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Unit 4: Close Study of Literary Texts
Quick questions on Close reading of literary extracts for the EA: QCE English Unit 4 (Topic 2)
10short Q&A pairs drawn directly from our worked dot-point answer. For full context and worked exam questions, read the parent dot-point page.
What is the five layers of close reading?Show answer
A strong close reader attends to five layers, often simultaneously:
What is the close-reading procedure for EA preparation?Show answer
The EA is closed-book; the close reading has to be done before the exam. A working procedure:
What is 1. Lexis?Show answer
Specific vocabulary, register, denotation and connotation. A word that could have been chosen differently is doing specific work. Why "departed" rather than "left"?
What is 2. Syntax?Show answer
Length, complexity, rhythm. A short sentence after a string of long ones marks emphasis. A paragraph of fragments marks breakdown or compression.
What is 3. Voice?Show answer
Who speaks, in what tense, with what reliability. First-person retrospective vs free indirect discourse vs third-person omniscient. The choice of voice determines what the reader can know.
What is 4. Structure?Show answer
Where the scene falls in the text, what precedes and follows it, what the text omits. A scene placed near the opening positions everything that follows; a scene placed near the closing inflects everything that preceded.
What are 5. Aesthetic features?Show answer
Recurring images, patterns, framing devices, parallel scenes, contrasts and ironies that operate across the whole text.
What is surface paraphrase?Show answer
"This sentence describes a man who said nothing because he had nothing to say" paraphrases. It does not close-read. A close reading attends to specific craft choices and their effects.
What is theme spotting?Show answer
"This text is about silence" identifies a theme. A close reading shows how a specific moment constructs the text's interest in silence.
What is quotation without analysis?Show answer
A quotation followed by general comment ("this shows that...")