CLEP Analyzing and Interpreting Literature practice test

Read the excerpt: "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife." The opening sentence of Austen's Pride and Prejudice is best described as which tone?

In Shakespeare's Macbeth, Macbeth says, "Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player / That struts and frets his hour upon the stage / And then is heard no more." This speech most directly expresses Macbeth's sense that life is:

Read the line: "The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew, / The furrow followed free." Which sound device is most prominent in these lines from Coleridge?

Read the excerpt: "Mr. Bounderby was a rich man: banker, merchant, manufacturer, and what not. A big, loud man, with a stare, and a metallic laugh. A man made out of a coarse material." In this passage from Dickens's Hard Times, characterization is achieved primarily through:

Read the lines: "Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, / And sorry I could not travel both / And be one traveler, long I stood." Frost's poem most centrally explores which theme?

Read the line: "The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes." In Eliot's poem about J. Alfred Prufrock, the fog is described using which device?

A narrator says: "Call me Ishmael. Some years ago, never mind how long precisely, having little or no money in my purse, I thought I would sail about." The opening of Melville's Moby-Dick is told from which point of view?

A poem has fourteen lines, is written in iambic pentameter, and follows the rhyme scheme ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. This poem is best identified as which form?

In Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne is forced to wear an embroidered letter A on her dress. The scarlet letter most clearly functions as:

Read the lines: "I have seen the mighty sun / At dawn, lift his golden head, / And spill his light upon the hills." These lines rely most heavily on which type of imagery?

In a play, a character alone on stage speaks his private thoughts aloud so the audience can hear them, while no other characters are present to overhear. This dramatic convention is called a:

Read this line of verse: "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" The metrical pattern of this line consists of five units, each an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. This meter is called:

Read the line: "She walked through the office like a Trojan horse, smiling sweetly while plotting the takeover." The phrase Trojan horse is an example of which device?

In a short story, the protagonist struggles against a powerful blizzard while trying to reach shelter before nightfall. The central conflict of this story is best classified as:

In a story, the reader knows a character is hiding in the closet, but the second character entering the room does not know this and speaks as if alone. This situation is an example of:

Read the excerpt: "The chamber was steeped in a murky, sepulchral gloom that pressed upon the senses like a shroud." The author's word choices, including sepulchral and shroud, contribute most directly to a mood of:

In Sophocles' Antigone, Antigone defies King Creon's edict and buries her brother, declaring her duty to divine law over the king's command. The conflict between these obligations expresses which central theme?

Read the lines: "My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun; / Coral is far more red than her lips' red." In this sonnet, Shakespeare's opening lines are notable because they:

Read the excerpt: "Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, / Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore." The opening of Poe's poem about a raven establishes an atmosphere best described as: