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GCSE English Practice Test: Writing Descriptively - Describing Characters And Settings
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Writing descriptively involves describing a setting, a person, or even an emotion. Writing a description allows you to fully engage your own imagination and that of your reader. Being restricted to the written word when evoking a three-dimensional, multi-sensory environment is a challenge, but, as you know, good authors can do precisely that. The key to writing a good description is to make full use of the English language and to think carefully about choosing exactly the right word for the impression you'd like to convey.

GCSE English Practice Test: Writing Descriptively - Describing Characters And Settings
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10 Questions

1. In Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, the servant Calpurnia is described thus:  'She was all angles and bones; she was near-sighted; she squinted; her hand was wide as a bed-slat and twice as hard.'  Which of the following examples of figurative language has Lee used here?
2. In Charlie Connelly's Attention All Shipping, we read this description of the approach to the town, Haugesund:  'The roaring wind buffeted my progress and caused the sea to boil away to my left in huge fans of spume.  The tarmac wound between enormous rocks and the wind whistled tunelessly through the coarse, flattened grass.  Somewhere in the distance a rope clanged against a flagpole...'  Which word best describes the mood evoked by this description?
3. What is the aim or purpose of writing descriptively?
4. In the opening chapter to John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men, we find this description:  'A stilted heron laboured up into the air and pounded down river.'   This is a good example of...
5. 'When the hard clay is swept clean as a floor and the fine sand around the edges lined with tiny, irregular grooves, anyone can come and sit and look up into the elm tree and wait for the breezes that never come inside the house.'  In Alice Walker's description of the 'outdoor living room', from 'Everyday Use', which words are adjectives?
6. 'When the hard clay is swept clean as a floor and the fine sand around the edges lined with tiny, irregular grooves, anyone can come and sit and look up into the elm tree and wait for the breezes that never come inside the house.'  In Alice Walker's description of the 'outdoor living room', from 'Everyday Use', which words are adjectives?
7. In Louis Sachar's novel, The Cardturner, the narrator's wealthy uncle attends a bridge club which is described this way:  'If you were expecting a fancy club, with plush carpeting, leather chairs, wood panelling, and people sipping brandy and smoking cigars as they discuss the stock market, then you've come to the wrong place.'  What is the effect of this description?
8. In Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, the servant Calpurnia is described thus:  'She was all angles and bones; she was near-sighted; she squinted; her hand was wide as a bed-slat and twice as hard.'  Which of the following examples of figurative language has Lee used here?
9. In Charlie Connelly's Attention All Shipping, we read this description of the approach to the town, Haugesund:  'The roaring wind buffeted my progress and caused the sea to boil away to my left in huge fans of spume.  The tarmac wound between enormous rocks and the wind whistled tunelessly through the coarse, flattened grass.  Somewhere in the distance a rope clanged against a flagpole...'  Which word best describes the mood evoked by this description?
10. Which of the following would be most effective?

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