Study Guide 9th Grade Literature and Composition Final
Be sure to study the following terms:
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Drama
Dialogue
Dialect
Soliloquy
Monologue
Aside
Tragedy
Stage Directions
Staging
Tone & Diction
Inference
Simile
Metaphor
Personification
Author’s Purpose
Imagery
Hyperbole
Symbolism
onomatopoeia
Assonance
Consonance
Alliteration
End Rhyme
Lyric Poetry
Narrative Poetry
Fixed Form
Free Form
Rhyme Scheme
Persuasive Techniques (Logical Appeal, Emotional Appeal, Logical Fallacies)
Elements of Fiction (Plot, Theme, Direct and Indirect Characterization, etc…)
Types of Non- Fiction
Suspense & Foreshadowing
Narrative Perspective (Point- of- View)
Irony
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Symbolism
Main Idea
Text Features
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Setting
Mood
Theme
Characterization
Paradox
Satire
Irony
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Allusion
Repetition (purpose of)
Imagery
Forms of poems (lyric, ballad, epic, free verse, sonnet, blank verse)
Anaphora
 Reading Skills/Standards
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Word choice/meaning
Word choice/audience
Context clues
Details (author’s choice of details)
Primary purpose/Main idea
Setting
Inference
Climax/turning point
Characterization
Fact v. Opinion
Theme
 Writing and Grammar Skills/Standards
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Capitalization
Format/style/syntax
Subject-verb agreement
Punctuation
Sentence structure
Combining sentences
Pronoun-antecedent
Commas
DRAMA:
Drama: A story written to be performed by actors before an audience. The script of
a dramatic work, or play, often includes the author’s instructions to the actors and
the director, known as stage directions. A drama may be divided into acts, which
may also be broken up into scenes, indicating changes in location or the passage of
time.
Dialogue: Written conversation between characters in a literary work. Dialogue
brings characters to life by revealing their personalities and by showing what they
are thinking and feeling as they react to other characters. Dialogue can also create
mood, advance the plot, and develop theme. Plays are composed almost completely
of dialogue.
Dialect: A variation of a language spoken by a group of people, often within a
particular region. Dialects may differ from the standard of a language in vocabulary,
pronunciation, or grammatical form.
Soliloquy: A dramatic device in which a character, alone on stage (or while under
the impression of being alone), reveals his or her private thoughts and feelings as if
thinking aloud. For example,there are several in R & J—Friar Laurence opening of
Act 2, s3; Juliet at end of A4, s3; Romeo in A5, s3.
Aside: In a play, a comment that a character makes to the audience, which other
characters onstage do not hear. The speaker turns to one side-or “aside”- away from
the action onstage. Asides, which are rare in modern drama, reveal what a character
is thinking or feeling. For example, pg. 807, 2 asides in opening scene—Sampson
speaks to Gregory; Gregory respinds as they pick a fight with the Montague house.
Tragedy: Play, novel, or other narrative depicting serious and important events, in
which the main character comes to an unhappy end. Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of
Romeo is a tragedy.
Stage directions: Instructions written by a playwright that describes the appearance
and the actions of characters, as well as the sets, props, costumes, sound effects,
and lighting for the play. ITALICS AND BRACKETS
Staging: handwritten directions on a script—given by the director—for the actors
Monologue: A long speech or written expression of thoughts by a character in a
literary work.
Drama Practice:
Write T or F next to each statement to tell whether it is true or false.
__ 1. A story is prose narrative, while a play consists entirely of the characters’
words and actions.
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2. The script of a play includes only the words that actors will speak.
__ 3. Actors, directors, and designers regard stage directions as suggestions from
the writer, not strict demands that must be followed.
__ 4. If you were to see two different productions of the same play, there would
be very few differences between the two.
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5. As in dramas, central characters in comedies are always noble.
Match each word in the word bank to its definition. Write each word on the line.
play
tragedy
foil
comedy
tragic flaw
______________________ 12. character who is used to contrast another character
______________________ 13. a play with serious and important actions that ends
unhappily
______________________ 14. personal failing that leads to hero’s downfall
______________________ 15. a play that ends happily
______________________ 16. story acted out live and onstage
Match the definition on the right with the drama vocabulary word on the
left. On the line provided, write the letter of the phrase that best defines
each drama vocabulary word.
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6. dialogue
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7. monologue
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8. soliloquy
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9. aside
__ 10.staging
__ 11.set
A) everything that is part of a play but is not
part of the written script
B. long speech by one character to one or more
other characters onstage
C) speech that is not supposed to be heard by
the other characters onstage
D)transforms a bare stage into
a particular place and time
E) conversation between characters in a play
F) speech by a character alone onstage to
himself or herself or to the audience
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POETRY REVIEW:
For the poetry part of your exam, you need to identify and respond to the subject
matter, language, and sound devices in a variety of poems. While some of these devices
may appear in other fiction and nonfiction, they help to make poetry a distinctive genre.
To answer questions in this standard, you need to identify the topic of the poem—what it’s
about—and its theme—what statement it makes about life or
society. Then you’ll need to identify how the poet creates the topic and the theme.
As you read a poem, you may “hear” the writing in your mind. Sound devices make poetry
sound better in your mind. These sound devices include the following:
1. Alliteration. Alliteration is the repetition of one initial sound in more than one word.
Usually, the repeated sound is of a consonant. “Wild and woolly” and “hale and hearty”
are examples.
2. Onomatopoeia is a sound device where a word imitates the sounds associated with it.
“Sizzle” and “bang” are examples.
3. Rhyme scheme. The rhyme scheme is the pattern of rhymes in a poem. Each new
rhyme in a stanza is represented by a different letter of the alphabet. For example, in a
four-line poem in which every other line rhymes, the rhyme scheme is abab. In a six- line
poem with every two lines rhyming, the rhyme scheme is aabbcc.
4. Consonance. The repetition of consonant sounds in groups of words for poetic effect.
5. Alliteration. The repetition of consonant sounds at the beginnings of words for poetic
effect.
6. Assonance. The repetition of vowel sounds in groups of words for poetic effect.
7. Figurative Language. See metaphor, simile, personification, and hyperbole.
Poetry Practice:
Daffodils
By William Wordsworth
I WANDER’D lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretch’d in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
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I gazed––and gazed––but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
The simile in lines 1–2 of “Daffodils” mostly describes the speaker’s
A dreams
B feelings
C movements
D thoughts
The correct answer is choice B. The phrase “lonely as a cloud” is a direct comparison of
the speaker’s emotions to the distant, solitary cloud.
While sound devices and figures of speech are important in poetry, the structure of a
poem is often its most distinctive characteristic. Poems are written in stanzas, or groups
of lines. These stanzas are arranged in either fixed form or free form. Fixed form is what
most people consider typical poetry: it’s written in traditional verse and generally
rhymes. Some fixed form poems have specific requirements on length, rhyming scheme, and
number of syllables. A sonnet, for example, is a 14-line rhymed poem. Free form, or
free verse, poetry follows no specific guidelines about rhyme, meter, or length. Free form
often tries to capture the cadence of regular speech. Some stanzas may rhyme but not in a
regular scheme.
Some poems are narrative poems. The main purpose of a narrative poem is to tell a
story. Lyric poetry expresses a person’s thoughts or feelings. Elegies, odes, and sonnets
are types of lyric poems.
For the final, you may be asked to sort and classify poems according to these forms and
structures. You will have to answer questions like the example below:
Why is the poem “Daffodils” considered a lyric?
A because it expresses the poet’s love for Greece
B because it tells the story of the poet’s trip to Greece
C because of its consistent abab rhyme scheme
D because it is meant to be sung
Choice B describes a narrative poem. Choice C describes the rhyme scheme, which
identifies the poem as fixed verse but not necessarily a lyric. Choice D confuses the
meaning of lyric with the meaning of lyrics. Choice A is the correct answer because it is
related to the expression of feelings.
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Literary Analysis:
1. Character development (characterization). An author may reveal a character
through the character’s thoughts, words, appearance, and actions, or through what
other characters say or think. An author may also tell us directly what the character is
like. Examining the characters and how they interact with each other is a key element
to understanding the piece of literature.
Here are some common questions about characterization:
onality
traits?
Direct Characterization tells the audience what the personality of the character is.
Example: “The patient boy and quiet girl were both well-mannered and did not disobey their
mother.”
Explanation: The author is directly telling the audience the personality of these two children.
The boy is “patient” and the girl is “quiet.”
Indirect Characterization shows things that reveal the personality of a character. There are five
different methods of indirect characterization:
Speech
Thoughts
Effect on others toward the character.
Actions
What does the character say? How does the
character speak?
What is revealed through the character’s
private thoughts and feelings?
What is revealed through the character’s
effect on other people? How do other
characters feel or behave in reaction to the
character?
What does the character do? How does the
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Looks
character behave?
What does the character look like? How does
the character dress?
2. Setting. The setting is when and where a story takes place. You may be asked to
determine why the setting is important or how the setting affects the interpretation.
The setting can clarify conflict, be the catalyst for conflict, illuminate character, affect
the mood (see literary term #9), and act as a symbol.
3. Plot. Literature commonly follows a specific pattern or plot structure. It often begins with
exposition that may introduce the characters, establish the setting, and reveal the problem or
conflict. The tension may build through a series of complications (incidents that either help or
hinder the protagonist in finding a solution). This is the rising action. The climax is the peak or
turning point of the action, when the problem is resolved. At this point the reader usually
knows the outcome. The denouement or falling action is the part after the climax. It gives any
necessary explanation and ends with resolution, the sense that the story is complete.
Using a plot map can help you better understand a story’s development.
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4. Irony. Irony is a form of speech intended to convey the opposite of the actual
meaning of the words. There are several different types of irony, including dramatic,
situational, and verbal. You are probably most familiar with verbal irony, or
sarcasm. The speaker’s intended central idea is far different from the usual meaning
of the words. For example, a teenager may tell his mother, “I just love cleaning up my
room,” when, in fact, the teenager means that he hates to clean his room.
Another example of irony that may not be as familiar is irony of fate, also called
situational irony. Irony of fate refers to developments that are far from what is
expected or believed to be deserved. One example of irony of fate would be famed
composer Ludwig von Beethoven’s loss of hearing.
5. Imagery- Imagery, or language that appeals to the senses, allows the reader to
experience what the author is describing. You’ve heard the saying “a picture is worth
a thousand words.” Authors use imagery to convey a mental picture for the reader—
more than they could accomplish with literal words.
6. Symbolism. Symbolism is another way in which writers use language to express
something more than the literal meaning of the words. A symbol is something that
stands for something else. For example, an eagle may symbolize freedom.
7. Conflict. Most plots have a conflict. The conflict is what triggers the action in the
story. Here are some common conflicts in literature:
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8. Point of view. The point of view is the perspective from which a story is told. The
point of view refers to the narrator of a story, poem, or sometimes a drama, and
determines how much he or she knows.
First Person: The events are told by a character in the story using his or her own
words.First-person stories have narrators who use I, me, and my throughout the
story. This sentence is an example of first-person point of view:
“I knew it was risky, but I was willing to take that chance.”
Second Person: The narrator addresses the reader directly using the word you.
This perspective is not as common as either the first- or third-person points of
view. This sentence is an example of second-person point of view:
“You knew it was risky, but you were willing to take that chance.”
Third Person: A speaker outside the action narrates the events using he, she, and
they. The narrator may tell the events from the perspective of one character,
focusing on this character’s thoughts and feelings, or the narrator may see and
know everything, even the thoughts of all the characters. This sentence is an
example of third-person point of view:
“Carol knew it was risky, but she was willing to take the chance.”
9. Mood. Mood in a piece of literature is a feeling or emotion created by the choice of
words, the characters and their actions, and the setting. Some authors create mood by
using imagery. The example below shows how the mood of a story can change by
making a few alterations:
Imagine a group of people in an old, three-story house. The people are whispering
and walking very slowly through the house. They are easily startled. Some are visibly
shaking. The mood created here is one of scary suspense. A reader will wonder what
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has scared the people and may feel some suspense about the events to come.
Now, change the mood by imagining the people talking loudly. They are gesturing at
various rooms in the house and whistling appreciatively. They seem excited about the
old, colored-glass windows. A reader could assume that these people are about to
move into the old house. The mood is no longer scary and suspenseful. It is now light
and optimistic.
10. Tone. The tone of a piece of literature is the attitude the author has toward the
subject he or she is writing about. Tone is reflected in the author’s word choices,
style, and opinions. Some words used to describe tone in literature are ironic, serious,
puzzled, intimate, outraged, and cynical.
Mood is sometimes confused with tone. Mood is created by setting and the actions of
the characters; it is the atmosphere. Mood affects how the reader feels in reading the
story; tone reflects the author’s feelings toward the subject of the story. Tone is
examined in several sections of this study guide.
11. Theme. The theme is the deeper central idea of a text. It refers to a universal
statement about life and/or society that can be discerned from the reading of a text.
The theme of a work is not the same as its main topic, which focuses strictly on the
content. The theme of a literary work is often the meaning you take away from it.
12. Diction- Diction can be defined as style of speaking or writing determined by the choice of words
by a speaker or a writer.
Writers’ skillfully choose words to develop a certain tone (see term #1) and atmosphere in their
works. Read the following excerpt from a short story “The School” by Donald Barthelme:
“And the trees all died. They were orange trees. I don’t know why they died, they just died.
Something wrong with the soil possibly or maybe the stuff we got from the nursery wasn’t the
best. We complained about it. So we’ve got thirty kids there, each kid had his or her own little
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tree to plant and we’ve got these thirty dead trees. All these kids looking at these little brown
sticks, it was depressing.”
The use of the words “died”, “dead”, “brown sticks” and “depressing” gives a gloomy tone to
the passage.
13.Persuasive Techniques:
Appeal to Emotion—appeals to your feelings. Relief organizations often show
pictures of people in very unfortunate situations to move you to donate money. Emotional
appeals should reinforce logical arguments, not replace them.
Here are some examples of Emotional Appeals:
Loaded words: using the connotation of a word. “Neat, attractive school uniforms
promote feelings of mutual respect.”
Glittering generalities: a type of emotional appeal that is so strongly positive, they
“glitter” and make you feel good. Slogans are often glittering generalities. “Schools
uniforms—they’re all American.”
Bandwagon appeals: you should join because everyone else is doing it appeal. “All but
two schools have voted for school uniforms.”
Testimonials: An endorsement by a famous person who is unrelated to the product
(emphasizes glamour, talent, fame). “Michael Jordan agrees that he owes his success in
high school to wearing a school uniform.” “Bill Gates states that if he had worn a school
uniform, he might have actually finished high school.”
Appeal to logic—appeals to reason and evidence to convince you of something. A persuasive
argument is built on opinion and supported by reasons and evidence. Reasons must be backed
up by evidence.
Here are some examples of logical appeals:
Facts & Statistics: numeric data
Expert testimony: statements made by experts in the field
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Logical Reasoning: For example, “People who have used our product have lost weight.
You want to lose weight. If you buy this product, you will lose weight.”
Beware of false logic, however. Just because some people buy a product and lose weight does
not mean the product was responsible. That’s why weight loss ads often warn people that the
results of their models are not typical.
Logical Fallacies are statements that sound logical and factual, but they’re not. Here are some
examples of Logical Fallacies:
Hasty generalization: making a conclusion based on insufficient evidence. “All my
friends prefer uniforms; most tenth-graders would rather wear uniforms than faddish
clothing.” “Boys are smelly.”
Name calling: attacking the person who holds the view rather than the view itself. “Bob
is campaigning for uniforms, but everyone knows what bad judgment he has had in the
past.”
Either/or: describing a situation as if there are only 2 choices when there may be
several. “Either the school board requires students to wear uniforms, or we face
increased violation of dress code.”
False cause & effect: (Faulty analogy) asserting that because Event B followed Event A,
A caused B. “Since he began wearing a uniform, Bob has earned better grades.” “Since
Bush took a vacation in August, he planned the 911 attacks.”
14. Be able to identify these types of Figurative Language:
Simile -A direct comparison between two unlike things, often connected by like,
as, or than
Example: Life is like a box of chocolates.
Metaphor-An implied comparison between two unrelated things
Example: My summer plans had become a box of chocolates melting in
the sun.
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Personification- A figure of speech giving human characteristics to an animal,
thing, idea, or other inanimate object
Example: The box of chocolates called to me from the kitchen.
15. Be able to identify Examples of Nonfiction, including essays, speeches, opinion pieces,
newspaper articles, biographies, autobiographies
16. Foreshadowing and Suspense: Sometimes authors use foreshadowing to help tell a story.
With foreshadowing, the author gives hints of what is to come in the future to help them
understand the story better. SUSPENSE is feeling of curiosity or uncertainty about the outcome
of events in a literary work. An author creates suspense to maintain the attention of his or her
reader. Foreshadowing can create suspense by creating uneasy feelings about what will happen
later in the story.
17. Inference: Ideally, speakers mean what they say and say what they mean. Spoken
communication is not that simple. Much of what we understand—whether when listening or
reading—we understand indirectly, by inference. Listening involves a complex combination of
hearing words, analyzing sentence structure, and attempting to find meaning within the
context of the given situation.
The situation with the written word is no different. A text does not contain a meaning. Readers
constructmeaning by what they take the words to mean and how they process sentences to
find meaning. Readers draw on their knowledge of the language and of conventions of social
communication. They also draw on other factors, such as knowledge of the author (“Would
Henry say such a thing?), the occasion (“No one knew such things then!”), or the audience
(“He’d never admit that publicly.”) They infer unstated meanings based on social conventions,
shared knowledge, shared experience, or shared values. They make sense of remarks by
recognizing implications and drawing conclusions.
Readers read ideas more than words, and infer, rather than find, meaning.
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Inferring Meaning
Consider the following statement:
The Senator admitted owning the gun that killed his wife.
On the face of it, we have a simple statement about what someone said. Our understanding,
however, includes much that is not stated. We find meaning embedded in the words and
phrases. Unpacking that meaning, we can see that the Senator was married and his wife is now
dead—although this is not actually stated as such. (In fact, the sentence is about an admission
of gun ownership.) It is as though the single sentence contains a number of assertions:
•There is a Senator.
•He owns a gun.
•He is married.
•His wife is dead.
•That gun caused her death.
•The Senator admitted owning that gun.
Clearly, the original sentence is a clearer and simpler way of conveying all of this information.
Writers take note!
On a more subtle level, we recognize that a public figure confronts involvement in a major
crime. Our understanding need not stop there. We infer that the gun (or at least a bullet) has
probably been recovered and identified as the murder weapon—or the notion of an admission
would make little sense.
We also recognize the danger of unwarranted inferences. We recognize that we do not
necessarily know if the Senator's admission is true. We do not really know whether the Senator
is in any way responsible for his wife's death, nor do we know that she died of gun shot wounds
(she could have been hit over the head with the gun). We do not even know if it was murder—
it might have been suicide or an accident.
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Are we reading things in here? Or are these meanings truly within the sentence? We are going
beyond that the textsays, but not beyond what it actuallymeansto most readers.
18. Bias
What is Bias?
Good objective writing, research, or reporting always looks at both sides of a controversial
issue. This is not to say that an author should not take a definite side, but a careful author
should always respect and examine the other side’s views. If an author fails to do so, he or she
is said to be biased. Bias refers to a writer’s prejudice for one side of a particular issue. A reader
can identify bias by looking carefully at the following elements of a text:
· Denotative and Connotative Meaning: the denotative meaning of a word is its literal
dictionarydefinition; connotative meaning is the positive or negative implied meaning
associated with a word.
· Tone: the attitudes the author expresses towards opposing viewpoints, as well as towards
sources that support his or her side of the issue.
· Fairness or Intellectual Honesty: the degree to which the author’s claims are supported by
evidence and the way in which the author deals with contradictory evidence.
Sample question:
Which statement does not represent an example of gender bias?
A. American women are better softball players than American men are.
B. In 2004, American women earned more college degrees than American men
earned.
C. American men are better auto mechanics than American women are.
D. In 2004, American men were more dedicated to their work than American women
were.
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19. Author’s Purpose: The author's reason for creating a particular work. Why did the author
write the passage? Was he trying to persuade you? Entertain you? Inform you?
20. Grammar/ Conventions:
A punctuation mark that you may not have used in earlier grades is introduced in grade
9 is the semicolon [;]. This little symbol may seem intimidating, but once you
know how to use it you may find that it comes in handy. Looking at the symbol itself,
you can see that it looks like a period centered over a comma. One way to think of the
semicolon is as a combination of these two other punctuation marks. You can use it when
you need something stronger than a comma but not as strong as a period.
So how does it work? When you have two ideas, each expressed as an independent
clause (a group of words that can stand alone as a sentence), you need to separate those
clauses in some way. One way is to use a period and create two separate sentences, as in
the following example:
Example 1. I am not ready. I will be ready soon.
The example above follows the rules of grammar and punctuation, but it sounds choppy.
Since the second sentence follows up on an idea introduced in the first, different
punctuation could be used to show the connected ideas. One choice is to use a comma
followed by a conjunction:
Example 2. I am not ready, but I will be ready soon.
Another choice is to use just a semicolon:
Example 3. I am not ready; I will be ready soon.
The semicolon in example 3 is a stronger punctuation mark than the comma. It creates
more of a separation between the two ideas, but not as much separation as the period in
example 1 creates.
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When you combine two closely related independent clauses with a semicolon, the result
is called a compound sentence.
Here is another example:
Independent clauses: I am left-handed. My brother is right-handed.
Compound sentence: I am left-handed; my brother is right-handed.
Sentence combining adds variety and interest to your writing, but you must be careful. To
use anything weaker than a semicolon—a comma, a dash, or nothing—is a serious
sentence error.
Compound sentence: I am left-handed; my brother is right-handed.
Comma splice: I am left-handed, my brother is right-handed.
Run-on sentence: I am left-handed my brother is right-handed.
*Also, make sure you know what a sentence fragment is!!! A sentence fragment is only part of
a sentence presented as if it were a complete sentence.
Example of a sentence fragment: If the students all make A’s on their finals, have completed all
their homework, and were wonderful and conscientious to the teacher.
Example of a complete sentence: If the students all make A’s on their finals, have completed all
their homework, and were wonderful and conscientious to the teacher, they will get a party.
Example Practice Questions: Here are some questions that should look familiar to you.
Review these questions in an effort to familiarize yourselves with the types of questions
that you will see on the final exam.
Ivan laid out an evening suit, and Rainsford, as he put it on, noticed that it came from a London
tailor who ordinarily cut and sewed for none below the rank of duke . . .The dining room to
which Ivan conducted him was in many ways remarkable. There was a medieval magnificence
about it; it suggested a baronial hall of feudal times, with it oaken panels, its high ceiling, its
vast refectory table where two-score men could sit down to eat.
1. Based upon the description of the clothing and dining room, what can you infer about the
owner of the house?
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A.
B.
C.
D.
The owner enjoys fancy items and expensive clothing.
The owner enjoys hiding his fancy items and expensive clothing.
The owner is wealthy and has stolen expensive items from people.
The owner is wealthy and has expensive belongings.
He knew it would be insane to blunder on through the dark, even if he had the strength. 1His
need for rest was imperative and he thought: “I have played the fox; now I must play the cat of
the fable.” 2A big tree with a thick trunk and outspread branches was nearby, and taking care to
leave not the slightest mark, he climbed up into the crotch and stretching out on one of the broad
limbs, after a fashion, rested. 3Rest brought him new confidence and almost a feeling of security.
4
Even so zealous a hunter as General Zaroff could not trace him there, he told himself; only the
devil himself could follow that complicated trail through the jungle after dark. But, perhaps, the
general was a devil—
2. Which sentence from the above excerpt is best foreshadows the fact that General Zaroff
will find Rainsford?
A. sentence 1
B. sentence 2
C. sentence 3
D. sentence 4
They came with dawn over that terrain like the leaves and blades of spring.
3. What literary element is used in the above excerpt?
A. Symbolism
B. Simile
C. Personification
D. Metaphor
He seemed to be telling the truth. Not far from us, flames were leaping up from a ditch, gigantic
flames. They were burning something. A lorry drew up at the pit and delivered its load—little
children. Babies! Yes, I saw it – saw it with my own eyes…those children in the flames. (Is it
surprising that I could not sleep after that? Sleep had fled from my eyes.)
from Elie Wiesel’s Night
4. What type of point of view is used in the excerpt from Night?
A. First person
B. Second person
C. Third-person
D. Third-person omniscient
9th Grade Lit
5. Which of the following lines is an example of direct characterization, rather than indirect
characterization?
A. and the moment he got out of Cordelia Street and boarded a downtown car,
he . . . began to live again.
B. Paul bounded upstairs, scrubbed the greasy odor of the dishwater from his
hands, . . . then shook over his fingers a few drops of violet water . . .
C. Paul nervously asked his father whether he could go to George’s to get some help in
his geometry . . .
D. He was not a poor man, but he had a worthy ambition to come up in the world.
He was born a disappointment. He seemed all head, with a tiny body, which was red and
shriveled like an old man’s. Everybody thought he was going to die---everybody except Aunt
Nicey, who had delivered him. She said he would live because he was born in a caul1 and cauls
were made from Jesus’ nightgown.
1.
caul (kawl): membrane (thin, skinlike, material) that sometimes covers a baby’s head at birth.
6. What type of text feature is used in reference to a “caul”?
A. Footnote
B. Graphics
C. Bold print
D. Diagram
It was bad enough having an invalid brother, but having one who possibly was not all there was
unbearable, so I began to make plans to kill him by smothering him with a pillow. However, one
afternoon as I watched him, my head poked between the iron posts of the foot of the bed, he
looked straight at me and grinned. I skipped through the rooms, down the echoing halls,
shouting, “Mama, he smiled. He’s all there! He’s all there!” and he was.
7. The best positive theme of “The Scarlet Ibis” in relation this passage is
A. Our weaknesses make us stronger.
B. The impossible can become possible.
C. Be proud of what you accomplish.
D. Never give up hope because, sometimes, things change for the better.
9th Grade Lit
8. In “The Scarlet Ibis,” the author uses many images of red (vermillion, scarlet, crimson).
How do the images of red impact the reader?
A. The author uses the red to symbolize to the reader that the brothers love each other.
B. The author uses the red to foreshadow to the reader that someone is going to die.
C. The author uses the red to increase the imagery in the story for the reader.
D. The author uses the red to give the reader a focus for reading.
9. Which of these words meaning talk suggests that the talker is not making sense?
A. Speak
B. Inform
C. Babble
D. Argue
To exclude anybody from the events leading up to the election will go against the democratic
process of electing public officials.
10. This statement is an example of a/an_________________
A. Logical Fallacy
B. Emotional Appeal
C. Ethical Appeal
D. Logical Appeal