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Descriptive Statements:
- Recognize the characteristics of various forms of literary nonfiction, fiction, and drama, such as the critical biography, political essay, psychological novel, and tragic play.
- Analyze the use of rhetorical, dramatic, and literary devices and techniques, such as analogy, soliloquy, and foreshadowing, in a work of literary prose.
- Analyze the use of point of view, tone, voice, and mood in a work of literary prose.
- Analyze the use of structural elements, such as denouement and flashback, in a work of literary prose.
- Analyze word choice and the use of words and word combinations in a work of literary prose.
- Analyze plot, setting, and characterization in a work of literary prose.
- Interpret central ideas or themes in a work of literary prose.
Sample Item:
Read the excerpt below from an autobiographical work; then answer the question that follows.
The barrenness of Stamps1 was exactly what I wanted, without will or consciousness. After St. Louis, with its noise and activity, its trucks and buses, and loud family gatherings, I welcomed the obscure lanes and lonely bungalows set back deep in dirt yards. The resignation of its inhabitants encouraged me to relax. They showed me a contentment based on the belief that nothing more was coming to them, although a great deal more was due. Their decision to be satisfied with life's inequities was a lesson for me. Entering Stamps, I had the feeling that I was stepping over the border lines of the map and would fall, without fear, right off the end of the world. Nothing more could happen, for in Stamps nothing happened.
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1 Stamps: town in Arkansas
Source: Angelou, Maya. From I KNOW WHY THE CAGED BIRD SINGS, copyright © 1969 and renewed 1997 by Maya Angelou. For on-line information about other Random House, Inc. books and authors, see the Internet web site at http://www.randomhouse.com. Used by permission of Random House, Inc.
In this excerpt, the narrator's tone reflects an attitude of:
- passive submission.
- superiority and condescension.
- stubborn resistance.
- boredom and impatience.
Correct Response and Explanation (Show Correct ResponseHide Correct Response)
A. This question requires the examinee to analyze the use of tone in a work of literary prose. In the excerpt, the narrator describes the "resignation" and "contentment" exhibited by the inhabitants of the small, quiet town of Stamps and explains that she, too, has begun to adopt the same placid disposition. It "was exactly what I wanted. . . . I welcomed the obscure lanes and the lonely bungalows set back deep in dirt yards."
Descriptive Statements:
- Recognize the characteristics of various forms of poetry, such as the epic, ode, sonnet, ballad, villanelle, and tanka.
- Analyze the use of poetic devices, such as allusion, paradox, symbolism, imagery, and irony, in a work of poetry.
- Analyze the use of figures of speech, such as simile, metaphor, personification, and metonymy, in a work of poetry.
- Analyze the use of point of view, tone, voice, and mood in a work of poetry.
- Analyze the use of stanzaic and metrical structures and verse forms, such as the quatrain, iambic pentameter, and free verse, in a work of poetry.
- Analyze the use of formal rhyme schemes and sound devices, such as alliteration and assonance, in a work of poetry.
- Interpret central ideas or themes in a work of poetry.
Sample Item:
Read the excerpt below from a work of poetry; then answer the question that follows.
Streaming tears, sobbing tears, throes, choked with wild cries;
O storm, embodied, rising, careering with swift steps along
the beach!
O wild and dismal night storm, with wind—O belching and
desperate!
O shade so sedate and decorous by day, with calm countenance
and regulated pace,
But away at night as you fly, none looking—O then the
unloosen'd ocean,
Of tears! tears! tears!
Which of the following figures of speech is used in this excerpt to emphasize the passionate nature of the speaker's appeal?
- synecdoche
- hyperbole
- simile
- apostrophe
Correct Response and Explanation (Show Correct ResponseHide Correct Response)
D. This question requires the examinee to analyze the use of a figure of speech in a work of poetry. An apostrophe is a rhetorical figure used to address directly and explicitly an abstract or inanimate entity (e.g., Justice, an absent lover, a painting). In the excerpt, phrases such as "O wild and dismal night storm" and "O shade so sedate and decorous" indicate the speaker's use of apostrophe.
Descriptive Statements:
- Demonstrate knowledge of major literary genres, styles, and trends associated with literatures from around the world.
- Demonstrate knowledge of the formal, stylistic, and thematic characteristics of major works and writers of literatures from around the world.
- Demonstrate knowledge of the formal, stylistic, and thematic characteristics of major movements and periods in literatures from around the world.
- Demonstrate knowledge of the formal, stylistic, and thematic characteristics of major literary genres and works from the oral tradition.
Sample Item:
Which of the following statements best describes the stylistic and thematic characteristics of a fable?
- It uses humor and hyperbole to create a fantasy that reflects, celebrates, or criticizes social values.
- It dramatizes human actions through animal characters in order to teach a moral lesson about human behavior.
- It describes events in the life of a well-known community figure in order to memorialize that figure.
- It combines elements of reality and magic in order to reveal insights into human nature.
Correct Response and Explanation (Show Correct ResponseHide Correct Response)
B. This question requires the examinee to demonstrate knowledge of the stylistic and thematic characteristics of major literary genres from the oral tradition. A fable is a short story whose primary purpose is to instruct or guide, not just entertain. Most fables use anthropomorphism to express a moral lesson, usually in the form of an epigram. For example, the epigram "slow and steady wins the race" is from Aesop's well-known fable "The Tortoise and the Hare."
Descriptive Statements:
- Examine in literary works references to major historical events and to major social, cultural, and political movements and institutions that have influenced the development of literatures from around the world.
- Examine in literary works the expression of diverse values, attitudes, and ideas of peoples from various regional, ethnic, and cultural groups.
- Examine how writers from diverse cultural backgrounds and various historical periods have commented on major historical events and influenced public opinion about and understanding of major social, cultural, and political issues through their literary works.
- Examine how social, cultural, and political issues, such as issues relating to age, gender, ethnicity, and human rights, are explored in classical and contemporary literary works.
Sample Item:
Read the excerpt below from "The Cry of the Children," a poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning; then answer the question that follows.
Alas, alas, the children! they are seeking
Death in life, as best to have:
They are binding up their hearts away from breaking,
With a ceremen1 from the grave.
Go out, children, from the mine and from the city,
Sing out, children, as the little thrushes do;
Pluck your handfuls of the meadow-cowslips2 pretty,
Laugh aloud, to feel your fingers let them through!
But they answer, "Are your cowslips of the meadows
Like our weeds anear the mine?
Leave us quiet in the dark of the coal-shadows,
From your pleasures fair and fine!"
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1 ceremen: burial shroud
2 cowslips: primroses
In this excerpt, Browning is most likely trying to influence public opinion about which of the following social issues?
- elementary school truancy
- child labor exploitation
- infant mortality rates
- child hunger and homelessness
Correct Response and Explanation (Show Correct ResponseHide Correct Response)
B. This question requires the examinee to examine how a writer influenced public opinion about a major social issue through a literary work. In the excerpt, the speaker pities the children whose plight it is to work in mines and factories and entreats them to try to break away ("Go out, children, from the mine and from the city"), play, and be carefree ("Sing out, children," "Laugh aloud"). But the children can only reply, "Leave us quiet in the dark," indicating clearly their hopeless outlook.
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