City of London 10 Plus MC paper: All Summer in a Day 🌧️
Includes detailed explanations of how to identify the correct answers 🖊️
Here’s a 10 Plus paper which I’ve used in the past as an initial assessment for a lot of year 4 students.
I think I chose this as a baseline assessment because I love the passage (All Summer in a Day by Ray Bradbury) and the variety of the comprehension questions.
It’s probably not the most challenging paper, but there are a few questions on metaphors which are challenging.
Here’s a downloadable PDF of the paper. I would recommend that your child attempt the paper and then mark their work using the answer sheet which I’ve provided below.
If you really love the story and would like to finish reading it you can here.
Although note there is a continuation task and it would be best to attempt the continuation before reading the rest of the story.
Next week, I will provide a model continuation along with a mark scheme, so look out for that.
Photo by TARUN RAJ BN on Unsplash
Solutions
A–The children are excited because it’s supposed to rain for the first time in seven years. This is emphasised through the questions the children ask and the way they are ‘pressed’ against each other as they all try to look out of the window together.
B
A–A is the best fit considering we learn some of the children are bullies later.
C–The rain accumulates just like compound interest seems to be the key idea. So although the weather gets worse, ‘added together’ seems to be the more fitting option here because of the financial connotations of interest being added to interest.
C–Forests are continually being crushed to be reborn and crushed again by the rainfall.
C–Best complements the idea above.
D–The tatting drum is a metaphor for the sound of the rain hitting rooftops.
B–A is tempting but ‘delicate, skinny and very pale’ are the characteristics which are emphasised. Also there’s no reference to her being tall.
D–She arrived on Venus much later than the other children and is isolated from her class.
C–This metaphor is complemented with the metaphor of her colour being ‘washed out’.
B–The sun seems fragile because it’s been seven years since it was last seen and will only appear briefly.
B–This idea is also complemented by the metaphor above.
A–As highlighted in the explanation to question one, the children are all trying to look outside to see if the rain is slackening.
C–It’s suggested that Margot has become sad and dispirited from a lack of sunlight.
A–The children have been told by their teacher and ‘the scientists’ that it’s going to stop raining.
B–A tricky one. Without anymore evidence that Margot has an irrational fear of water, B is the most plausible option.
C–Consider how eager Margot is to see the sun.
A–Tricky because she probably does want to go home, but in the present moment Margot’s desperate to see the sun.
A–He doesn’t really do anything funny so it’s got to be ‘cruel bully’.
B–See explanation to question 15.
B–Those kids are just plain mean.
C
D–Most accurate analysis. The contrast in sound is what’s really emphasised.
D–They’re not used to the sound of silence. It hasn’t been silent in seven years.
A
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Thanks,
Morgan