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 stanza made up of two rhyming lines.






2. 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.






3. A break in the rhythm of language - particularly a natural pause in a in a line of verse - maked in prosody by a double vertical line ( || ). Ex. Arma virumque cano - || Troiae qui primus ab oris .






4. A narrative about human actions that is perceived by both the teller and the listeners to have taken place within human history and that possesses certain qualities that give the tale the appearance of truth or reality. Washington Irvin's The Legend






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






6. The use of a word or phrase to mean the exact opposite of its literal or expected meaning. There are three types....Dramatic - Verbal - Situation.






7. Rhyme that occurs within a line of verse.






8. Specialized language used in a particular field or content area






9. Two or more words in sequence that form a syntactic unit that is less than a complete sentence.






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






11. A fourteen - line poem - usually written in iambic pentameter - with a varied rhyme scheme. Two main types are Petrarchan (or Italian) and the Shakespearean (or English). A Petrarchan opens with an octave that states a proposition and ends with a ses






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






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






14. A short poem - often written by an anonymous author - comprised of short verses intended to be sung or recited.






15. A word which shows action or state of being. Ex. In the sentence The dog bit the man - bit is the ____.






16. Literature - often drama - ending in a catastrophic event for the protagonist(s) after he or she faces several problems or conflicts.






17. A short story or folktale that contains a moral - which may be expressed explicitly at the end as a maxim. Examples include The Country Mouse and the Town Mouse - The Tortoise and the Hare - and The Wolf in Sheep's Clothing.






18. Opposing elements or characters in a plot.






19. A person's account of his or hew own life.






20. An extended fictional prose narrative.






21. A turn from the general audience to address a specific group of persons (or a personified abstraction) who is present of absent. For example - in a recent performance of Shakespeare's Hamlet - Hamlet turned to the audience and spoke directly to one w






22. A genre that uses magic and other supernatural forms as a primary element of plot - theme - and/or setting. Examples include J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings - C.S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia - and William Morris' The Well at the World's E






23. 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.






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






25. A contradictory statement that makes sense






26. The study of the structure of words.






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






28. The study of the meaning in language.






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






30. A variation of a language used by people who live in a particular geographical area.






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






32. Repetition of the final consonant sound in words containing different vowels






33. A lesson a work of literature is teaching.






34. A variety of a language used by people from a particular geographic area.






35. 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.






36. The overall feeling created by an author's use of words.






37. U U '






38. A narrative form - such as an epic - legend - myth - song - poem - or fable - that has been retold within a culture for generations. Examples include The People Couldn't Fly retold by Virginia Hamilton and And Green Grass Grew All Around by Alvin Sch






39. The use of sound words to suggest meaning - as in buzz - click - or vroom.






40. The set of associations implied by a word in addition to its literal meaning.






41. A wise saying - usually short and written.






42. The story is told by someone outside the story.






43. 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.






44. The role of context in the interpretation of meaning.






45. Expressions that are usually accepted in informal situations or regions - such as 'wicked awesome.'






46. A type of Japanese poem that is written in 17 syllables with three lines of five - seven - and five syllables - respectively. Expresses a single thought.






47. A metrical ______ is defined as one stressed syllable and a number of unstressed syllables (from zero to as many as four). Stressed syllables are indicated by the ? symbol. Unstressed syllables are indicated by the ? symbol. There are four possible t






48. The regular or random occurrence of sound in poetry.






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






50. A variation of a language used by people who live in a particular geographical area.