Long Answer Questions — 5 Marks Each

Last updated at August 26, 2026 by

Organise around clear traits, techniques or ideas and support them with evidence.

1. Write a character sketch of Mrs. Jones. 5 Marks
How to answer: Organise the answer around 4–5 clear points and support them with exact details from the poem.
View Answer Hide Answer
Answer: Mrs. Jones is an unusual, enthusiastic, attentive and hospitable gardener. Her garden is full of stones, a rockery, an unusual path and a strange sundial, showing that she has an individual taste rather than a conventional idea of beauty. She also cares about tiny, delicate plants that the speaker barely notices, which suggests patience and attention to detail. Her enthusiasm is clear when she spends fifteen minutes discussing one flower. She warmly invites her neighbour to see the garden, showing friendliness. Although the poem gently teases her unusual style, Mrs. Jones is portrayed positively as someone who takes genuine pleasure in her own creative choices.
2. How does the poem turn an ordinary neighbourly visit into effective comedy? 5 Marks
How to answer: Organise the answer around 4–5 clear points and support them with exact details from the poem.
View Answer Hide Answer
Answer: The poem begins with an ordinary subject—a neighbour’s garden—but makes it slightly strange by filling it with stones, a crazy path and an unusual sundial. The speaker then exaggerates the tiny size of the plants, joking that Mrs. Jones must plant them with a pin. In the final stanza, the poet slows the scene down: the two talk about one flower for fifteen minutes, so the reader expects something noticeable. The speaker’s question, “Where is this lovely thing?” is immediately answered by the calm punchline, “You’re standing on it.” The comedy succeeds because everyday observation, exaggeration, delay and situational irony all work together.
3. Explain the importance of way of seeing things in A Concrete Example . 5 Marks
How to answer: Organise the answer around 4–5 clear points and support them with exact details from the poem.
View Answer Hide Answer
Answer: The way we see things is central to the poem because Mrs. Jones and the speaker experience the same garden differently. Mrs. Jones finds the unusual sundial “rather nice” and treasures tiny flowers growing between the stones. The speaker, however, calls the device strange and says the little plants “don’t mean anything at all”. His viewpoint is therefore more not interested in the plants. The final joke exposes the weakness of his way of seeing things: he has spent fifteen minutes discussing a flower without noticing that he is standing on it. The poem suggests that people may value different details in the same world and that careful attention can reveal beauty that another person easily misses.
4. Analyse the title A Concrete Example . 5 Marks
How to answer: Organise the answer around 4–5 clear points and support them with exact details from the poem.
View Answer Hide Answer
Answer: The title is effective because it is a pun built on two meanings of “concrete”. On the literal level, Mrs. Jones’s garden is dominated by hard stones, rock structures and constructed features, so the word suits its physical setting. On the figurative level, “concrete” means clear, definite or specific. The incident becomes a clear example of Mrs. Jones’s unusual gardening habits and, even more importantly, of the speaker’s failure to notice a tiny flower directly beneath him. The title therefore connects setting, theme and humour. Its double meaning becomes fully clear only after the final punchline.
5. Why is Stanza 1 important for the humour that comes later in the poem? 5 Marks
How to answer: Explain what the stanza makes us notice now and how that helps the ending.
View Answer Hide Answer

Answer: Stanza 1 makes us notice the large and obvious parts of the garden—stones, path, pond, rockery and sundial. This prepares the later contrast with Mrs. Jones’s tiny plants. Because our attention has been placed on the large features first, the final joke about a flower being missed becomes more believable and funnier.

6. How does Stanza 2 prepare the reader for the final surprise of the poem? 5 Marks
How to answer: Connect the tiny size, the pin joke, and the speaker’s attitude with the ending.
View Answer Hide Answer

Answer: Stanza 2 repeatedly makes the plants seem extremely tiny. The speaker calls them delicate and small, says they hardly matter, and imagines them being planted with a pin. This makes it believable that he could later fail to notice one. The stanza therefore prepares the final surprise without giving it away.

7. How does Stanza 3 change the way we understand the speaker’s earlier comments about the tiny plants? 5 Marks
How to answer: Refer back to Stanza 2 and explain how the joke turns back on the speaker.
View Answer Hide Answer

Answer: In Stanza 2, the speaker laughs at the plants because they are so tiny and says they do not mean anything. In Stanza 3, he proves that he really has failed to notice them, because he is standing on the flower he has been discussing. The final stanza therefore turns his earlier teasing back on him and makes him the person at the centre of the joke.

Remove Ads
CA Maninder Singh's photo - Co-founder, Teachoo

Made by

CA Maninder Singh

CA Maninder Singh is a Chartered Accountant with 16+ years of practical experience and 20+ years of teaching experience. At Teachoo, he simplifies Accounts, Tax and GST with step-by-step examples so students can apply concepts confidently in exams and real life.

For an uninterrupted learning experience, students can use Teachoo Black to remove ads and focus better.