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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 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.






2. 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.






3. U U '






4. Distinctive features of a person's speech and speech patterns.






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






6. The study of the meaning in language.






7. 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






8. A suspenseful story that deals with a puzzling crime. Examples include Edgar Allan Poe's 'The Murder in Rue Morgue' and Charles Dickens' The Mystery of Edwin Drood.






9. The repetition of initial consonant sounds in words - such a 'Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.'






10. An expression that has been used so often that it loses its expressive power






11. 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 .






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






13. The feeling a text evokes in the reader - such as sadness - tranquility - or elation.






14. 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






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






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






17. Language that is intended to be evasive or to conceal. Ex. 'downsized' actually means fired or loss of job.






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






19. 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.






20. Meter that is composed of feet that are short - short - long or unaccented - unaccented - accented - usually used in light or whimsical poetry - such as limerick.






21. A verb form that usually ends in - ing or - ed.






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






23. The study of the orgin of words






24. 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






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






26. A brief story that illustrates or makes a point.






27. A category of literature defined by its style - form - and content.






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






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






30. Narrative fiction that involves gods and heroes or has a theme that expresses a culture's ideology. Examples of Greek ______ include Zeus and the Olympians and The Trojan War. Roman ______ include Hercules - Apollo - and Venus.






31. 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






32. 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.






33. 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.






34. A person or being in a narrative






35. A novel set in the western U.S. featuring the experiences of cowboys and frontiersmen. Examples include Zane Grey's Riders of the Purple Sage and Trail Driver - Larry McMurty's Lonesome Dove - Conrad Richter's The Sea of Grass - Fran Striker's The Lo






36. 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.






37. 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.






38. A narrative that is made up of fantastic characters and creatures - such as witches - goblins - and fairies - and usually begins with the phrase 'Once upon a time...' Examples include Rapunzel - Cinderella - Sleeping Beauty - and Little Red Riding Ho






39. The perspective from which the story is told - four choices: first person; 3rd person (dramatic - objective); 3rd person omniscient; 3rd person limited omniscient.






40. 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






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






42. A document organized in paragraph form that can be long or short and can be in the form of a letter - dialogue - or discussion. Examples include Politics and the English Language by George Orwell - The American Scholar by Ralph Waldo Emerson - and Mo






43. 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






44. A word that gives more information about a noun or pronoun. Ex. Sue runs very fast - very describes the ____ fast and gives information about how fast Sue runs.






45. Deals with current or future development of technological advances. Examples are Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse - Five - George Orwell's 1984 - Aldous Huxley's Brave New World - and Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451.






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






47. Verse that contains an irregular metrical pattern and line length; also known as vers libre.






48. A lesson a work of literature is teaching.






49. A comparison of objects or ideas that appear to be different but are alike in some important way.






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