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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 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






2. The perspective from which a story is told.






3. Opposing elements or characters in a plot.






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






5. A wise saying - usually short and written.






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






7. A group of words containing a subject and a predicate and forming part of a compound or complex sentence.






8. A socially accepted word or phrase used to replace unacceptable language - such as expressions for bodily functions or body parts. Also used as substitutes for straightforward words to tactfully conceal or falsify meaning. Ex. My grandmother passed a






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






10. Old - fashioned words that are no longer used in common speech - such as thee - thy - and thou.






11. 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






12. The repetition of a line or phrase of a poem at regular intervals - particularly at the end of each stanza.






13. 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.






14. 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






15. 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






16. 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.






17. U '






18. A novel comprised of idealized events far removed from everyday life. This genre includes the subgenres of gothic ____ and medieval ____. Examples include Mary Shelly's Frankenstein - William Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida - and King Horn (anonym






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






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






21. The study of the meaning in language.






22. 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






23. A word that connects other words or groups of words. Ex. In the sentence Bob and Dan are friends - the _____ 'and' connects two nouns and in the sentence.






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






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






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






27. 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






28. U U '






29. A figure of speech in which a comparison is implied but not stated - such as 'This winter is a bear.'






30. A contradictory statement that makes sense






31. 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






32. The story is told from the point of view of one character.






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






34. Rhyming of the ends of lines of verse.






35. 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.






36. A story in which people (or things or actions) represent an idea or a generalization about life. Usually have a strong lesson or moral.






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






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






39. 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






40. A phrase that consists of two contradictory terms






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






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






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






44. An extended fictional prose narrative.






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






46. 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






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






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






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






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