Test your basic knowledge |

Praxis Middle School Language Arts

Subjects : praxis, english
Instructions:
  • Answer 50 questions in 15 minutes.
  • If you are not ready to take this test, you can study here.
  • Match each statement with the correct term.
  • Don't refresh. All questions and answers are randomly picked and ordered every time you load a test.

This is a study tool. The 3 wrong answers for each question are randomly chosen from answers to other questions. So, you might find at times the answers obvious, but you will see it re-enforces your understanding as you take the test each time.
1. A short poem - often written by an anonymous author - comprised of short verses intended to be sung or recited.






2. A word which can be used instead of a noun. Ex instead of saying John is a student - the ____ he can be used in place of the noun John and the sentence becomes He is a student.






3. The study of the orgin of words






4. The purpose of a particular action differs greatly from the result






5. ' U






6. Informal language used by a particular group of people among themselves.






7. A kind of adjective which is always used with and gives some information about a noun. There are only two _____ a and the.






8. A word which names a person - place or thing. Ex. boy - river - friend - Mexico - triangle - day - school - truth - university - idea - John F. Kennedy - movie






9. Also known as a run - on line in poetry - _____ occurs when one line ends and continues onto the next line to complete meaning. For example the first line in Thoreau's poem 'My life has been the poem I would have writ -' and the second line completes






10. A philosophy that values human freedom and personal responsibility. A few well known _______ writers are Jean - Paul Satre - Soren Kierkegaard ('the father of _______') - Albert Camus - Freidrich Nietzche - Franz Kafka - and Simone de Beauvoir.






11. The writer says one thing and means another






12. The perspective from which a story is told.






13. A story about a person's life written by another person.






14. The structure of a work of literature; the sequence of events.






15. A person or thing working against the hero of a literary work (the protagonist).






16. How the author uses words - phrases - and sentences to form ideas.






17. The main character or hero of a written work.






18. A method an author uses to let readers know more about the characters and their personal traits.






19. A short narrative - usually between 50 and 100 pages long. Examples include George Orwell's Animal Farm and Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis.






20. A metric line of poetry. Its name is based on the kind and number of feet composing it ('foot').






21. A word which shows relationships among other words in the sentence. The relationships include direction - place - time - cause - manner and amount Ex. In the sentence He came by bus - 'by' is a _____ which shows manner.






22. Narrative fiction that is set in some earlier time and often contains historically authentic people - places - or events






23. The outcome or resolution of plot in a story.






24. An extended fictional prose narrative.






25. A humorous verse form of five anapestic (Composed of feet that are short - short - long or unaccented - unaccented - accented) lines with rhyme scheme of aabba.






26. A narrative technique in which the main story is composed primarily for the purpose of organizing a set of shorter stories - each of which is a story within a story. Examples include Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales - Ovid's Metamorphoses - and Em






27. The time and place in which the action of a story takes place.






28. A literacy device in which the author jumps back in time in the chronology of narrative.






29. The multiple use of a word - phrase - or idea for emphasis or rhythmic effect.






30. The flaw that leads to the downfall of a tragic hero; this term comes from the Greek word hybris - which means 'excessive pride.'






31. A text or performance that imitates and mocks an author or work.






32. The study of the meaning in language.






33. A figure of speech in which exaggeration is used for emphasis or effect - as in I could sleep for a year or this book weighs a ton.






34. Rhyme that occurs within a line of verse.






35. A brief fictional prose narrative. Examples include Shirley Jackson's 'The Lottery -' Washington Irving's 'Rip van Winkle' D.H. Lawrence's 'The Horse Dealer's Daughter -' Arthur Conan Doyle's 'Hound of the Baskervilles -' and Dorothy Parker's 'Big Bl






36. Language that shows disrespect for others or something sacred.






37. U '






38. A short poem about personal feelings and emotions.






39. A literary device in which animals - ideas - and things are represented as having human traits.






40. The analysis of how sounds function in a language or dialect.






41. A division of poetry named for the number of lines it contains...Couplet: Two - lines - Triplet: Three - lines - Quatrain: Four - lines - Quintet: Five - lines - Sestet: Six- lines - Septet: Seven - lines - Octave: Eight - lines.






42. Fiction that is intended to frighten - unsettle - or scare the reader. Often overlaps with fantasy and science fiction. Examples include Stephen King's The Shining - Mary Shelley's Frankenstein - and Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes.






43. The time and place in which a story occurs.






44. The most specific or direct meaning of a word - in contrast to its figurative or associated meanings.






45. A word which describes or gives more information about a noun or pronoun. Ex. The lazy dog sat on the rug - the word lazy is an ____ which gives more information about the noun dog.






46. A repetition of the same sound in words close to one another






47. Literature that makes fun of social conventions or conditions - usually to evoke change.






48. A pair of lines of poetic verse written in iambic pentameter.






49. The study of the sounds of language and their physical properties.






50. A type of pun - or play on words - that results when two words become mixed up in the speaker's mind