Unseen Poem Extract
What this section asks
The unseen poem extract tests reading of a short piece of verse: who is speaking, to whom, about what, in what mood, and by what poetic means. You are not expected to know the poet's biography; every answer must be supported by the printed lines.
Core rules
- Separate the poet from the speaker. The "I" of the poem is a persona unless the lines clearly say otherwise.
- Read the whole extract before answering; a couplet's meaning depends on the line before it.
- Never name a figure of speech without stating its effect. "Personification" alone is half an answer; "personification, which makes the wind seem deliberately cruel" is a whole one.
- Distinguish simile (like/as) from metaphor (direct identification) from personification (human qualities given to non-human things).
- Label rhyme scheme with letters, line by line: abab, aabb, abba. Count stanzas and note any refrain.
- Use precise tone words - wistful, mocking, awed, resigned, affectionate - not "happy" or "sad".
- Anchor every claim with a line reference: "In line 3, 'shaking' suggests…"
Worked example
Extract: "The old house stands and stares across the field, / Its windows blind with dust, its door a mouth / That has forgotten how to speak."
Question (2 marks): Identify a figure of speech in the last two lines and say what it suggests. Model: The poet personifies the house - its windows are "blind" and its door is "a mouth that has forgotten how to speak". This suggests an abandoned place that is like a silent old person, no longer able to see visitors or greet them. Reasoning: a human faculty (sight) and a human body part (mouth) are given to a building, so the device is personification; the effect must pick up the mood carried by "forgotten" - silence and desertion.
Traps that cost marks
- Naming a device and stopping there.
- Calling every comparison a simile.
- Reading meanings from outside knowledge of the poet.
- Answering beyond the printed extract.
- Offering a prose paraphrase where the question asked about effect or tone.