S5 Chinese Literature Practice Paper: Shijing And Chuci, Tang Poetry Prosody, Song Ci And Yuan Qu, Ming-Qing Fiction, Modern Literature, Criticism (with Answers)

S5 Chinese Literature Practice Paper: Shijing and Chuci, Tang Poetry Prosody, Song Ci and Yuan Qu, Ming-Qing Fiction, Modern Literature, Criticism (with answers)

2026-11-15

HKDSE Chinese Literature

S5 Chinese Literature practice paper: Shijing, Chuci, Tang poetry, Song ci, Yuan qu, Ming-Qing fiction, modern literature; 24 parts, 100 marks, 60 minutes.

Paper details　S5 Chinese Literature practice paper with full answers: 100 marks, 60 minutes.

Shijing and Chuci

These questions cover the structure of the Shijing, four-character line counts and the style of Chuci.

#	Question	Answer and marking notes
1	The Shijing has 305 pieces: 160 feng, 105 ya and 40 song. What percentage are feng (one decimal place), and what is their content like?	Answer: 160 / 305 = 52.5 per cent. The feng are regional folk songs on daily life, love and labour, sincere in feeling and plain in diction.
2	A four-character poem has 3 stanzas of 4 lines, each line 4 characters. How many characters in all? If only 2 characters change per stanza, how many change altogether, and what is the device called?	Answer: 3 x 4 x 4 = 48 characters; 6 characters change in all, a device called refrain with substitution.
3	The Shijing uses three devices: fu, bi and xing. Distinguish them in one sentence each and give one example of how each works lyrically.	Answer: fu narrates directly; bi compares one thing to another so abstract feeling becomes concrete; xing opens with an outside image that evokes the feeling, making the lyric indirect and suggestive.
4	How do Chuci and the Shijing differ in line pattern, length and style? Compare three aspects and name the representative Chuci poet.	Answer: the Shijing is mainly four-character while Chuci has uneven lines and the particle xi; the Shijing favours short refrained stanzas while Chuci is long and elaborately narrated; the Shijing is plain and realistic, Chuci ornate and romantic with myth and floral imagery. Qu Yuan is the representative poet.

Tang Poetry: Prosody and Appreciation

These questions cover character counts in regulated verse, the position of parallel couplets, rhyme rules and appreciation.

#	Question	Answer and marking notes
5	How many characters are there in a five-character quatrain, a seven-character quatrain, a five-character regulated poem and a seven-character regulated poem? Show the working.	Answer: five-character quatrain 4 x 5 = 20; seven-character quatrain 4 x 7 = 28; five-character regulated 8 x 5 = 40; seven-character regulated 8 x 7 = 56. A quatrain has four lines, a regulated poem eight.
6	How many characters are in two seven-character regulated poems plus one five-character quatrain? How many characters more is a seven-character regulated poem than a five-character one, and what is the ratio (two decimals)?	Answer: 56 x 2 + 20 = 132 characters; a seven-character regulated poem has 16 more, a ratio of 56 / 40 = 1.4.
7	In an eight-line regulated poem, which two couplets must be parallel? Do regulated poems normally rhyme on level or oblique tones? What does rhyming on one rhyme throughout mean?	Answer: the jaw couplet (lines 3 and 4) and the neck couplet (lines 4 and 5) must be parallel; rhyme is normally on level tones; one rhyme throughout means every rhyme word belongs to the same rhyme group without change.
8	Using one Tang poem, analyse its art in terms of imagery, the relation of scene to feeling, and diction (about 150 characters).	Answer: name concrete images and their symbolic value; the scene may carry, merge with or trigger the feeling; quote a well-chosen verb or epithet and explain its effect. Generalities without textual evidence score low.

Song Ci and Yuan Qu

These questions cover ci tune character counts, how ci differs from shi, and the forms of Yuan qu.

#	Question	Answer and marking notes
9	Ru Meng Ling has 33 characters, Pu Sa Man 44 and Shui Diao Ge Tou 95. How many characters in one Shui Diao Ge Tou plus two Ru Meng Ling? How many more than Pu Sa Man, and what is the ratio (two decimals)?	Answer: 95 + 33 x 2 = 161 characters; 95 – 44 = 51, a ratio of 2.16.
10	How do ci and shi differ in line pattern, prosody and subject matter? What do tune title and ci title each mean?	Answer: ci lines are of uneven length and fixed by the tune in characters, tones and rhyme positions, while shi lines are even; ci often treats love, parting and personal fortune in a delicate manner; the tune title governs the metre while the ci title states the subject.
11	Yuan qu falls into xiaoling and taoshu. How do the two differ in form, and how does sanqu differ in nature from zaju?	Answer: a xiaoling is a single tune and short; a taoshu joins several tunes of one mode into a longer sequence able to narrate. Sanqu is sung but not acted and is lyrical; zaju combines action, speech and song and is drama.
12	Analyse how one ci uses scenic language to carry feeling, and explain how its two stanzas divide the emotional movement.	Answer: locate the scenic passage and show the feeling it carries; the upper stanza sets scene and mood, the lower turns to the person and the feeling, often closing on an image so that feeling deepens through scene.

Ming-Qing Fiction and Prose

These questions cover chapter counts, narrative structure, characterisation and prose style.

#	Question	Answer and marking notes
13	Hongloumeng has 120 chapters, Xiyouji 100 and Sanguo Yanyi 120. How many chapters in all three, and what percentage is Hongloumeng (one decimal)?	Answer: 120 + 100 + 120 = 340 chapters; 120 / 340 = 35.3 per cent.
14	At 4 chapters a day, how many days are needed for Hongloumeng? What narrative function does the chapter unit serve?	Answer: 120 / 4 = 30 days. Each chapter is a self-contained unit ending on suspense, and the couplet title sums up the episode, dividing the story and drawing the reader on.
15	Using Sanguo Yanyi or Shuihu Zhuan, explain how action and dialogue shape character, and state the features of type-based characterisation.	Answer: cite an episode where speech and action reveal character; type-based figures have one sharp dominant trait such as loyalty or wisdom, vivid but with little inner conflict, which suits oral transmission.
16	What are the features of Ming xiaopin prose in subject and style? Name one writer and work.	Answer: xiaopin treats daily life, landscape and personal mood rather than moral doctrine; the style is light and flexible, strong in plain description and detail. Zhang Dai is an example, whose Taoan Mengyi recalls city life and scenery with elegance and melancholy.

Modern Literature

These questions cover May Fourth new literature, modern poetry and prose, and the use of length in fiction.

#	Question	Answer and marking notes
17	In which year did the May Fourth new literature movement begin? What was its central claim about the medium of writing, and how did it affect fiction and new poetry?	Answer: 1919. Its central claim was to replace classical Chinese with the vernacular. Fiction could then render spoken life and social reality, while new poetry broke free of fixed metre and used free lines and speech rhythm.
18	An essay of 1200 characters has 4 paragraphs. What is the average length of a paragraph? After cutting 250 characters, how many remain and what percentage of the original is that (one decimal)?	Answer: 1200 / 4 = 300 characters; 950 remain, which is 950 / 1200 = 79.2 per cent.
19	How do new poetry and classical poetry differ in metre, imagery and language? Name one modern poet and describe the language.	Answer: new poetry ignores tone patterns and fixed line length, using free rhythm and line breaks; its imagery draws on the modern city and daily objects; the language is colloquial and suggestive. Wen Yiduo sought musical, pictorial and architectural beauty in balanced lines and vivid images.
20	How does modern fiction treat the themes of enlightenment and the individual? Using one work, explain the effect of its narrative point of view.	Answer: show that enlightenment is usually figured through the gap between the intellectual and the crowd, while the individual theme traces the loneliness of the awakened; a first-person diary form draws close to the inner life so that critique and self-examination occur together.

Appreciation and Critical Writing

These questions cover image analysis, comparison of works, and the structure and marking of a critical essay.

#	Question	Answer and marking notes
21	A 400-character review allots 40 per cent to content, 30 to technique, 20 to structure and 10 to language. How many characters is each, and why this weighting?	Answer: content 160, technique 120, structure 80, language 40 characters. Content takes four tenths because understanding and argument matter most, technique next, language only one tenth so that ornament cannot replace analysis.
22	How do image and symbol differ? Using two images from one work, explain how they form a system of meaning.	Answer: an image is a concrete object selected into a unit of feeling; a symbol is an image whose recurrence carries meaning beyond itself. Two images linked by repetition and contrast rise from local scenery to the meaning structure of the whole.
23	Compare the lyrical method of two works in terms of person, treatment of time and ending, and state the effect of each.	Answer: show how person limits or widens the field of vision; how chronology, retrospection or past-present contrast builds tension; and how a scenic, interrogative or abrupt ending yields reserve, openness or shock.
24	Take a position on whether literature should be didactic and write a review of at least 150 characters with concrete textual evidence.	Answer: state a clear position and argue in layers (cognition, the irreplaceable aesthetic experience, then the balance of instruction and art); cite concrete detail and answer the opposing view. Emotion without argument scores low.

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