Sample Essay Questions for Exam 1 (Paper 1)

Here are some additional essay questions. I will choose some from here for Friday's practice exam.

1. Select a passage from the novel you have chosen to study and, showing how the mood and atmosphere is evoked in the passage, explain in detail how you would create this mood and atmosphere in performance for an audience.

2. Choose a passage from the novel you have chosen to study which emphasizes the difference in status between two or more characters. How would you present this passage on stage in order to communicate these differing statuses to an audience?

3. In transforming prose to performance for an audience, the representation of physical description is a challenge that must be overcome. Select a passage from the novel you have chosen to study which features an extended description of a place, or a significant action, or a character. Discuss how you would use performance to transfer one of these to the stage.

4. Novels often include funny episodes. Choosing one comic passage from the novel you have studied show how you would present this passage to entertain an audience.

5. Novels often devote passages top the development of one character. Through focusing on one passage of this kind show how such a focus could be made fascinating for an audience

6. Choose one passage from the novel you have studied that might be considered climactic. Show how you would stage this passage to convey the excitement of the original to the audience.

7. Select a passage from a novel you have chosen to study in which a character makes a crucial discovery. Discuss how you would convey this moment in performance for an audience.

8. Select a passage from the novel you have chosen to study and show how the descriptions of setting and action may be registered in the stage design and the performances of the actors.

9. Select a passage from a novel you have chosen to study which involves an antagonistic scene between actors. How would you stage this scene for an audience to convey the significance of this conflict?

10. Select a passage from a novel you have studied which presents a social gathering of some kind. Discuss the presentation and importance of this passage, showing in detail how it could be realized in performance.

11. Choose an extract from the novel that provides an insight into a key concept or theme. Explore the way this concept or theme is depicted and how it might be conveyed in performance.

12. Select a passage from the novel which focuses on the introduction of one or two key characters. Examine the presentation of the character/s and ways you would convey their introduction to an audience.

13. Elements of exaggeration, the grotesque or the ridiculous are often subjects for fictional representation. Select a passage from a novel you have studied to demonstrate how one or more of these elements might function in a staging of it for an audience.

14. In any dramatization of a prose passage the question of how characters move and interact on stage is fundamental. Select a passage from the novel you have chosen to study and demonstrate how your characters would move and interact on stage in order to communicate the meaning of the passage to an audience.

15. In many passages from novels the reader is made aware of the private, interior worlds of the narrator or of characters. Select a passage from the novel you have studied and explain in detail how you would bring out this interior life in performance for an audience.