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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 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.






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






3. The act or an example of substituting a mild - indirect - or vague term for one considered harsh - blunt - or offensive.






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






5. The narrator records the actions from his or her point of view - unaware of any of the other characters' thoughts or feelings. Also known as the objective view.






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






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






8. 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






9. 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






10. The study of the meaning in language.






11. An author's choice of words based on their clearness - conciseness - effectiveness - and authenticity.






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






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






14. The study of the structure of words.






15. The study of the structure of sentences.






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






17. A poem that is a mournful lament for the dead. Examples include William Shakespeare's 'Eligy' from Cymbeline - Robert Louis Stevenson's 'Requiem -' and Alfred Lord Tennysone's 'In Memoriam.'






18. A person who opposes or competes with the main character (protagonist); often the villain in the story.






19. A person or being in a narrative






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






21. The telling of a story.






22. 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 .






23. The use of words to create pictures in the reader's mind.






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






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






26. An expository piece written with eloquence that becomes part of the recognized literature of an era. Often reveal historical facts - the social mores of the times - and the thoughts and personality of the author. Some have recorded and influenced the






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






28. 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.






29. Language widely considered crude - disgusting - and oftentimes offensive.






30. 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.






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






32. 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.






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. 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






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. The outcome or resolution of plot in a story.






37. The specialized language of a particular group or culture. Ex. in the field of education...rubric - tuning protocol - and deskilling.






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






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 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.






41. 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






42. A phrase that consists of two contradictory terms






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






44. 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.






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






46. A long narrative poem detailing a hero's deeds. Examples include The Aenied by Vergil - The Illiad and The Odyssey by Homer - Beowulf - Don Quixote by Miguel Cervantes - War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy - Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - and Hiawath






47. Opposing elements or characters in a plot.






48. 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.






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






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