Year 10 ICAS English 5-Question Sample

Question 1 of 5 Syntax

In a language-conventions check during revision, which continuation avoids a dangling modifier: "While waiting for the bus, ____"

Standard English usage

Item	Task
While waiting for the bus, ____	choose the correct standard English

A two chapters were read. B the rain grew heavier. C Priya read two chapters. D it started to rain.

Question 2 of 5 Vocabulary

During a proofreading task during revision, which choice is the most concise and correct completion: "The cause of the fault was ____"

Standard English usage

Item	Task
The cause of the fault was ____	choose the correct standard English

A a loose connection. B due to the reason of a loose connection. C because of a loose connection being loose. D caused by the cause of a loose connection.

Question 3 of 5 Voice

In an editing warm-up during revision, which choice best suits the formal register: "In a formal letter, we must ____ the delay."

Standard English usage

Item	Task
In a formal letter, we must ____ the delay.	choose the correct standard English

A say sorry about B apologise for C own up to D fess up about

Question 4 of 5 Structure

After reading beyond the title, which statement best describes the main purpose of "What the Ledger Left Out"?

Historical reflection

What the Ledger Left Out

The firm's ledgers survive intact from 1871 to 1904 and are the reason it appears in every regional economic history. Completeness is seductive: a full run of records makes a business legible in a way its competitors are not, and legibility is easily mistaken for importance. A final note beside the what the ledger left out entry connects the decision with the changed result before choosing.

Three larger firms operated in the same district. Their records burned, were pulped, or were never systematically kept. The historiography that follows is therefore a history of one surviving archive, presented as a history of an industry.

The ledgers themselves are also selective in a quieter way. They record wages paid and not hours worked, which makes the workforce visible as a cost and invisible as a body of people. What a source omits is not neutral, and omission does not announce itself.

A to argue that a costing model has omitted the value it is quietly spending B to oppose a funding method while supporting the project it would fund C to show how the survival of one archive shapes the history written from it D to argue that a technically valid consent process measures inertia rather than agreement

Question 5 of 5 Comprehension

In the final paragraph, what is the strongest inference a reader can make from the whole text?

Speech extract

The Case for the Slow Route

The efficiency argument is sound and I will not pretend otherwise. Consolidating the three depots into one saves four hundred thousand dollars annually, and I have seen the workings. If the only question were cost per delivery, this proposal would already have my vote. A short note beside the case for the slow route entry connects the decision with the changed result before choosing.

What consolidation removes is slack. Three depots absorbed the February floods because two of them were dry. One depot cannot do that, and the saving does not fund the failure, because the cost of a week without deliveries falls on people who are not in this room and do not appear in the model.

I am asking you to price resilience rather than assume it. If you conclude it is worth less than four hundred thousand a year, vote for the proposal with my respect. What I object to is adopting it without the question having been asked.

A the speaker judges the proposal by who bears its cost rather than by what it achieves B the company designs for a result it then reports as a user preference C the speaker expects the cost of failure to fall on people outside the decision D the design failure lies in the interface rather than in the operators or the model

Year 10 English sample

Answer the sample questions

In a language-conventions check during revision, which continuation avoids a dangling modifier: "While waiting for the bus, ____"

During a proofreading task during revision, which choice is the most concise and correct completion: "The cause of the fault was ____"

In an editing warm-up during revision, which choice best suits the formal register: "In a formal letter, we must ____ the delay."

After reading beyond the title, which statement best describes the main purpose of "What the Ledger Left Out"?

In the final paragraph, what is the strongest inference a reader can make from the whole text?