REGIONAL DA VINCI DECATHLON 2018 CELEBRATING THE ACADEMIC GIFTS OF STUDENTS IN YEARS 9 & 10 ENGLISH ANSWERS TEAM NUMBER 1 2 3a 3b 4 5 6 Total Rank /10 /10 /10 /10 /15 /10 /35 /100 1
ACTIVITY ONE: SPELLING TEST Note: each correct answer is worth one mark 1, polysyllabic 6.playwright 2. latinate 7.rhythm 3.indict 4.ameliorate 5.annihilate 8.millennium 9.liaison 10.deductible ACTIVITY TWO: Jumbled words see if you can un-jumble the following words 1. nrcltoeoleci recollection 10 marks 2. eemnircsicne reminiscence 3. lbinoiov oblivion 4. amrapaeisn paramnesia 5. tehle Lethe 6. ntteenoir retention 7. ecvresobna observance 8. ntacoevoi evocation 9. emnysomen Mnemosyne 10. uoevnris souvenir 10 marks 2
ACTIVITY THREE: POETRY ANALYSIS: PIANO BY D.H LAWRENCE Softly, in the dusk, a woman is singing to me; Taking me back down the vista of years, till I see A child sitting under the piano, in the boom of the tingling strings And pressing the small, poised feet of a mother who smiles as she sings. In spite of myself, the insidious mastery of song Betrays me back, till the heart of me weeps to belong To the old Sunday evenings at home, with winter outside And hymns in the cosy parlour, the tinkling piano our guide. So now it is vain for the singer to burst into clamour With the great black piano appassionato. The glamour Of childish days is upon me, my manhood is cast Down in the flood of remembrance, I weep like a child for the past. A) POETIC DEVICES: IDENTIFY AND QUOTE AN EXAMPLE OF EACH DEVICE FROM THE POEM Device: Onomatopoeia Quotation: boom Assonance tingling of strings Personification Metaphor Simile the insidious mastery of song Betrays me back my manhood is cast Down in the flood of remembrance I weep like a child for the past. 10 marks 3
B) MEANING: ANSWER THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS 1. Why does Lawrence describe the power of the song as insidious mastery? (2) Lawrence describes the power of the song as insidious mastery because the oxymoron captures the musical brilliance of the song as well as its power to betray. The song has the power to directly affect the listener and bend the listener s mind and heart to its will. Its mastery also references the perfection of melody. However, this power and perfection work to dismantle the listener, causing them to betray their self control, and, in this, the song is insidious. 2. How does Lawrence contrast the world of adulthood and childhood in the final stanza? (4) Lawrence contrasts the world of adulthood and childhood in the final stanza. He captures the adult world through the setting, with the female soloist standing beside a great black piano, singing appassionato, which evokes the high art of opera - a very adult world. He captures the child s world through juxtaposing this present, adult world with the listener s memory of being a child listening to his mother sing, to his childish days ; a memory this adult woman evokes with her song. 4
3. Why does Lawrence create this contast beween adulthood and childhood? (2) Lawrence contrasts the world of adulthood and childhood in order to demonstrate the power of memory generally, and childhood memory more specifically. The adult scene of performance, which embraces both the performer and the listener, is finally dismantled, as the listener is betrayed by the adult song into a child s world of memory where tears master the adult and he weeps like a child for the past. 4. What does the poem say about memory? (2) Lawrence contrasts the world of adulthood and childhood in order to demonstrate the power of memory generally, and childhood memory more specifically. He captures the power of a childhood memory by having the adult persona dismantled by a childhood memory. Lawrence also captures the power of memory through images such as the vista of years, and through reconfiguring past memory into present experience where the persona becomes a child again sitting at the feet of a mother who sings. The glamour of the adult world cannot compete with the glamour of childish days ; the denotation of glamour, normally a word that signals the sophistication of adulthood, is recruited to elevate the superior power of childhood, and childhood memory. 10 marks 5
ACTIVITY FOUR: Analysing literature : Excerpt from Vladimir Nabokov s autobiography Speak, Memory Vladimir Nabokov (1899 1977) Speak, Memory I witness with pleasure the supreme achievement of memory, which is the masterly use it makes of innate harmonies when gathering to its fold the suspended and wandering tonalities of the past. I like to imagine, in consummation and resolution of those jangling chords, something as enduring, in retrospect, as the long table that on summer birthdays and namedays used to be laid for afternoon chocolate out of doors, in an alley of birches, limes and maples at its debouchment on the smooth sanded space of the garden proper that separated the park and the house. I see the tablecloth and the faces of seated people sharing in the animation of light and shade beneath a moving, a fabulous foliage, exaggerated, no doubt, by the same faculty of impassioned commemoration, of ceaseless return, that makes me always approach that banquet table from the outside, from the depth of the park as if the mind, in order to go back thither, had to do so with the silent steps of a prodigal, faint with excitement. Through a tremulous prism, I distinguish the features of relatives and familiars, mute lips serenely moving in forgotten speech. I see the steam of the chocolate and the plates of blueberry tarts. I note the small helicopter of a revolving samara that gently descends upon the tablecloth, and, lying across the table, an adolescent girl's bare arm indolently extended as far as it will go, with its turquoise-veined underside turned up to the flaky sunlight, the palm open in lazy expectancy of 6
something perhaps the nutcracker. In the place where my current tutor sits, there is a changeful image, a succession of fade-ins and fade-outs; the pulsation of my thought mingles with that of the leaf shadows and turns Ordo into Max and Max into Lenski and Lenski into the schoolmaster, and the whole array of trembling, transformations is repeated. And then, suddenly, just when the colors and outlines settle at last to their various duties smiling, frivolous duties some knob is touched and a torrent of sounds comes to life: voices speaking all together, a walnut cracked, the click of a nutcracker carelessly passed, thirty human hearts drowning mine with their regular beats; the sough and sigh of a thousand trees, the local concord of loud summer birds, and, beyond the river, behind the rhythmic trees, the confused and enthusiastic hullabaloo of bathing young villagers, like a background of wild applause.... Vladimir Nabokov in Speak, Memory: An Autobiography Revisited (1966), (A reflection from his Russian childhood, around 1912). 7
Analysis of meaning: Answer the following questions: 1. In the sentence, I witness with pleasure the supreme achievement of memory, which is the masterly use it makes of innate harmonies when gathering to its fold the suspended and wandering tonalities of the past, what does Nabokov see as the supreme achievement of memory? (2) Nabokov sees as the supreme achievement of memory, memory s ability to create harmony from the disparate tonalities of the past. 2. What type of image represents memory in the opening sentence? How do you know? (2) Metaphor is used to represent memory in the opening sentence, where memory s function is compared to the harmonis[ing] of music, where discordant fragments are brought together. 8
3. The first sequence of remembering the long table for afternoon chocolate is recorded through image. How does Nabokov evoke the visual beauty of the setting he remembers? Identify two devices and their effect. (4) Possible answers: Nabokov evokes the visual beauty of the setting he remembers through: Writing in the present tense so that the picture is alive in the present Using evocative language such as People sharing in the animation of light and shade Depicting the setting as something to be reverenced, captured when he describes how, when remembering it, he enters the setting from the depth of the park, where his tone is clearly reverential. Comparing himself metaphorically to the prodigal son, where the biblical allusion captures his sense of worthlessness and elevates the actual excitement of eating at the long table. 4. The second sequence of remembering the long table for afternoon chocolate is recorded through sound when some knob is touched. How does Nabokov evoke the overwhelming nature of the sounds he remembers? Identify two devices and their effect. (4) Nabokov evokes the overwhelming nature of the sounds he remembers through: Comparing the entry of sound into the picture as metaphorically turning a knob, as if on a radio, which allowed a torrent of sounds to come to life Metaphorically comparing the sound to a torrent of water 9
Creating a sense of the torrent of sound through cumulative listing in voices speaking all together, a walnut cracked, the click of a nutcracker carelessly passed, thirty human hearts drowning mine with their regular beats Using onomatopia to enact the sounds e.g.: cracked, sough sigh, hullabaloo 1. Why does Nabokov give his autobiography the title Speak, Memory? (3) Nabokov give his autobiography the title Speak, Memory in order to capture and animate the power of memory. He first personifies Memory. He then gives her the imperative to Speak. 15 marks 10
ACTIVITY FIVE: Analysing a photograph: Identify three visual techniques that have been used in this photograph to convey the nature of memory. One mark for the correct technique and one mark for the analysis. Visual techniques How it conveys the nature of memory Marks 1 Dominant visual The dominant visual of the simple wooden house symblises a place of family values and family connection. However, there is an implication that the house no longer houses a family. 2 Seconday visual superimposed on the dominant visual 3 The vector of the hand holding the image The photograph, superimposed on the dominant visual yet blending architecturally with the original house, symbolizes how the house no longer houses the family. The whole image is a representation of the past. The human hand works as a vector to draw the viewer s eye into the photograph and make the viewer consider the relationship between the image of the family on the steps and the larger framing (0-2) (0-2) (0-2) 11
image of the house. This vector and juxtaposition ask questions about where the true nature of home is located- with the people or with the building. What is the composer s purpose in creating this image? (0-4) The composer s purpose in constructing this image may be to evoke a sense of nostalgia. Past memories of the family being at home are recalled by superimposing the photograph of the family over the image of the supposedly empty steps of the home. The family s presence in the photgraph juxtaposed with their supposed absence on the steps, heightens the contrast between the past and the present. 10 MARKS 12
ACTIVITY SIX: Fast Fiction titled Memory Your task is to write a very short story which explores the subjectivity of memory. The literature you have read in this paper represents memory from only one person s point of view. Your story will show how we each have a different memory of an event, and we often remember selectively, so that it suits a particular purpose we have. The structure of your story must deliver two different versions of the same event from the different point of view of two people. Both versions must have an orientation which establishes the setting, the characters and the dramatic tension. Both versions must use a musical motif which is central to the idea being explored Please take note of the detailed marking criteria as you have specific features that must be included to score the maximum possible marks! 25 marks Feature Marks Marks achieved One complete orientation, for first story 1.Where - setting 2.When- time period 3. What the narrative arc 4. Why dramatic tension 5. Who - characters 0-10 One complete orientation, for second story 11.Where - setting 2.When- time period 3. What the narrative arc 4. Why dramatic tension 5. Who - characters 0-10 One musical motif in first story that speaks to the 0-2 idea of memory The same musical motif in second story that speaks 0-2 to the idea of memory All grammar correct 0-1 The whole story, with its two, different versions of the one event, must explore the subjectivity of memory 10 TOTAL /35 13
Please write the story in the boxes below: Version 1:(150 words ONLY) 14
Version 2:(150 words ONLY) End of Paper 15