Contoh Soal Answer questions about a literary text (1)
Contoh Soal Answer questions about a literary text (1) - “Mark! Get in here!” Mr. Roberts yelled from his office. Mark was scared. It was his first week at work, and he was quite scared of Mr. Roberts. Had he done something horribly wrong? Was he in trouble?
Ooh! Aren’t you curious to know what happens next? Does Mr Roberts scold Mark, or maybe just tell him that his new computer has arrived? This feeling of not knowing what’s coming next creates an element of “suspense.” Lots of famous books and movies use the element of suspense to keep readers and viewers interested, and “on the edge of their seats” waiting to know what happens next.
Suspense can be created in a lot of ways. Let’s see with an example:
“Where is it Ron? Where is the bag? What have you done with it?” Clive asked.
Ron smiled with a glint in his eye.
Here, both Clive and the reader are in suspense about what happened to the bag. Sometimes, it’s only the reader who is kept in suspense, like this:
The shovel hit something hard and Jo stopped digging. He removed the soil with his hand, and what he saw made his face turn yellow, his hands tremble, and he let out a scream that pierced through the night.
Here we know Jo has seen something really terrible, and it’s only the reader who doesn’t know what it is!
Sometimes, the author tells the reader, but the character in the story doesn’t know what’s going to happen next. Like this:
Hansel and Gretel followed the nice old lady into the chocolate house. Did they know how much they were going to regret it? Of course not!
Here the reader knows before Hansel and Gretel do, that it was a bad idea to go into the chocolate house.
The common tricks used to create suspense are:
Making the reader interested in the characters and situations
Make the reader curious about what will happen next
Make sure some information is missing, either for the reader or for the characters themselves.
Keep these in mind as we read a suspense story and try our comprehension skills.
SOAL 1
Read the excerpt and answer the question below.
The Open Window (abridged from the original by Saki)
"My aunt will be down presently, Mr. Nuttel," said a very self-possessed young lady of fifteen; "in the meantime you must try and put up with me."
Framton Nuttel tried to say something flattering to the girl as he waited for the aunt, Mrs Sappleton, who was to come. He wondered if visiting these strangers was really going to help cure his nerves, and if this treatment would work.
"Do you know many of the people around here?" asked the niece.
"Hardly a soul," said Framton. "My sister was staying here, at the rectory, some four years ago, and she gave me letters of introduction to some of the people here.”
"Then you know practically nothing about my aunt?" pursued the self-possessed young lady.
How did Mr Nuttel know the Sappleton family?
SOAL 2
Read the excerpt and answer the question below.
"Then you know practically nothing about my aunt?" pursued the self-possessed young lady.
"Only her name and address," admitted the caller. He was wondering whether Mrs. Sappleton was married or widowed. An indefinable something about the room seemed to suggest masculine habitation.
"Her great tragedy happened just three years ago," said the child.
"Her tragedy?" asked Framton.
"You may wonder why we keep that window wide open on an October afternoon," said the niece, indicating a large French window that opened on to a lawn.
"It is quite warm for the time of the year," said Framton; "but has that window got anything to do with the tragedy?"
What kind of air or personality did the house have according to Mr. Nuttel?
SOAL 3
Read the excerpt and answer the question below.
"It is quite warm for the time of the year," said Framton; "but has that window got anything to do with the tragedy?"
"Out through that window, three years ago to a day, her husband and her two young brothers went off for their day's shooting with their spaniel. They never came back. Their bodies were never recovered. That was the dreadful part of it. Poor aunt always thinks that they will come back someday, they and the little brown spaniel that was lost with them, and walk in at that window just as they used to do. "
She broke off with a little shudder. It was a relief to Framton when the aunt bustled into the room with a whirl of apologies.
"I hope you don't mind the open window," said Mrs. Sappleton briskly; "my husband and brothers will be home directly from shooting, and they always come in this way."
What conclusion can we get from the text?
SOAL 4
Read the excerpt and answer the question below.
She rattled on cheerfully about the shooting. To Framton it was all purely horrible. He made a desperate effort to turn the talk on to a less ghastly topic, he was conscious that his hostess was giving him only a fragment of her attention, and her eyes were constantly to the open window and the lawn beyond.
"The doctors agree in ordering me complete rest, an absence of mental excitement, and avoidance of anything in the nature of violent physical exercise," announced Framton.
"No?" said Mrs. Sappleton, in a voice which only replaced a yawn at the last moment. Then she suddenly brightened into alert attention - but not to what Framton was saying.
Why was Mr. Nuttel visiting the Sappleton family?
SOAL 5
Read the excerpt and answer the question below.
No?" said Mrs. Sappleton, in a voice which only replaced a yawn at the last moment. Then she suddenly brightened into alert attention - but not to what Framton was saying.
"Here they are at last!" she cried. "Just in time for tea, and don't they look as if they were muddy up to the eyes!”
Framton shivered slightly and turned towards the niece with a look intended to convey sympathetic comprehension. The child was staring out through the open window with a dazed horror in her eyes. In a chill shock of nameless fear Framton swung round in his seat and looked in the same direction.
In the deepening twilight three figures were walking across the lawn towards the window, they all carried gun under their arms, and one of them was additionally burdened with a white coat hung over his shoulders. A tired brown spaniel kept close at their heels.
What made Mrs. Sappleton excited suddenly?
SOAL 6
Read the excerpt and answer the question below.
"said Mrs. Sappleton, in a voice which only replaced a yawn at the last moment. Then she suddenly brightened into alert attention - but not to what Framton was saying.
"Here they are at last!" she cried. "Just in time for tea, and don't they look as if they were muddy up to the eyes!”
Framton shivered slightly and turned towards the niece with a look intended to convey sympathetic comprehension. The child was staring out through the open window with a dazed horror in her eyes. In a chill shock of nameless fear Framton swung round in his seat and looked in
the same direction.
the same direction.
In the deepening twilight three figures were walking across the lawn towards the window, they all carried guns under their arms, and one of them was additionally burdened with a white coat hung over his shoulders. A tired brown spaniel kept close at their heels.
Where was Mr. Nuttel sitting at the dining table?
SOAL 7
Read the excerpt and answer the question below.
Framton grabbed wildly at his stick and hat; the hall door, the gravel drive, and the front gate were dimly noted stages in his headlong retreat.
"Here we are, my dear," said the bearer of the white mackintosh, coming in through the window, "Who was that who bolted out as we came up?"
"A most extraordinary man, a Mr. Nuttel," said Mrs. Sappleton; "could only talk about his illnesses, and dashed off without a word of goodbye or apology when you arrived. One would think he had seen a ghost."
"I expect it was the spaniel," said the niece calmly; "he told me he had a horror of dogs.”
Romance at short notice was her specialty.
Who was convinced they had seen a ghost?
SOAL 8
What is the moment in the story where the suspense is at its peak?
SOAL 9
Whose view about the story of the hunters changes by the end?
SOAL 10
How is suspense created in this story?