The 10-Mark Question — Exam skills — The Odyssey

What the question asks

Section 1

The 10-mark question prints a passage from a prescribed book and asks how Homer achieves a particular effect in it.

You are not being asked what happens, or what the passage tells us about a theme. You are being asked about the writing: what Homer does, and how that produces the effect named in the question. The effect word changes, and it decides what you should look for.

Question stem	What the effect word means	Look first for
By what means does Homer make this passage vivid?	Easy to see and hear; alive in the mind	Sensory detail, similes, precise physical actions, sound
How does Homer make this a dramatic scene?	Tension, stakes, sudden change	Contrast, pace, reversal, direct speech, divine intervention
How does Homer make this scene moving or create pathos?	Grief, pity, sympathy	Tears and gesture, what is remembered, speech, silence around it
How does Homer build tension here?	Uncertainty about what will happen next	Delay, what characters do not know, threats, the audience knowing more
How does Homer characterise X in this passage?	What we learn about a person and how	Epithets, their own words, what they do, how others react
How does Homer make this passage memorable or effective?	Open: choose the effects the passage actually has	Whatever is strongest: similes, speech, contrast, imagery

Whatever the stem, the marks come from the same thing: five clear points, each tying a specific detail of the writing to the effect the question names.

The five-point structure

Section 2

A full answer makes five points. Each point is a pair.

×5

AO1 · technique and detail

Name what Homer is doing (a simile, an epithet, direct speech, a contrast) and quote the words where he does it. A phrase, not a sentence.

AO2 · the effect

Say how that detail produces the effect in the question. This is where the marks are. “This makes it vivid” is not an effect; “the comparison to a familiar craft lets a listening audience picture an unfamiliar act” is.

Five pairs, each with both halves, is the shape of a top answer. Three strong pairs will not reach the top band however well written; five pairs with no effects will not either. Order them with your strongest point first, because examiners form a view early. Do not summarise the passage, and do not begin with a general introduction. Start with point one.

A quick method

Read the question and underline the effect word. That word governs every effect you write.
Read the passage twice. On the second reading mark five features that clearly produce that effect.
For each, write: technique, short quotation, effect tied to the question word.
Choose one simile or epithet and expand it by zooming in on a single word.
Check that no point retells the story and that every point ends with an effect.

Expanding a simile or epithet

Section 3

Homeric similes are the richest material in any passage, and most candidates waste them. The weak version says: “Homer uses a simile, which makes the scene vivid.” The strong version treats the simile as a small picture with its own words in it, picks one of those words, and asks what it brings with it.

Name the simile and quote the comparison.
Say what the comparison as a whole does: it explains the unfamiliar (a god vanishing) through the familiar (a bird taking off), and it lets a listening audience see.
Zoom in on one word and unpack what it carries. A bird is swift and sudden, cannot be followed, and belongs to the open air, far from the hall; birds are also how the gods send signs in this poem, so the image quietly says that a sign has just been given.
Connect back to the effect word in the question.

Epithets work the same way. “Bright-eyed Athene” is not decoration: in a scene about a young man suddenly seeing clearly, the goddess of clear sight is named by her eyes. “Wise Penelope” introduced at the moment she comes down to object to a song asks us to read her tears as judgement, not weakness.

The same move works on any charged word. Gold and silver signal wealth and status; a veil signals a woman’s modesty and her separation from the men’s hall; a spear stood in a rack signals a guest treated as a friend. Notice the word, say what it normally implies, then say what it does here.

Sample passage: Book 1

Section 4 · Greek lines 1.319–344

A close working version. In the exam you will be given the set translation, so practise on the text in your workbook too. Click a highlighted phrase to jump to the point it supports.

So spoke bright-eyed Athene, and departed, flying up and away like a bird. Into his heart she put strength and courage, and made him think of his father even more than before. He understood it in his mind and was amazed in his heart, for he guessed it was a god. At once he went among the suitors, a man like a god. The famous bard was singing to them, and they sat in silence, listening. He sang the Achaeans’ return, the grim return from Troy that Pallas Athene had laid upon them. From her upper room the daughter of Icarius, wise Penelope, took in his inspired song, and came down the high staircase of her house, not alone: two maids followed with her. When the lovely woman reached the suitors she stood by a pillar of the strongly built roof, holding a shining veil before her cheeks, and a trusted maid stood on either side of her. Then, in tears, she spoke to the divine bard: “Phemius, you know many other songs to charm mortals, the deeds of men and gods that singers make famous. Sit and sing one of those to them, and let them drink their wine in silence. But stop this song, this grim song that always wears away the heart in my breast, since unforgettable grief has come to me above all others, for I long for such a man, remembering him always, whose fame is wide through Hellas and the heart of Argos.”

QuestionIn this passage, by what means does Homer make the scene vivid and moving? You should support your answer with details from the passage. [10]

Five sample points

AO1

Simile, expanded
Athene departs “like a bird”

AO2 · vivid and moving

The comparison lets the audience see a god leave: swift, sudden, upward, impossible to follow. Zoom in on “bird”: birds carry the gods’ signs in this poem (the eagles of Book 2), so the image tells us a sign has been given. It also marks the exact moment Telemachus’s uncertainty ends.

AO1

Divine intervention and inner change
“put strength and courage into his heart”; “a man like a god”

AO2 · vivid and moving

Homer shows the effect of the visit from the inside, then confirms it from the outside with the phrase that describes Telemachus as he walks in. The audience watches a boy become a man in two lines, which makes his later confidence with his mother and the suitors believable.

AO1

Contrast and dramatic irony
the suitors sit “in silence, listening” to the “grim return”

AO2 · vivid and moving

The men wrecking the house listen contentedly to a song about the very homecoming they are counting on never happening. The audience knows the return is fated, so the calm is charged. The stillness of the hall also throws Penelope’s tears into relief when she enters.

AO1

Staging and gesture
the “high staircase”, “not alone”, “by a pillar”, a “shining veil before her cheeks”

AO2 · vivid and moving

Homer slows the pace to a ceremonial descent and lets us see every detail of how a queen enters a hall of men: escorted, veiled, positioned at the edge. The visual precision makes her presence vivid, and the constraint it shows makes her grief moving. She cannot even weep unattended.

AO1

Direct speech and the language of grief
“this grim song that always wears away the heart”; “unforgettable grief”; “I long for such a man”

AO2 · vivid and moving

Penelope’s own words carry the emotion, and the vocabulary is of slow attrition: the song wears away, the grief cannot be forgotten, the longing is constant. Her closing praise of Odysseus’s fame “wide through Hellas” turns private grief into public loss.

Two points show how the scene is made visible (the simile, the staging). Two explain how the emotion is created (the inner change, the speech). One works on the gap between what the characters know and what the audience knows. A good set of five covers more than one kind of technique.

Other things you can pick out

Section 5

No passage contains every technique, but most passages contain more than five of these.

Technique	What to say about it	Where it appears in Book 1
Epithets	Standard descriptive tags. Ask what the tag emphasises in this particular scene.	Throughout; especially at entrances and before speeches
Formulaic phrases	Repetition builds rhythm and marks ritual; variation from the formula signals something unusual.	The hospitality sequence for Mentes; the meal; the bard’s introduction
Similes	A picture from ordinary life explaining something heroic or divine. Always expand one.	Athene like a bird
Direct speech	Characters revealed in their own words: tone, length, what they choose to say and avoid.	Zeus on Aegisthus; Athene’s advice; Penelope to Phemius
Divine intervention	A god acting in the scene. Ask what it changes and whether the mortal still chooses.	Athene as Mentes; strength and courage put into Telemachus
Sensory detail	What can be seen, heard, touched: objects, colours, sounds, silence.	The spear in the rack, the footstool; the silent hall; the veil
Contrast	Two things set side by side so each sharpens the other.	Suitors feasting against Penelope weeping
Dramatic irony	The audience knows what the characters do not.	Every suitor scene: the return is fated 1.60–79
Pace	Slowing down for ceremony or emotion; speeding up for action.	The slow welcome of Mentes; Athene’s instant departure
Semantic field	A cluster of words from one area: grief, warfare, light, food.	Wearing away and longing in Penelope’s speech
Characterisation through action	What a person does, before anyone tells us what they are like.	Telemachus noticing the stranger the suitors ignore
Structure	What Homer puts first, last, or next to each other.	The bird, then the changed Telemachus, then the song, then the tears
Pathos	Detail designed to produce pity: tears, memory, helplessness.	Penelope’s veil, her escort, her longing
Type-scene	A conventional scene done in the expected order, or deliberately not.	Telemachus performs the full hospitality sequence

Where candidates lose marks

Sections 6 & 7

Listing without effects. Naming five techniques with quotations and no analysis scores AO1 only. Every point must end with what the detail does.

Retelling the story. The examiner has the passage in front of them. Summarising what happens earns nothing.

Ignoring the effect word. If the question says moving, effects about vividness are off target. Use the question’s word, or a close synonym, in every point.

Long quotations. Quote the phrase that contains the technique and no more.

Vague effects. “Makes it interesting”, “helps it flow”, “engages the reader” are not effects. Say what the audience sees, feels, or understands that they would not otherwise.

Wasting the simile. Saying “Homer uses a simile” and moving on throws away the best material in the passage. Expand it.

Practise on the workbook

Your turn · Book 1, lines 1.113–135By what means does Homer make this a vivid scene of hospitality? [10]

Before you write, find…

the first thing Telemachus does when he sees the stranger where the spear is put, and next to what the details of the seat the order in which food, drink and questions come the position of the suitors relative to the guest any epithet used for Telemachus or Athene anything the household servants do

Then write five points, each with a short quotation and an effect that uses the word vivid.