the armchair’ (5).
b Dashes are used to add an afterthought (‘from sitting in front of the telly’, mini-
saga 5) or to introduce a sudden turn of events (‘and saw him grinning in the
mirror’, 1; ‘a red sock among pale pink laundry’, 2). They save words by making it
unnecessary to construct a whole new sentence, and they give a dramatic tone.
c The direct speech in mini-sagas 3 (‘Alright, 3C, settle down. Let’s have some
quiet!’) and 4 (‘I hate looking at books; I want holidays in the sun.’) introduces a
change of voice and gives a dramatic effect of immediacy and emotion. The use of
the punctuation around the direct speech is in itself a way of heightening the tone,
as it draws attention to the utterance and requires intonation to be adopted in the
voicing of the speech.

14 a The dialogue in Text 2E adds a build-up of tension until the climax of the passage
and the discovery of the body. Without dialogue the reader would not be able
to appreciate how apprehensive Holmes and Watson are feeling, and the time
pressure they are under. Nor would they know each other’s anxiety if they couldn’t
hear each other’s voices. The fact they are speaking aloud also makes their situation
more dangerous, as the hound can hear them and know their whereabouts.
b i The dialogue is interspersed in the narrative, showing the increasing strength of
their fear. Here, the utterances are very short, in constrast to the normal length
and leisurely pace of the speech employed by the characters, especially Holmes.

© Cambridge University Press 2013 Cambridge Checkpoint English 7: My World 3

 UNIT 2 Answers to Coursebook activities

ii What they are saying is to do with noise, time and place. The sound emitted by
the hound is spine-chilling, and because they are in a race against time and are
unsure of where the sound is coming from, the constant references to these
things make the reader anxious too.
iii The majority of the short speeches are either questions or exclamations. This
has an effect on the dramatic nature of the passage and the level of excitement
created within it. Such expression is not the great detective’s usual speech mode
and the reader knows he must be exceptionally worried to have descended to
such emotional outbursts and the use of non-sentences and repetition.
c See the Unit 2 Handout for a sample completed table.

© Cambridge University Press 2013 Cambridge Checkpoint English 7: My World 4