Free 11+/ GCSE English papers

11 Plus written comprehension: Roald Dahl's Television 📺 Solutions

Includes marking guidance

Morgan Evans

Jun 24, 2026

Last week, I shared a hard 11 plus written comprehension using Roald Dahl’s poem Television.

Here’s the written comprehension which you can download and print.

Below are my model solutions. For the higher mark questions, I’ve also included marking rubrics so this paper can be self-marked.

Note that while the poem is fun and accessible, this paper is at the very top end in terms of challenge—up there with the most selective schools such as SPGS.

Solutions

Q1. Who do you think the speaker is addressing and why? Use evidence from the text to support your opinion. (3)

The most important thing we’ve learned,

So far as children are concerned,

Is never, NEVER, NEVER let

Them near your television set

The speaker is addressing parents. They sound as if they are speaking on behalf of some kind of organization which has been conducting research, because they say, ‘The most important thing we’ve learned,/ So far as children are concerned’ is to ‘NEVER let/ Them near your television set.’ In these opening lines, they suggest that they are presenting their most important advice after observing children watching television.

Q2. Find three words or phrases which express the speaker’s dislike of television. (3)

‘Shocking ghastly junk’, ‘idiotic thing’ and ‘ridiculous machine’.

Marking guidance

Don’t count the individual words in phrases separately. Eg shocking ghastly junk is one phrase, not three separate words here.

Q3. Using your own words, explain these lines: (3)

‘They loll and slop and lounge about,

And stare until their eyes pop out.’

Children watch TV slouching or lying in a way which looks very lazy, sprawled out on the sofa or floor. And their eyes are open wide as if they are entranced by what they’re watching and they’re totally fixed on the TV.

Q4. Who do you think the eyeballs belong to here? Support your opinion with evidence from the poem. (2)

(Last week in someone’s place we saw

A dozen eyeballs on the floor.)

The poet uses grotesque hyperbole to suggest children’s eyes have literally popped out because they have watched too much television. The brackets hint that the speaker says this as an aside, following on from the claim that the children ‘stare [at the TV] until their eyes pop out’.

Q5. Write down three arguments the speaker makes for allowing children to watch television. (3)

They provide the following counter arguments: ‘it keeps them still’, ‘they don’t climb out the window sill’ and ‘they never fight or kick or punch’.

Q6. How does the speaker persuade the reader that television is harmful to children in this section? Comment on the effects of three writing techniques used here. (8)

IT ROTS THE SENSE IN THE HEAD!

IT KILLS IMAGINATION DEAD!

IT CLOGS AND CLUTTERS UP THE MIND!

IT MAKES A CHILD SO DULL AND BLIND

HE CAN NO LONGER UNDERSTAND

A FANTASY, A FAIRYLAND!

HIS BRAIN BECOMES AS SOFT AS CHEESE!

HIS POWERS OF THINKING RUST AND FREEZE!

They say TV KILLS IMAGINATION DEAD!’ This is a violent metaphor hyperbolically implying that watching TV completely ruins a child’s imaginative powers. They say ‘IT MAKES A CHILD SO DULL AND BLIND’, and this adjective pairing of ‘dull and blind’ suggests that children become duller when they lose their ability to effectively imagine. Children are being described as figuratively blind here in the sense that they are blind to the stories that great books can inspire. This is why the speaker says when they read they ‘CAN NO LONGER UNDERSTAND / A FANTASY, A FAIRYLAND’. Although the figurative language sounds comically hyperbolic, it emphatically persuades the reader that watching television ‘rots’ or harms children’s imagination and their ability to imagine stories specifically.

Marking guidance

7–8: three techniques identified, each supported with a quotation and each with its effect on the reader clearly explained. Writes about how the technique persuades. There is also some explanation of how the ideas complement each other or how some ideas are developed through the passage.

5–6: three techniques named with quotations, but effects explained briefly or not for all of the techniques highlighted; two techniques may be analysed well with a third only mentioned. There may be a lack of cohesion with the three techniques handled separately.

3–4: techniques identified but little comment on their effects. There is feature-spotting without explanation.

Q7. Is the rhythm of the poem generally fast or slow? Explain the effect of the rhythm: how does this rhythm reflect the speaker’s feelings about television? (3)

The poem generally has a fast, surging rhythm, and this evokes a sense of urgency. The fast rhythm suggests that the speaker believes this is a pressing issue which they have to communicate emphatically. They think children should stop watching television immediately and read more books instead.

Marking guidance

1 mark for a comment about the rhythm being fast paced.

1 mark for its effect, eg urgency/energy or to evoke a sense of breathlessness.

1 mark for an explanation as to how it suggests the speaker feels or complements their purpose.

Q8. What is the effect of the ellipsis here? How does it alter the rhythm of this section? (3)

We’ll say it very loud and slow:

THEY... USED... TO... READ! They’d READ and READ,

AND READ and READ, and then proceed

To READ some more. Great Scott! Gadzooks!

One half their lives was reading books!

The ellipsis slows down the pace of the poem and places stress on the words capitalized, emphasizing the importance of the message: kids used to read a lot.

Q9. Explain the meaning of galore in this sentence: (2)

‘The nursery shelves held books galore!’

Galore means plenty or a lot of. The nursery shelves used to have a lot of books.

Q10. Do you think the speaker has made their argument persuasively? Consider where their argument is strong and whether or not they overstate their case. (10)

Yes, I think they are fairly persuasive. They emotively describe children as looking like zombies, which reinforces the idea that television weakens their imagination and is addictive. The metaphors of children being ‘hypnotised’ and ‘absolutely drunk’ make them seem spellbound, passively absorbing what’s in front of them, which is contrasted with reading. They make reading sound like an active, creative process. When you read a book you enter a world of imagination where the characters all feel familiar. For example, they refer to the characters in The Wind in the Willows, ‘And Mr. Toad, and bless my soul,/ There’s Mr. Rat and Mr. Mole’ as if they know them personally. This and other literary allusions create the impression that these characters from children’s classics have left a lasting impression on the speaker, and the speaker subtly implies that other children who encounter them will similarly come to see them as lifelong imaginative companions.

They also use humour to preempt parents’ objections. Silly lines like ‘it keeps them still’, ‘they don’t climb out the window sill’ and ‘they never fight or kick or punch’ acknowledge parents’ anxieties, but exaggerate them to suggest those fears are overblown: children aren’t really going to climb out of the window. They then argue that, before television, reading was what kept children entertained. The repetition of ‘they used to read’ implies reading was once seen as normal, not a chore, which is why they exclaim ‘Great Scott! Gadzooks! One half their lives was reading books!’ Here the exclamations express astonishment at how much children once read, and imply how little they read today, reminding parents that children are reading far less than they used to, and are the poorer for it.

That said, I’m not wholly convinced reading is the silver bullet they present it as. The argument is one-sided. There are lots of good arguments which are entirely omitted: television helps to keep people informed through news channels, there are lots of educational programmes and not all programmes are devoid of artistic or creative merit.