The clockmaker's test
An original fiction passage set in the nineteenth century.
Mr Ainsley arrived before the town-hall doors were opened. The clock had stopped during the night, leaving both hands fixed at twenty minutes past three. He removed the wooden casing and turned the mechanism carefully. A cracked cog caught against the winding drum, while a loose chain sagged beneath it. Mr Ainsley closed his tool box. He would give the caretaker his report before beginning the repair.
Give two faults Mr Ainsley finds in the clock mechanism.
456 exam-style questions on Edexcel GCSE English Language 1.3 Content: prose fiction study requirements, covering 1.3.1 Read challenging prose fiction for the unseen 19th-century extract. Each one has a worked solution and a mark scheme showing where the marks go.