Writing Narrative

Respuesta correcta: A) Ana pushed the gate open and ran the last hundred metres to the bus.

• A) Ana pushed the gate open and ran the last hundred metres to the bus.Correct. The sentence begins with a verb and moves the character forward, which is what opens a narrative.
• B) Ana pushed the gate open, and then Ana ran, and then Ana arrived.Wrong. The sentence repeats 'Ana' three times, which destroys any sense of movement.
• C) A girl ran, and she ran, and the bus was there.Wrong. The sentence repeats 'ran' with no new information and stalls the action.
• D) Ana is a girl who runs to the bus every morning.Wrong. The sentence is a description of a habitual routine, not an unfolding event.

Respuesta correcta: B) The bus was late, so the driver waited while the passengers found their seats.

• A) The bus was late, so the driver waits while the passengers find their seats.Wrong. 'Waits' and 'find' shift to the present and break the past frame of the narrative.
• B) The bus was late, so the driver waited while the passengers found their seats.Correct. All clauses use the past simple, which is the consistent tense for a sequence of completed events.
• C) The bus was late, so the driver waited while the passengers are finding their seats.Wrong. 'Are finding' shifts the final clause to the present continuous mid-narrative.
• D) The bus is late, so the driver was waiting while the passengers found their seats.Wrong. 'Is late' is present and inconsistent with the past simple around it.

Respuesta correcta: C) Patricio put his hand in his pocket and found nothing but an old bus ticket.

• A) Patricio put his hand in his pocket and found something to take with him.Wrong. 'Something' is vague and communicates no sense of loss or discovery.
• B) Patricio put his hand in his pocket and found his keys.Wrong. Naming the keys removes the problem entirely and dissolves the tension.
• C) Patricio put his hand in his pocket and found nothing but an old bus ticket.Correct. Naming the bus ticket precisely shows what was there and leaves the reader to share the character's alarm.
• D) Patricio put his hand in his pocket and found one thing that was not what he wanted.Wrong. The sentence is hedged and does not identify what was found.

Respuesta correcta: D) After the storm passed, they walked the length of the flooded street to see the damage.

• A) After the storm passed they walked the length of the flooded street to see damage.Wrong. The sentence lacks the comma that normally follows 'after' plus a clause, and it ends abruptly.
• B) After they walked the length of the flooded street, the storm passed to see the damage.Wrong. The connector is attached to the wrong clause, so the order of events is reversed.
• C) After the storm passes, they walk the length of the flooded street to see the damage.Wrong. 'Passes' and 'walk' are present tense, so the sequence is not anchored in the past.
• D) After the storm passed, they walked the length of the flooded street to see the damage.Correct. 'After' introduces the earlier event and the main clause carries the later one, in a consistent past tense.

Respuesta correcta: A) The teacher said that the results would be published on Friday.

• A) The teacher said that the results would be published on Friday.Correct. Quotation marks preserve the speaker's exact words and the present tense is natural within direct speech.
• B) The teacher told that the results would be published on Friday.Wrong. 'Told' requires an indirect object, as in told us, and cannot stand alone here.
• C) The teacher announced, 'The results will be published on Friday.'Wrong. 'Said that' backshifts and adds a complementiser, so the original wording is not preserved exactly.
• D) The teacher said the results would be published on Friday.Wrong. 'Said that' backshifts the tense, which changes the wording the reader hears.

Respuesta correcta: B) The bus arrived at last, and Patricio was the only one still waiting.

• A) The bus eventually arrived, which was the end of the story for the bus.Wrong. The phrase 'the end of the story for the bus' is an intrusive comment on the narration itself.
• B) The bus arrived at last, and Patricio was the only one still waiting.Correct. The final detail leaves one character behind the others, which gives the ending a lingering effect.
• C) The end of the story is that the bus came at last.Wrong. The sentence names the ending rather than presenting the final moment of the action.
• D) The bus arrived at last, and it was late, and everyone was annoyed.Wrong. The ending repeats 'bus' and 'late' and states the obvious without adding anything.

Respuesta correcta: C) The power failed, the lifts stopped, and the staff on the tenth floor began to walk down.

• A) The lifts stopped, the power failed, and the staff on the tenth floor began to walk down.Wrong. The lifts cannot stop before the power that supplies them has failed.
• B) The staff on the tenth floor began to walk down, the lifts stopped, and the power failed.Wrong. The sequence runs backwards, since the response appears before the events that produced it.
• C) The power failed, the lifts stopped, and the staff on the tenth floor began to walk down.Correct. The power failure causes the lifts to stop, which in turn leaves the staff walking, so the chain runs in order.
• D) The staff walked down, the power failed, and then the lifts stopped.Wrong. The staff walk before the failure that would explain their walking.

Respuesta correcta: D) He ran, stumbled, caught the rail and kept going without stopping.

• A) He runs, he stumbles, he catches the rail, and he keeps going.Wrong. Present tense changes the time frame, and the repeated pronouns read mechanically.
• B) He was running and he was stumbling and he caught the rail and he kept going.Wrong. 'Was running' and 'was stumbling' form a continuous chain that leaves no sense of completed action.
• C) He ran and then he stumbled and then he caught the rail and then he kept going.Wrong. 'And then' repeated five times slows the sentence down and defeats the purpose.
• D) He ran, stumbled, caught the rail and kept going without stopping.Correct. The verbs in sequence carry the action forward without pausing, which creates momentum.

Respuesta correcta: A) First person or third person focused on the child, because only what the child perceives is reported.

• A) First person or third person focused on the child, because only what the child perceives is reported.Correct. Everything reported is what the child perceives and counts, so the narration stays with that viewpoint.
• B) Second person, because the reader is asked to experience the scene directly.Wrong. The reader is not addressed directly, so this is not second person.
• C) An omniscient narrator, because the weather is described from outside.Wrong. Nothing is reported that the child could not observe, so there is no external narration.
• D) An objective narrator, because the child's thoughts are not described.Wrong. The counting shows a specific mental activity, which rules out a purely objective report.

Respuesta correcta: B) Turning the corner, Marta saw her friend waiting at the bus stop.

• A) Turning the corner, Marta was seeing her friend waiting at the bus stop.Wrong. 'Was seeing' is not a passive form, so the clause is not grammatical here.
• B) Turning the corner, Marta saw her friend waiting at the bus stop.Correct. 'Turning the corner' is a participle phrase that modifies the subject and correctly shares its reference.
• C) Turning, Marta saw her friend waiting at the bus stop.Wrong. 'Turning' without an object leaves the participle phrase incomplete.
• D) Turning corner, Marta saw her friend waiting at the bus stop.Wrong. The noun after 'turning' is required to complete the phrase.

Respuesta correcta: C) The meeting had been cancelled, so the applicants were informed by email on the following day.

• A) The meeting got called off, so the guys found out by email the next day.Wrong. 'Got called off', 'guys' and 'found out' are all informal in this register.
• B) The meeting was off, so they let the applicants know by email the next day.Wrong. 'The meeting was off' is informal and 'let them know' is conversational.
• C) The meeting had been cancelled, so the applicants were informed by email on the following day.Correct. 'Cancelled', 'applicants' and 'informed' are all appropriate for a formal account of events.
• D) The meeting was off, so the people were told the next day by email.Wrong. 'The meeting was off' is informal and the reordering obscures who was informed.

Respuesta correcta: D) Three days later the letter finally arrived, and nothing had changed.

• A) Later three days the letter finally arrived, and nothing had changed.Wrong. Moving 'later' after the numeral breaks the phrase, and the second clause must remain past simple.
• B) Three days later the letter finally arrived, and nothing has changed.Wrong. 'Has changed' moves the final clause to the present and is inconsistent with the past narrative.
• C) Later the letter finally arrived three days, and nothing has changed.Wrong. Separating 'later' from 'three days' destroys the time phrase, and 'has changed' breaks the past frame.
• D) Three days later the letter finally arrived, and nothing had changed.Correct. The time phrase opens the main clause and the second clause stays in the past simple, which is consistent.

Respuesta correcta: A) He arrived at the station and waited at the platform for an hour.

• A) He arrived at the station and waited at the platform for an hour.Correct. Removing 'he' before the second verb is the natural fix, since repeating the subject is unnecessary between coordinated clauses.
• B) He had arrived at the station and he waits at the platform for an hour.Wrong. 'Had arrived' places the arrival even earlier than the waiting and 'waits' is present.
• C) He arrives at the station, and he waited at the platform for an hour.Wrong. 'Arrives' in the present is inconsistent with 'waited' in the past.
• D) He arrived at the station, and he is waiting at the platform for an hour.Wrong. 'Is waiting' introduces a present continuous that contradicts a completed hour of waiting.

Respuesta correcta: B) Water ran along the platform and gathered around her shoes before she had stepped off the bus.

• A) The following account describes an unusual journey that its writer later found memorable.Wrong. The opening announces the account rather than placing the reader in it.
• B) Water ran along the platform and gathered around her shoes before she had stepped off the bus.Correct. The opening places the reader in a specific moment with concrete sensory detail and no framing.
• C) There are many stations on that line and some of them are very old.Wrong. The opening is a general comment about the line and involves no character or scene.
• D) It was raining that day, which is something that often happens in that part of the country.Wrong. The generalisation about the weather removes the reader from the particular moment.

Respuesta correcta: C) It interrupts the present sequence to show an earlier event that explains the character's present reaction.

• A) It removes the need to narrate the present, since the earlier event covers everything.Wrong. The present sequence still has to be narrated; the flashback does not replace it.
• B) It proves that the present sequence could not have happened without the earlier event.Wrong. A flashback may explain a reaction, but it does not prove that the present event was impossible.
• C) It interrupts the present sequence to show an earlier event that explains the character's present reaction.Correct. This describes the explanatory function of a flashback, which is to supply the cause of a present reaction.
• D) It slows the story down without adding any information about the character.Wrong. A well-placed flashback adds information about motive, which is what this structure is for.

Respuesta correcta: D) Short sentences slow the reader's eye down to a stop, which sharpens the pause the moment requires.

• A) One-word sentences are required by the examiner for any narrative task.Wrong. No examination rule requires any particular sentence length.
• B) One-word sentences allow more detail to be included in the same paragraph.Wrong. Short sentences use fewer words, so they leave less room for detail rather than more.
• C) One-word sentences are always easier to read and are therefore the best default choice.Wrong. Very short sentences are not easier to read, and there is no rule making them a default.
• D) Short sentences slow the reader's eye down to a stop, which sharpens the pause the moment requires.Correct. This ties the technique to the intended effect on the reader at that specific moment.

Respuesta correcta: A) The market was the largest in the region, and everyone knows it, though the town had barely a hundred stalls.

• A) The market was the largest in the region, and everyone knows it, though the town had barely a hundred stalls.Correct. The contradiction between the boast and the stated size, reinforced by the aside, marks the claim as untrustworthy.
• B) The market was large, according to the town's own description of itself.Wrong. Attributing the claim to the town distances the narrator from it, which is a reliable move.
• C) The market was, without question, the finest in the whole of the south, which is the sort of claim that markets make about themselves.Wrong. The narrator explicitly flags the boast as the kind of claim markets make, which undermines rather than supports it.
• D) I counted the stalls myself: there were four, and I counted them twice.Wrong. Counting the stalls twice is exactly what a reliable narrator would do.

Respuesta correcta: B) A retelling keeps the original sequence of events, while a summary may reorder them as long as the main outcome is preserved.

• A) A retelling shortens the story, while a summary always tells it in full.Wrong. It reverses the two: a retelling normally tells the whole story and a summary shortens it.
• B) A retelling keeps the original sequence of events, while a summary may reorder them as long as the main outcome is preserved.Correct. This distinguishes sequence preservation from the compression that allows reordering, which is the real difference.
• C) A retelling includes dialogue, while a summary never may.Wrong. Both forms may include dialogue, in different amounts.
• D) A retelling changes the ending, while a summary must keep it unchanged.Wrong. A retelling does not change the ending; it reports the ending it was given.

Respuesta correcta: C) She was halfway across the yard when a car called from the gate.

• A) She is halfway across the yard when a car called from the gate.Wrong. 'Is halfway' presents the background in the present and is inconsistent with 'called'.
• B) She was halfway across the yard when a car is calling from the gate.Wrong. 'Is calling' shifts the interruption to the present and breaks the past frame.
• C) She was halfway across the yard when a car called from the gate.Correct. The past continuous background and the past simple interruption form the standard pattern.
• D) She was halfway across the yard while a car has called from the gate.Wrong. 'Has called' is the present perfect, which cannot interrupt a past continuous clause in this way.

Respuesta correcta: D) She has worked at the depot since she arrived in the city.

• A) She had worked at the depot since she arrived in the city.Wrong. The past perfect needs a past reference point of its own, which 'since she arrived' does not supply.
• B) She worked at the depot since she arrived in the city.Wrong. The past simple would place the whole period in the past, and 'since' then reads incorrectly.
• C) She is working at the depot since she arrived in the city.Wrong. 'Since' cannot be used with the present continuous in this way.
• D) She has worked at the depot since she arrived in the city.Correct. 'Since' with a past reference point takes the present perfect, which links the past start to the present.