Purpose: Self-assess your understanding of literary devices, close reading, and poetic form. Each question has a worked solution.
Score: 0 / 12
Topic 1.1 — Literary Devices
Question 1
In Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken," the two diverging roads in a yellow wood function primarily as a:
Solution: The roads operate as a symbol — concrete forest paths that stand for the abstract concept of decision-making in a human life. The poem invites readers to see this as an extended metaphor sustained across all four stanzas.
Question 2
"The fog comes / on little cat feet." — Carl Sandburg, "Fog"
The literary device most clearly at work in these lines is:
Solution: The poem doesn't say the fog is "like" a cat (which would be a simile); it directly describes fog with feline qualities ("little cat feet"). This is a metaphor. Note also the alliteration in /f/ — multiple devices can co-exist, but the dominant figure is the metaphor.
Question 3
In Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery," the cheerful, ordinary tone of the early paragraphs juxtaposed against the violent ending is best described as:
Solution: Situational irony — the outcome (a stoning) is the opposite of what the festive setting and title suggest. On a re-read, the small details (boys gathering stones, Mrs. Hutchinson arriving late) become foreshadowing, producing dramatic irony for re-readers who know what is coming.
Topic 1.2 — Close Reading
Question 4
"It is so pleasant to have such a great room all to myself, and so airy and full of sunshine. … And yet I cannot be with him, it makes me so nervous." — Charlotte Perkins Gilman, "The Yellow Wallpaper"
The contradiction between the narrator's two statements about the room functions to:
Solution: The narrator's contradictory statements signal an unreliable narrator: her attempt to convince herself the room is "pleasant" is undercut by her admission of nervousness, hinting at the psychological breakdown the rest of the story develops.
Question 5
In SOAPSTone close reading, the "S" stands for:
Solution: SOAPSTone = Speaker, Occasion, Audience, Purpose, Subject, Tone. The "S" at the start identifies the persona; the "S" later in the acronym is the Subject. Distinguishing the persona/speaker from the author is crucial in poetry.
Question 6
A "third-person limited" point of view means the narrator:
Solution: Third-person limited stays outside the action grammatically (uses he/she/they) but is psychologically tethered to one character's mind. Third-person omniscient would freely enter every character's interiority.
Topic 1.3 — Reading Poetry
Question 7
"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? / Thou art more lovely and more temperate." — Shakespeare, Sonnet 18
The dominant meter in these lines is:
Solution: Iambic pentameter — five metrical feet of unstressed/stressed syllables per line. Scan: "Shall I / com-PARE / thee TO / a SUM- / mer's DAY?" Shakespeare uses this throughout his sonnets and most of his plays.
Question 8
A Shakespearean (English) sonnet is structured as:
Solution: The Shakespearean / English sonnet has 14 lines: 3 quatrains (ABAB CDCD EFEF) followed by a final rhymed couplet (GG) that often delivers a pithy resolution or twist. (Choice A describes the Petrarchan/Italian sonnet.)
Question 9
"And miles to go before I sleep, / And miles to go before I sleep." — Frost, "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening"
The repetition of the final line in this poem most likely functions to:
Solution: The repetition deepens the line's resonance — the first iteration registers as literal travel, the second invites metaphorical reading. Repetition is a key device in poetry for layering meaning and creating emphasis.
Topic 1.4 — From Paraphrase to Analysis
Question 10
In a PEEL paragraph (Point–Evidence–Explain–Link), the "Explain" step requires you to:
Solution: PEEL: Point (topic sentence — your sub-claim), Evidence (a quotation or specific reference), Explain (interpretation of how the evidence proves the point — the analysis itself), Link (transition to the next idea or back to thesis). The "Explain" is where literary analysis happens.
Question 11
Which of the following is a thesis rather than a topic?
Solution: A thesis makes a debatable, specific claim about meaning. Choice (b) names the device (imagery), the text, and a precise interpretation that someone could disagree with. The others are statements of intent (a), biography (c), or fact (d).
Question 12
When embedding a quotation, which is the strongest signal phrase?
Solution: Strong embedding integrates the quotation grammatically into the analytical sentence, identifies the speaker/author, and immediately interprets the quoted material. "Atwood's speaker observes that …" + analysis is academic; "She says: …" is journalistic and weak.