11+ Reading Comprehension Test 2.
(Standard response format)
The Whole Town’s Sleeping
The following extract is from The Whole Town’s Sleeping, a short thriller by Ray Bradbury. It is about a woman, Lavinia Nebbs, who walks home in the dark by herself through an isolated ravine.
Lavinia stood on the edge of the one hundred and thirteen steps that went down the steep hill and then across the bridge towards Park Street. There was only one lantern to see by. Three minutes from now, she thought, I’ll be putting my key in my house door. Nothing can happen in just one hundred and eighty seconds. She started down the long dark-green steps into the deep ravine.
‘One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten steps,’ she counted in a whisper. She felt she was running, but she was not running. ‘Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty steps,’ she breathed. ‘One fifth of the way!’
The ravine was deep, black and black, black! And the world was gone behind, the world of safe people in bed, the locked doors, the town, the chemist, the theatre, the lights, everything was gone from her evening before. Only the ravine existed and lived, black and huge, about her.
‘Nothing’s happened, has it? No-one around, is there?’ she whispered to herself as she counted her way up the steps. Twenty-four, twenty-five steps. ‘Remember that old ghost story you told each other when you were children?’
She listened to her shoes on the steps.
‘That story about a man who comes into your house when you’re upstairs in bed. And now he’s at the first step, coming up to your room. Now he’s on the second step... The third, then the fourth and then the fifth! Oh, how you used to laugh and scream at that story! And now the horrid man is at the twelfth step and now he’s opening the door of your room and now he’s standing by your bed... ‘I’VE GOT YOU!’
She screamed. It was like nothing she’d ever heard, that scream. She had never screamed that loud in her life. She stopped, she froze, she clung to the wooden banister. Her heart exploded in her. The sound of the terrified beating filled the universe.
‘There, there!’ she screamed to herself. ‘At the bottom of the steps! A man, under the light! No,now he’s gone! He was waiting there!’
She listened.
Silence.
The bridge was empty.
Nothing, Lavinia thought, holding her heart. Nothing. Fool! That story... but what shall I do?
‘I’ll go the rest of the way,’ she decided. Her heartbeats faded. ‘That silly story...’
She began again, counting the steps. ‘Thirty-five, thirty-six, careful, don’t fall. Oh I am a fool.Thirty-seven steps, thirty-eight, nine and forty, and two makes forty-two – almost halfway’.
And yet, she froze again.
Wait, she told herself.
She took a step.
There was an echo.
She took another step.
Another echo. Another step, just a fraction of a moment later.
‘Someone’s following me,’ she whispered to the ravine, to the black crickets and dark-greenhidden frogs and the black stream. ‘Someone’s on the steps behind me. I don’t dare turn around’.
Another step, another echo.
Every time she took a step, there was another one.
A step and an echo.
Now answer the following questions
Find two adjectives to describe parts of the scene in paragraph 1. (1)
Re-read paragraph 1. What impression do we get of the setting? (1)
Re-read paragraph 3. Explain what is meant by the following:
- ‘The world was gone behind’ (1)
‐ The ravine was ‘black and huge, about her’ (1)
Re-read paragraph 6. Why has the writer put ‘I’VE GOT YOU!’ in capital letters? Give two
reasons. (2)
Re-read paragraph 7. What does Lavinia’s movement tell us about how she is feeling? Pick two verbs and explain what you can tell from each. (4)
Why is Lavinia scared? Choose two answers and tick your choices. (2)
Lavinia is frightened because of the ghost story she told herself
Lavinia thinks she has seen someone at the bottom of the steps
Lavinia is afraid of falling down the steps
Lavinia is lost and cannot find her way home
Re-read paragraphs 12-14. Pick two quotations from the passage that show Lavinia is feeling calmer. Explain how each quotation shows this. (4)
In paragraphs 15-19, the writer starts each sentence on a new line. Why do you think this might be? Give one reason. (1)
How does the writer create a sense of Lavinia’s isolation in paragraph 21? Choose one quotation and explain your answer. (2)
This story is considered to be a thriller. How does the writer create a sense of tension in the story to make it more thrilling or scary? (6)
-
dark, deep or green
Credit any of the following: isolated, threatening, dangerous, spooky, eerie, or similar.
“The world was gone behind” means that Lavinia now feels cut off from the civilised and safe world. “The ravine was black and huge” means that as she enters the ravine, she is overwhelmed by the darkness and its size.
Suggested answer: i) because it emphasises the moment of climax in the childhood story she is remembering; ii) it draws the reader into that particular moment of maximum fear.
"froze" - This verb suggests complete paralysis from terror. Unlike just stopping, freezing implies an involuntary reaction where fear has immobilised her body. It suggests an instinctive, response to danger.
"clung" - This verb shows her desperate need for physical support and security. The word suggests she is gripping the banister with intense force, revealing her physical and emotional need for something solid to hold onto in this moment of extreme fear.Lavinia is frightened because of the ghost story she told herself
Lavinia thinks she has seen someone at the bottom of the steps
Quotation: "Her heartbeats faded" This shows she is calming down because her racing heart (which earlier "exploded" and "filled the universe") is now slowing down, indicating her physical symptoms of fear are subsiding.
Quotation: "'That silly story...'" This shows she is calming down because she's now able to dismiss the ghost story as "silly," demonstrating she's regained enough rational thought to minimise what scared her earlier. Her use of "silly" suggests she's trying to laugh off her previous fear.In paragraphs 15-19, the writer starts each sentence on a new line to reflect the slow, deliberate pace of Lavinia's steps and the echoing footsteps behind her. The short, separated lines creates pauses between each line, building tension by forcing the reader to move slowly through the text, just as Lavinia is moving slowly and fearfully down the steps.
"she whispered to the ravine, to the black crickets and dark-green hidden frogs and the black stream." This creates a sense of isolation because it shows that Lavinia can only speak to elements of nature - she has no human beings to call out to for help. The fact that she's whispering to inanimate objects and small creatures emphasises how alone she is with her fear.
The writer creates tension in several ways. The isolated setting of a dark ravine with "only one lantern" immediately suggests danger, while Lavinia's separation from the safe world ("The world was gone behind") heightens her vulnerability. The writer uses pacing effectively through Lavinia's counting of steps, creating a build-up of tension. Horror is created through the ghost story about someone climbing stairs, which reflects her current situation and transforms from a childhood memory into present terror. Sound imagery is used to increase suspense - including her whispered counting, terrified scream, and the haunting pattern of "step and an echo" that indicates she's being followed. The writer also uses physical descriptions of fear, like when "her heart exploded," and uses short, separated sentences to create suspenseful pauses that match Lavinia's terrified progress down the steps.