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Test your basic knowledge |
CLEP Literary Techniques
Start Test
Study First
Subjects
:
clep
,
literature
Instructions:
Answer 22 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. The liberty that authors sometimes take with ordinary rules of syntax and grammar - employing unusual vocabulary - metrical devices - or figures of speech or committing factual errors in order to strengthen a passage of writing.
Poetic license
Invocation
In medias rest
Caricature
2. A prayer for inspiration to a god or muse usually placed at the beginning of an epic. Homer's Iliad and Odyssey both open with this.
Foreshadowing
Invocation
Melodrama
Wit
3. The use of a statement that - by its context - implies its opposite. For example - in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar - Antony repeats - 'Brutus is an honorable man -' while clearly implying that Brutus is dishonorable.
Allusion
Cosmic irony
Verbal irony
Bathos
4. Greek for 'God from a machine.' The phrase originally referred to a technique in ancient tragedy in which a mechanical god was lowered onto the stage to intervene and solve the play's problems or bring the play to a satisfactory conclusion. Now - the
Deus ex machina
Situational irony
Invocation
In medias rest
5. An author's persistent reminding of his or her presence in the work. By drawing attention to the artifice of the work - the author ensures that the reader or audience will maintain critical detachment and not simply accept the writing at face value.
Allusion
Parallelism
Romantic irony
Verbal irony
6. The perception of fate or the universe as malicious or indifferent to human suffering - which creates a painful contrast between our purposeful activity and its ultimate meaninglessness.
Cosmic irony
Anagnorisis
Invocation
Poetic license
7. The use of sentimentality - gushing emotion - or sensational action or plot twists to provoke audience or reader response.
Parallelism
Melodrama
Dramatic irony
Romantic irony
8. A wide-ranging technique of detachment that draws awareness to the discrepancy between words and their meanings - between expectation and fulfillment - or - most generally - between what is and what seems to be.
Anagnorisis
Irony
Allusion
Foreshadowing
9. A sudden and unexpected drop from the lofty to the trivial or excessively sentimental. It is sometimes used intentionally - to create humor - but just as often is derided as miscalculation or poor judgment on a writer's part. An example from Alexande
Romantic irony
Dramatic irony
Parallelism
Bathos
10. From the Greek word for 'feeling -' the quality in a work of literature that evokes high emotion - most commonly sorrow - pity - or compassion.
Pathos
Bathos
Situational irony
Cosmic irony
11. A description or characterization that exaggerates or distorts a character's prominent features - usually to elicit mockery.
Allusion
In medias rest
Caricature
Dramatic irony
12. A moment of recognition or discovery - primarily used in reference to Greek tragedy. For example - in Euripides' The Bacchae - Agave experiences it when she discovers that she has murdered her own son - Pentheus.
Melodrama
Anagnorisis
Cosmic irony
Pathos
13. Similarities between elements in a narrative (such as two characters or two plot lines). For instance - in Shakespeare's King Lear - both Lear and Gloucester suffer at the hands of their own children because they are blind to which of their children
Melodrama
Invocation
Parallelism
Pathos
14. An implicit reference within a literary work to a historical or literary person - place - or event.
Invocation
Epiphany
Allusion
Dramatic irony
15. A technique in which one understanding of a situation stands in sharp contrast to another - usually more prevalent - understanding of the same situation.
Irony
Situational irony
Anagnorisis
Dramatic irony
16. A record of a character's thoughts - unmediated by a narrator.
Invocation
Interior monologue
Wit
Melodrama
17. The use of specific types of words - phrases - or literary structures that are not common in contemporary speech or prose.
Dramatic irony
Parallelism
Poetic diction
Anagnorisis
18. A sudden - powerful - and often spiritual or life changing realization that a character reaches in an otherwise ordinary or everyday moment.
Epiphany
Situational irony
In medias rest
Wit
19. Latin for 'in the middle of things.' The term refers to the technique of starting a narrative in the middle of the action. For example - John Milton's Paradise Lost - which concerns the war among the angels in Heaven - opens after the fallen angels a
Pathos
Caricature
Cosmic irony
In medias rest
20. An author's deliberate use of hints or suggestions to give a preview of events or themes that do not develop until later in the narrative.
Bathos
Verbal irony
Foreshadowing
Melodrama
21. A technique in which the author lets the audience or reader in on a character's situation while the character himself remains in the dark. One example is in Sophocles' Oedipus Rex - when Oedipus vows to discover his father's murderer - not knowing -
Invocation
Melodrama
Dramatic irony
Verbal irony
22. A form of wordplay that displays cleverness or ingenuity with language.
Irony
Dramatic irony
Wit
Poetic diction