A castle by morning
Original non-fiction-style practice text.
Yesterday the festival ground contained three ordinary sheds. This morning it has a castle. The towers are painted boards, the drawbridge ends on a concrete path, and a cable enters a doorway which is pretending to belong to another century. I am delighted.
Nobody has asked us to believe that the castle is ancient. Its pleasure lies in the generous agreement to imagine something together. Children notice a join in the wall and continue their game; adults point out the clever paintwork and queue for tea beneath a false battlement. Knowing how the illusion works does not cancel the invitation.
On Monday, the boards will return to a store. That makes the effort more touching, not less. Someone has spent a week building a place which will last a weekend, because a weekend can still deserve a little extravagance.
Assess the writer’s attitude towards the temporary castle façade. Use three details from the text to support your answer.
40 exam-style questions on CIE IGCSE English Language 4.3.3 Question 2(b) attitudes and opinions. Each one has a worked solution and a mark scheme showing where the marks go.