Explanations

  1. c. A description is designed to give a "picture" of a character, place, animal or thing and will cover the characteristics, such as appearance, and behaviour.
  2. a.The opening paragraph of a description introduces and identifies the subject to be described.
  3. b. The second paragraph of a description gives the characteristics of the subject
  4. c. The third paragraph of a description gives the behaviour of the subject.
  5. b. The final paragraph concludes the description by giving some kind of evaluation of the subject and the actions.
  6. b. These phrases describe nouns and are adjectivals. They fill out the picture of the nouns 'Max' and 'hands' and are part of the detailed noun groups which are typical of this text type.
  7. a. These are factual nouns. Black describes the colour of Max's eyes. The harpoon is a lethal weapon which causes death, and bloody describes the state of the whale's body after it has been killed by the harpoon.
    (Note: lethal is often used metaphorically (not literally) as an opinion adjective. eg "This assignment is lethal. It's so hard, it will kill me". Bloody is also often used as an opinion adjective.)
  8. b. These pairs of words are synonyms, that is they have similar meanings in the context of this piece of writing.
  9. c. These relating verbs do not represent actions, speaking, thoughts or feelings but simply link pieces of information, in these instances: "he" with "quite tall with broad shoulders" and "they" with "the source of his livelihood".
  10. c. These words are a collocation which typically occur together in certain context and make the text predictable. A harpoon is a spear with a rope attached and is used for catching whales or large fish. Lexical cohesion is often achieved in this way in Descriptions.
  11. d. These verbs are describing actions of the character(s) and/or other participants being described in the text.