1. A story ends its chapter with: "The door creaked open, and then…" What job do the three dots (…) do here?
ICAS English Paper C (Year 5)
Paper C is sat by Year 5 students, and it is the first step up in size: 50 questions in 50 minutes, where Papers A and B were 45 in 45. Still mostly multiple choice.
Last updated: 5 October 2026
What the extra length adds
Not more of the same. The additional questions come with an additional passage or two, which means more switching between texts — and switching costs time that the one-minute-per-question pace does not forgive.
Content-wise, Year 5 is where writer's craft starts carrying real weight. Questions stop asking only what a text says and start asking how it works: why this word, why this order, what effect the repetition has. Students who have only ever been asked comprehension questions find this unfamiliar.
The skill that matters most at this level
Reading for stance. Factual and opinion passages start appearing side by side, and the paper asks which is which, and how you can tell. A child who reads everything as neutral information will miss the questions that turn on the writer having a view.
Where Year 5 students lose marks
- Craft questions, per above — the answer is about the writing, not the content
- Running out of time on the last passage, because the extra length was not planned for
- Vocabulary where all four options are real meanings of the word and only one fits this sentence
What the mark will look like
ICAS marks run lower than school tests by design. The paper keeps stretching students well past year level, so a result that looks disappointing on a school scale can be a strong ICAS result — read it against the distribution rather than as a percentage.
How to prepare for Paper C
Practise on full papers, not question sets. The specific thing to build is stamina across four or five passages, and that cannot be practised ten questions at a time.
When reviewing, ask your child to say where in the passage the answer came from. If they cannot point to it, they guessed — and that is the number to work on, not the score.
Common questions
Which year level sits ICAS Paper C?
Year 5. ICAS names its papers by letter rather than by year — Paper A is Year 3 and Paper F is Year 8 — so a Year 5 student sits Paper C.
How long is English Paper C?
50 questions in 50 minutes.
Why does my child run out of time on Paper C?
Fifty questions in 50 minutes across several passages leaves no room to reread a passage three times. Pacing is a separate skill from comprehension, and it is the one that short question sets never build.
Year 5 also sits: Maths Paper C · Spelling Paper C · Science Paper C
Sample questions
Try each one first, then open the answer and worked solution under it.
Answer and worked solution
Correct answer: C
At a chapter's end, trailing dots leave the sentence deliberately unfinished.
The writer is withholding what comes next so the reader must turn the page — suspense by punctuation.
The dots hold back the next moment to build suspense.
2. Which word is built from a prefix meaning "not", the root "agree", and a suffix meaning "able to be"?
Answer and worked solution
Correct answer: A
Take the three parts the question names and build the word from the outside in: dis- on the front, agree in the middle, and an ending meaning 'able to be'.
Two of the options carry the prefix but the wrong ending — one names a thing, the other is the -ing form of the verb.
One option has the right ending but no prefix at all. Only disagreeable has all three parts.
'disagreeable' has all three parts.
3. You want to know which page a chapter starts on.
Which part of the book do you turn to?
Answer and worked solution
Correct answer: D
The contents page lists the chapters in order with their page numbers.
A glossary explains difficult words, and a cover carries the title.
So you turn to the contents.
'the contents' is the correct word.
Practise free, no account needed. Every paper is marked the moment your child finishes, with a worked solution on every question.
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Related papers: English Paper B (Year 4) · English Paper D (Year 6)
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