10 HONORS SECOND SEMESTER EXAM REVIEW

FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE
PERSONIFICATION
SIMILE/ METAPHOR
HYPERBOLE, ALLUSION
IMAGERY
SOUND EFFECTS
END RHYME
ONOMATOPOEIA
MOOD, TONE
ASSONANCE, CONSONANCE
FORMS OF POEMS
SONNET,
BALLAD, CINQUIAN
EPIC, FREE VERSE
LITERARY TERMS
IRONY
Dramatic
Situational
Verbal
INFERENCE
FORESHADOWING
FLASHBACK
FOIL FOR CHARACTER / Because I Could Not Stop for Death
Dickinson
Because I could not stop for Death –
He kindly stopped for me –
The Carriage held but just Ourselves –
And Immortality.
We slowly drove – He knew no haste (5)
And I had put away
My labor and my leisure too,
For His Civility –
We passed the School, where Children strove
At Recess – in the Ring – (10)
We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain –
We passed the Setting Sun –
Or rather – He passed us –
The Dews drew quivering and chill –
For only Gossamer, my Gown – (15)
My Tippet – only Tulle –
We paused before a House that seemed
A Swelling of the Ground –
The Roof was scarcely visible –
The Cornice – in the Ground – (20)
Since then – 'tis Centuries – and yet
Feels shorter than the Day
I first surmised the Horses' Heads
Were toward Eternity –
-Dickinson / Yet Do I Marvel
Countee Cullen
I doubt not God is good, well-meaning, kind,
And did He stoop to quibble could tell why
The little buried mole continues blind,
Why flesh that mirrors Him must some day die,
Make plain the reason tortured Tantalus (5)
Is baited by the fickle fruit, declare
If merely brute caprice dooms Sisyphus
To struggle up a never-ending stair.
Inscrutable His ways are, and immune
To catechism by a mind too strewn (10)
With petty cares to slightly understand
What awful brain compels His awful hand.
Yet do I marvel at this curious thing:
To make a poet black, and bid him sing!
The second semester exam is administered in two parts, essay and multiple choice. Each part is worth 50% of your exam grade.
Your exam is worth 20% of your final grade for the semester.
For the essay, you will write about the literature of the past semester. We studied the following: The Inferno, Of Mice and Men (1st and 5th), Authors of the Enlightenment (3rd), All Quiet on the Western Front, Paths of Glory, and Lord of the Flies. Your assignment will be a prompt related to a theme found in all titles. You will have 60 minutes to write the essay.
For the multiple choice exam, you will be asked to read and respond to 2 poems, 2 prose passages, and 1 pamphlet. There will be 23 questions related to those items.
There will be an additional 12 questions based on composing essays.
You must know the terms in the first column. Use the definitions found at links on my website.
The two poems are similar to the poems on the test. (THEY ARE NOT THE POEMS ON THE TEST). We will review these in class.

“Because I Could Not Stop For Death”

1. What personification does Dickinson begin in the first stanza? How is this thing made to seem human? Cite lines from the poem.

2. How does the speaker seem to feel about giving up her life? What proof from the poem can you offer?

3. In the third stanza, the word “passed” is used three times. What three things do they pass?

4. Notice the order of the things they pass. What might each symbolically represent?

5. In the fourth stanza, Dickinson changes her mind and says that “He passed Us.” Why might this be significant? What could it represent?

6. In the fourth stanza, the carriage seems to have completely passed life by. What does Dickinson use to describe the coldness of death? Cite lines.

7. In the fifth stanza, they “paused before a House that seemed/A swelling of the Ground.” What is this house? Why does Dickinson use the term “house” for it? What effect does it have?

8. Why does Dickinson change from using the past tense to using the word “feels” in the last stanza?

9. Carefully read and evaluate the final stanza. How does the vision of death here and in the rest of the poem contrast with the traditional Christian view of death and the afterlife?

10. Some critics believe that the poem shows death kindly escorting the speaker to some sort of paradise. Others believe that death comes in the form of a deceiver, carrying her off to destruction. Which do you believe? Why? Offer proof from the poem to back up your belief.

11. Why is immortality in the carriage?

“Yet Do I Marvel”

1.  What is the form of this poem?

2.  What are the two allusions to Greek mythology?

3.  Give an example of alliteration from the poem.

4.  Give an example of assonance.

5.  Give an example of rhyme.

6.  What does the speaker have no doubt of?

7.  What does that mean?

8.  What could God explain in line 3?

9.  What could he explain in line 4?

10.  What does it mean to be inscrutable?

11.  What is inscrutable to man?

12.  According to the speaker, God’s mind is ‘too strewn with petty cares to slightly understand” what?

13.  What does this mean?

14.  Finally, what does he most marvel at or wonder about?

15.  Why is this appropriate for Countee Cullen, a black poet?