CAMBRIDGE LOWER SECONDARY ENGLISH 8: END-OF-YEAR TEST

Name Date

End-of-year test
Part 1: Non-fiction
Section A: Reading
Spend around 30 minutes on this section.
Read Text A (an online article, ‘The twisted history of pasta’), then answer questions 1–8.

Text A

The twisted history of pasta

While today it’s an everyday meal for the masses, pasta was once only
available for Italian nobles.
Made from the flour of durum wheat, pasta takes its name from the pasty
texture of the dough. Different pastas have different names, many based
5 on the different shapes the dough is moulded into. The production
process is simple, but the shapes and uses of the finished product are
dizzyingly varied. The different shapes of pasta – cut into squares, rolled
into tubes, pulled into long strings and twisted into spirals – stretch to at
least 200 types, any one of which might be served with a huge array of
10 sauces and ingredients, all with their regional variations.

A pasta tree
Pasta’s ethnic roots have been long debated. Many theories have been
put forward, some notably far-fetched. A long-serving myth, based on
the writings of the 13th-century explorer Marco Polo, that pasta was
brought to Italy from China, rose from a misunderstanding of a famous
15 passage in Polo’s Travels. In it, Polo mentions a tree from which
something like pasta was made. It was probably the sago palm, which
produces a starchy food that resembles pasta. This food almost certainly
reminded the Venetian traveller of the pasta of his home country.

Food of beggars and kings

Pasta was considered a dish for the wealthy, taking pride of place in lavish
20 feasts during the Renaissance, but by the late 17th century pasta was
becoming the main staple of the common diet. Several explanations have

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been put forward for this. One is a significant decline in the common
people’s standard of living limiting their access to meat, while the large
landowners sold wheat relatively cheaply. Religious restrictions also had
25 an influence on the changing diet: pasta was an ideal food for days when
eating meat was forbidden. But perhaps the main reason for pasta’s
dramatic spread was that, from the 17th century, industrial pasta
production was developed with the use of machines to make noodles or
vermicelli. Then, at the beginning of the 19th century, tomatoes were
30 added. In fact, it is not until 1844 that the first recipe appears for the most
common pasta dish today: spaghetti in tomato sauce.

Sweet or savoury?
Several things that have changed drastically over time are the flavourings
added to pasta. Throughout the Middle Ages, until the start of the 16th
century, pasta was mixed with ingredients that would seem surprising
35 now, often combining sweet and spicy flavours. Nowadays, sweetness has
been replaced by savoury and sugar swapped for vegetables. This change
has helped make pasta a more healthy dish.

Glossary
starchy: food high in carbohydrates

1 Explain why the word ‘twisted’ is used in the headline.

[1]

2 What are pasta names based on (paragraph 2 (lines 1–7))?

[1]

3 a What does the phrase ‘dizzyingly varied’ (line 7) imply about the selection
of pasta available?

b Give another two-word phrase in the same paragraph that supports this idea.

[2]

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4 What is the main idea explored in paragraph 3 (lines 11–18)?

Tick () one box.

that Marco Polo thought pasta came from a tree

that nobody knows where pasta originated

that pasta was originally imported from China

that pasta was definitely first eaten in Italy [1]

5 Explain, using your own words, what the writer means by ‘the main staple of the common
diet’ in lines 21–23?

[1]

6 Using your own words, give three reasons for pasta’s increasing popularity in the 17th
century that are mentioned in lines 22–28.

• [3]

7 Give one word from the final paragraph (lines 32–37) which means the same as
‘extremely’.

[1]

8 Name two features of an article used in the text, and explain why they are helpful.

[4]

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Read Text B (an online article, ‘Food, family and Frank’), then answer questions 9–14.

Text B

Food, family and Frank

Patsy’s Italian Restaurant is the most authentic restaurant in New York. There aren’t many
restaurants that have been open since 1944 and are still family owned and run. It’s no surprise
that it was Frank Sinatra’s favourite because there is something for everyone, and the
5 Scognamillo family go the extra mile to make you feel welcome. Patsy’s Italian Restaurant
is just as relevant today as ever, and I caught up with Chef Sal Scognamillo to discuss how
he makes it work. (...)
JZ: Who was Patsy?
SS: Patsy was my grandfather. His name was Pasquale. He got the nickname Patsy when he
came to America and it just stuck with him. (...)
10 JZ: How do you keep Patsy’s so authentic?
SS: As long as our customers still want what we do, we are going to stick to what made us
famous. What keeps us here all these years is the Neapolitan southern Italian cuisine. All
the red sauce dishes (...) were on the original menus in 1944. It’s important for restaurants
not to try to be something they are not. We are what we are and will keep it that way as
15 long as the customers are happy.
JZ: There is just so much history here.
SS: It’s been a wonderful history in part due to Frank Sinatra. People laugh at me, but I say our
success is based on food, family and Frank Sinatra. Frank Sinatra knew my grandfather two
years before he opened Patsy’s. (...) Frank and my grandfather became good friends. What
20 really solidified the relationship was in the early ‘50s when Sinatra was down on his luck
and his career was in a slump. He would be having lunch by himself and he would tell my
grandfather that all the people around him were his fair-weather friends who only came
out when the sun was shining. (...) There was never a time when he was in New York and
he didn’t go to Patsy’s for dinner at least once. (...)
25 JZ: Do you love your job?
SS: Yes. I have been working here for 27 years full-time. The old adage applies to me that if you
like what you do, you never work a day in your life.
JZ: What do you know now that you wish you knew when you started?
SS: I always go by the saying that you can always learn something new. You should
30 never be at a point where you think you know everything.
Patsy’s Italian Restaurant is located on Manhattan’s west side, just south of
central park at 236 West 56th Street. They are open from midday to 9.30 pm on
weekdays but close at 10.30 pm on weekends. They now do online orders if
you want to eat the finest Italian food in New York in the comfort of your
35 own home!

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9 What is the main purpose of Text B?

Tick () one box.

to find out more about the owners of Patsy’s Italian

to see whether Patsy’s Italian has changed since it opened

to explain the history of Patsy’s Italian since 1944

to argue what makes Patsy’s Italian a great restaurant [1]

10 Give one example of a metaphor in the first paragraph and explain its effect.

Example:

Effect: [2]

11 Explain why the writer describes the people around Frank Sinatra as ‘fair-weather friends’
in line 22?
Tick () one box.

because they only see him when it is sunny and warm

because they only see him when his career is going well

because they are the best friends he has

because he doesn’t like having lunch with them [1]

12 What structural feature is used in the article? Explain its effect.

Feature:

Effect: [2]

13 a Make a list of what makes Patsy’s Italian restaurant special according to Sal
Scognamillo (lines 12–24).

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• [3]

b Write a summary of up to 40 words explaining what makes Patsy’s Italian restaurant

special and interesting.
Include at least five of the points from your answer to Question 13 a.

[2]

Section B: Writing
Spend around 30 minutes on this section.

1 Your school principal has recently decided to ban all junk foods and sugary drinks from
the school site. Write a letter either agreeing or disagreeing with this decision.
You should consider:
• the importance of young people eating healthily
• the provision of school lunches and snacks
• whether having freedom to make personal choices is necessary. [25]

Space for your plan:

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Write your letter.

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Part 2: Fiction
Section A: Reading
Spend around 30 minutes on this section.
Read this extract from When the Whales Came by Michael Morpurgo, then answer
questions 1–14.

When the Whales Came

The next evening, a still overcast evening with the sea the same soft grey as the
sky, Daniel and I took out one of his father’s boats. It was smaller than ours, a
fourteen foot lugger that Daniel thought we could handle more easily. We said
nothing and told no one for we knew they would forbid it. We waited until the
5 beach was deserted and slid the boat gently out into the water. We set sail as
soon as we were round the point and out of sight of the houses, and then made
our way out past Samson round Droppy Nose Point towards Scilly Rock.
‘Best place for pilchards’, Daniel said. ‘Father always says so. We’ll be back
before dark and no one will ever know we’ve gone. You can always tell your
10 mother I caught them off the rocks, can’t you?’
So we baited our hooks, let down the lines and within half an hour we had
caught more fish than we ever dreamed of. Two dozen pilchard or more and
one large bass. We were fishing midway between Gweal and Scilly Rock.
Perhaps it was the one big bass that tempted us to stay just a little longer to see
15 if we could catch another even bigger. Whatever it was, we were so intent on
our fishing that we never even noticed the weather coming in behind us. We
were fishing with our backs to Scilly Rock and the open sea. The boat lolled
beneath us, lapped by a listless sea. I had just hooked my biggest pilchard when
I noticed a wisp of mist above our heads. I looked around over my shoulder.
20 Scilly Rock had vanished as had the sky and the sea as well. A grey wall of fog
was rolling in towards us over the sea. There was nothing we could do, for it
was already too late to do anything. It was over us and all around us before
Daniel could even haul up his line. Gweal and Bryher beyond it were not there
anymore and we were left alone and lost on a silent sea. What little breeze
25 there was had gone and we found ourselves quite becalmed. I remember we
spoke in a whisper, as if the fog were a living creature that might be listening to
us. I was not too worried though, not at first, for the sea slapped so softly
against the sides of the boat and seemed to hold no threat for us. Besides, I had
Daniel with me. Both of us had been out in fog before, and both of us thought
30 we knew the waters around Bryher quite well enough to get home.
‘As long as we keep Scilly Rock astern of us we can pull home easily enough,’
Daniel said softly.

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‘But how are we going to do that if we can’t see it?’ I whispered, taking the oar
he was handing me. ‘I can’t see it any more.’
35 ‘We can hear it though, can’t we?’ he said. ‘Listen.’
And certainly I could hear the surge of the sea seething around Scilly Rock as it
always did even on the calmest of days. ‘Hear it?’ he said. ‘Just keep that sound
astern of us and we’ll be able to feel our way home. Gweal must be dead ahead
from here. There’s no swell to speak of, so we won’t go on the rocks. All we
40 have to do is to hug the coast all the way round and that’ll bring us nicely into
Popplestones.’
And so we began to row, only a few strokes at a time, stopping to listen for the
sea around Scilly Rock. It was not long though before I began to think that
Gweal was not at all where it should have been. We had already been rowing
45 quite long enough and hard enough to have reached it by now. Then I thought
that perhaps the current must have dragged us off course, that we must be
somewhere between Samson and Bryher, that I could still hear Scilly Rock
somewhere astern of us and distant, but Daniel was no longer even sure of that.
We pulled until our arms could pull no longer, but still no land loomed up out of
50 the fog as we expected. Within half an hour we had to admit to each other that
we were quite lost. We sat over our oars and drifted, straining our ears for the
wash of the sea against the rocks, anything to give us some idea of where we
were. The fog though seemed to obscure and shroud the sounds of the sea just
as it was hiding the islands that we knew lay all around us.

Glossary
lugger: a small sailing boat
pilchard: a type of small, edible fish
astern: behind

1 Give one word from paragraph 1 (lines 1–7) that means ‘cloudy’.

[1]

2 Give one word from paragraph 1 (lines 1–7) that means ‘empty’.

[1]

3 Using your own words, give two pieces of evidence from paragraph 1 (lines 1–7) that show
the children do not want to be heard or seen.

[2]

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4 Why does Daniel say ‘You can always tell your mother I caught them off the rock . . . ’
in lines 9–10.

[1]

5 Give two reasons for the children not noticing the worsening weather in lines 15–17. Use
your own words.

[2]

6 ‘The boat lolled beneath us, lapped by a listless sea.’ (lines 17–18)

a What language feature is demonstrated in the phrase above?

[1]

b What does it suggest about the boat?

[1]

7 ‘A grey wall of fog was rolling in towards us over the sea. There was nothing we could do,
for it was already too late to do anything. It was over us and all around us before Daniel
could even haul up his line. Gweal and Bryher beyond it were not there anymore and we
were left alone and lost on a silent sea.’ (lines 20–24)

How does the writer use language and structure to build tension in these lines? Identify
two features and explain the effect of each.

Language feature:

Effect:

Structural feature:

Effect:

[4]

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8 Identify one phrase from lines 27–30 which suggests that the children’s situation may get
worse.

[1]

9 What does the word ‘seething’ (line 36) suggest about the sea around Scilly Rock?

[1]

10 What is Daniel suggesting in lines 37–41?

Tick () one box.

that they head for the island of Gweal to get rescued

that they try to get ashore on Scilly Rock

that they use the noise of the sea to direct them home

that they avoid the rocks by staying away from the coast [1]

11 Suggest two reasons for the narrator thinking that they are lost in lines 43–46.

• [2]

12 ‘Then I thought that perhaps the current must have dragged us off course, that we must
be somewhere between Samson and Bryher, that I could still hear Scilly Rock somewhere
astern of us and distant, but Daniel was no longer even sure of that. We pulled until our
arms could pull no longer, but still no land loomed up out of the fog as we expected.
Within half an hour we had to admit to each other that we were quite lost. We sat over
our oars and drifted, straining our ears for the wash of the sea against the rocks, anything
to give us some idea of where we were.’ (Lines 45–53)

Give two ways that the writer uses language to create a sense of helplessness in these lines.
Use quotations to support your explanations.

[2]

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13 ‘The fog though seemed to obscure and shroud the sounds of the sea just as it was hiding
the islands that we knew lay all around us.’ (lines 53–54)
How does the writer present the fog in this extract? Use a quotation to support your
explanation.

[2]

14 Give three impressions of Daniel’s character that you get from the whole text.
Support each one with a quotation.

• [3]

Section B: Writing
Spend around 30 minutes on this section.

1 Write a story that involves getting lost.

You should consider:
• the person who is narrating the story
• the setting
• the person or people who get lost and how they react. [25]

Space for your plan:

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Write your story.

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