Instructions for Students: This exam is designed to assess your understanding of British Literature, Composition, and Rhetoric. You should manage your time effectively across all sections. For essay questions, aim for well-developed, coherent responses that demonstrate critical thinking, advanced literary analysis, and adherence to academic writing standards (clear thesis, strong evidence, effective organization, proper grammar, and sophisticated vocabulary). Unless otherwise specified, essays should be approximately 400-600 words in length. Read all prompts carefully before beginning to write.

My sister, Mrs. Joe Gargery, was more than twenty years older than I, and had established a great reputation with herself and the neighbours on the strength of bringing me up by hand. Having at that time to find a dinner for myself, and still to keep out of the way, I stole off to the churchyard and got among the nettles. There, among the graves, I came upon a boy, a good deal older than I was, who was sitting with his back against a grave-stone, and who, when he saw me, started and began to stare. He was a fearful man, all in coarse grey, with a great iron on his leg. A man with no hat, and with broken shoes, and with an old rag tied round his head. A man who had been soaked in water, and smothered in mud, and lamed by stones, and cut by flints, and stung by nettles, and torn by briars; who limped, and shivered, and glared, and growled; and whose teeth chattered in his head, as he seized me by the chin. 'Hold your noise!' cried a terrible voice, 'or I'll cut your throat!' A fearful man, all in coarse grey, with a great iron on his leg. I could not have told you for any price how my heart was beating, or what I would have given to have had it stop. I was a child, and no child ever suffered more. I lay down on the damp grass, and I begged him not to kill me. I was fearfully sick and faint. I knew my fate was sealed. The man, after looking at me for some moments, and feeling my face with his rough hand, said, 'Now, you young dog, you just tell me your name!' I stammered, 'Pip, sir.'

We are in the preliminary stage of one of the greatest battles in history. We are in action at many points in Norway and in Holland, and we have to face many things here at home and many things in the air. We have to face many dangers, many difficulties, many sacrifices. It is a grim task. We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. You ask, what is our policy? I will say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us; to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: Victory – victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival. Let that be realised; no survival for the British Empire, no survival for all that the British Empire has stood for, no survival for the urge and impulse of the ages, that mankind will march forward towards its goal. But I take up my task with buoyancy and hope. I feel sure that our cause will not be suffered to fail among men. I feel entitled at this juncture, at this moment in our history, to call upon all, and to feel sure that our cause will not be suffered to fail among men.