Comprehension: Explicit and Implicit Meaning: Question 9
Syllabus R1, R2
Read the following passage, then answer the questions that follow.
The regional science fair had filled the sports hall with the smell of solder and enthusiasm in roughly equal measure. At table twelve, Tomasz adjusted his display board for what must have been the fifth time in as many minutes, squaring its edges with the trestle table with the precision of someone completing a much smaller, much more controllable task than the one actually in front of him. His model bridge, a lattice of balsa wood he had spent three weekends gluing, held, by his own quiet calculation, at roughly half the load his write-up claimed it could bear, a fact he had not mentioned to anyone, least of all the judges now working their way down the row of tables.
Two places along, Ines stood beside her water-filtration project with her hands folded loosely in front of her, not fidgeting with anything, and answered the judges' first question, "What was your biggest challenge?", with a shrug so unforced it looked almost rehearsed. "It failed twice before it worked," she said. "The second failure told me more than the success did." She said this the way she might have commented on the weather.
When the judges reached Tomasz's table, he launched into his explanation before they had finished reading his board, his voice climbing half a register higher than usual, his sentences arriving slightly too fast, one tumbling into the next. He answered a question about load-bearing capacity with a number that was, technically, not a lie, since he had rounded it, generously, from the figure he actually knew to be true.
Afterwards, in the corridor, Tomasz told his form tutor the judging had "gone brilliantly." Ines, asked the same question, said only that she would "find out on Friday," and went back to reading her book.
(a) According to the passage, what does Tomasz's own calculation reveal about the actual load-bearing capacity of his bridge, compared to what his write-up claims? [2]
(b) Explain what Tomasz's behaviour while adjusting his display board suggests about his state of mind before the judges arrive. [3]
(c) Explain how Ines's manner of answering the judges' question contrasts with Tomasz's, and what this contrast suggests about each of them. [3]
(d) In your own words, explain what the two students' comments to the form tutor afterwards suggest about how each of them is really feeling. [3]
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This higher-tier question requires candidates to track implicit meaning across two contrasting characters at once, and to explicitly compare their behaviour rather than analyse each in isolation, a more demanding synthesis task than a single-character inference.
- (a) Explicit retrieval [2]. The specific fraction (around half) and the contrast with the write-up’s claim are both stated directly; both are needed for full marks.
- (b) Implicit meaning [3], the strongest answers link the specific nature of the displacement activity (a smaller, controllable task) to Tomasz’s private knowledge of the discrepancy, rather than describing generic nervousness.
- (c) Implicit meaning with contrast [3], this part specifically rewards candidates who compare the two students’ manners directly, using each to illuminate the other.
- (d) Own words / implicit meaning [3]. Credit is for reading each closing comment against everything already established about that character, rather than taking either statement at face value.