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VICEnglishQuick questions
Unit 1: Reading and exploring texts and Crafting texts
Quick questions on Vocabulary, text structures and language features: VCE English Unit 1 Area of Study 1
15short 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 vocabulary?Show answer
The words. Read for the specific word the author chose and the alternative that the choice quietly rejects. "Trudged" instead of "walked" is a vocabulary choice that does work.
What is text structures?Show answer
The shape of the writing. Sentence length and variation, paragraph breaks, dialogue layout, the order of information across a scene, the relation of one chapter to the next. Structure is the architecture of the writing.
What is language features?Show answer
The named techniques. Simile, metaphor, motif, repetition, free indirect discourse, juxtaposition, irony, focalisation. The named feature is a tool for talking about an effect.
What is diction?Show answer
The author's word choice considered as a set. "The diction of the opening section is plain and short-syllabled."
What is tone?Show answer
The attitude the writing takes toward its subject. Name the tone precisely (austere, sceptical, tender, dispassionate) rather than using one of the four overused words (sad, happy, angry, dark).
What is register?Show answer
The level of formality. A shift in register inside a single character's speech is a structural move worth naming.
What is imagery?Show answer
The pictures the writing builds. A useful question: are the images concrete or abstract, recurring or one-off, related to a sense (visual, auditory, tactile) or to a domain (domestic, natural, mechanical).
What is motif?Show answer
A recurring image, word, or object. A motif is structural because it crosses scenes.
What is juxtaposition?Show answer
Two elements placed beside each other so that each comments on the other. A useful term for moments where the author has put unlike things next to each other deliberately.
What is free indirect discourse?Show answer
The narrator borrows a character's voice without quoting them directly. A useful term for first-person-like effects in third-person narration.
What is focalisation?Show answer
Whose perspective the narration is anchored in at a given moment. A shift in focalisation is a structural choice.
What is symbol?Show answer
An object or image that stands for an idea. Use sparingly; not every object is a symbol.
What is irony?Show answer
A gap between what is said and what is meant, or between what is expected and what occurs. Name which kind.
What is sentence structure?Show answer
Length, clause arrangement, punctuation. A passage with a string of short declarative sentences enacts a different rhythm from a passage built on long subordinated sentences. Both are choices.
What is paragraph and section structure?Show answer
Where the breaks fall. A paragraph break can withhold, accelerate, or stop a scene. Read where the author chose to break.