My Pre-Test Rocks!

In order for students to meet with success on the following learning target, pre-requisite knowledge of some basic literary devices must be determined: Students evaluate the author’s use of specific literary devices to convey the theme of the work.

Accordingly, this pretest consists of 15 short answer items—between 12 and 25 were recommended in the text—that requires such knowledge of literary terms, including allusion, characterization, figurative language, foreshadowing, irony, setting, symbolism, and theme, that students can readily define them or identify examples in a section of text.

Questions 1-8 require you to fill in the blank with the literary term being described or defined.

1. Because each of these employs language where the intended meaning differs from the literal meaning of the words themselves, metaphor, simile and hyperbole are all examples of _____________________.

2. _____________________ employs language where the intended meaning differs so entirely from the literal meaning that is somehow absurd or mocking in its opposition.

3. Hints regarding future events in the story, called _____________________, should be suggested subtly by the author.

4. When concrete objects are used to embody or convey abstract ideas, the author is employing _____________________.

5. The _____________________ of a literary work or other piece of art should not be stated in a single word or phrase but meaningfully in a full sentence or more that conveys the author’s main ideas on a topic or concept of fundamental importance.

6. It is important to recognize that time as well as place must be accounted for when describing the _____________________ of a book.

7. Authors use _____________________ when they make reference to or otherwise represent another work of art or familiar person, event or place.

8. _____________________ is the process by which authors inform their readers of the personality, life history, values, physical attributes, choices and behaviors of each person in the text.

Questions 9-15 require you to identify the literary term being employed in each numbered sentence.

9. Jimmy was a typical adolescent, torn between the realms of childhood and adulthood.
_____________________

10. I remember that summer we spent in Alabama distinctly because not a day went by that you couldn’t fry an egg on the pavement.
_____________________

11. It was a classic tale of Cain and Able.
_____________________

12. “Me and Jenny was like peas and carrots again.”
_____________________

13. When we broke up, I smashed that locket he gave me into about a million pieces.
_____________________

14. My friend has very liberal political views and she said that George W. Bush is a really “bright” guy.
_____________________

15. I knew as soon as lightning struck the tree we planted that nothing again would ever be the same.
_____________________