SAT Literature: Grammar And Syntax

This is an MCQ-quiz for SAT Literature, which include questions on Grammar And Syntax.

Start Quiz

1 Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? 2 Thou art more lovely and more temperate: 3 Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, 4 And summer’s lease hath all too short a date: 5 Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, 6 And often is his gold complexion dimm’d; 7 And every fair from fair sometime declines, 8 By chance, or nature’s changing course untrimm’d; 9 But thy eternal summer shall not fade, 10 Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st, 11 Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade, 12 When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st; 13 So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, 14 So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. To what does "this" (line 14) refer?

The speaker's love for his or her beloved The speaker's beloved The speaker's heart The poem The sun

In the desert I saw a creature, naked, bestial, Who, squatting upon the ground, Held his heart in his hands, And ate of it. (5) I said, “Is it good, friend?” “It is bitter—bitter,” he answered; “But I like it “Because it is bitter, “And because it is my heart.” (10) (1895) What type of sentence is the first sentence in this passage (lines 1-5)?

Telegraphic Periodic None of these Paratactic Interrogatory

Sprung rhythm Pathetic verse Free verse Bathetic verse Blank verse

Hope is the thing with feathers That perches in the soul, And sings the tune without the words, And never stops at all, And sweetest in the gale is heard; (5) And sore must be the storm That could abash the little bird That kept so many warm. I"ve heard it in the chillest land, And on the strangest sea; (10) Yet, never, in extremity, It asked a crumb of me. (1886) In the majority of this passage’s lines, what is the poetic meter?

Iambic tetrameter Spondaic tetrameter Spondaic trimeter Iambic trimeter Spondaic blank verse

Adapted from "The Mouse’s Petition" in Poems by Anna Letitia Barbauld (1773) Found in the trap where he had been confined all night by Dr. Priestley, for the sake of making experiments with different kinds of air “To spare the humbled, and to tame in war the proud.” - Virgil OH! hear a pensive captive"s prayer,For liberty that sighs;And never let thine heart be shutAgainst the prisoner"s cries. For here forlorn and sad I sit, Within the wiry grate;And tremble at th" approaching morn, Which brings impending fate. If e"er thy breast with freedom glow"d,And spurn"d a tyrant"s chain,Let not thy strong oppressive forceA free-born mouse detain.Oh! do not stain with guiltless bloodThy hospitable hearth;Nor triumph that thy wiles betray"dA prize so little worth.The scatter"d gleanings of a feastMy scanty meals supply;But if thine unrelenting heartThat slender boon deny, The cheerful light, the vital air,Are blessings widely given;Let nature"s commoners enjoyThe common gifts of heaven.The well-taught philosophic mindTo all compassion gives;Casts round the world an equal eye,And feels for all that lives.If mind, as ancient sages taught,A never dying flame,Still shifts thro" matter"s varying forms,In every form the same,Beware, lest in the worm you crushA brother"s soul you find;And tremble lest thy luckless handDislodge a kindred mind. Or, if this transient gleam of dayBe all of life we share,Let pity plead within thy breast,That little all to spare.So may thy hospitable boardWith health and peace be crown"d;And every charm of heartfelt easeBeneath thy roof be found.So when unseen destruction lurks,Which men like mice may share,May some kind angel clear thy path,And break the hidden snare. In context, the use of the bolded and underlined word "trembled" serves what purpose?

To illustrate the moral and religious confusion the speaker feels in a changing and dangerous world with a physical manifestation of that mental state To illustrate the speaker's fear of his captor's wrath To illustrate the unease and sadness the speaker feels in captivity with a physical manifestation of that mental state To illustrate the excitement the speaker feels at being released from his captivity with a physical manifestation of that mental state To illustrate the physically uncomfortable circumstances of the speaker's captivity

Passage adapted from Edna St. Vincent Millay"s "Spring" (1921). To what purpose, April, do you return again? Beauty is not enough. You can no longer quiet me with the redness Of leaves opening stickily. I know what I know. 5 The sun is hot on my neck as I observe The spikes of the crocus. The smell of the earth is good. It is apparent that there is no death. But what does that signify? 10 Not only under the ground are the brains of men Eaten by maggots. Life in itself Is nothing, An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs. 15 It is not enough that yearly, down this hill, April Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers. The word "You" in line 3 refers to __________.

the month of April death the impersonal you beauty a person named April

Adapted from “Solitary Death, make me thine own” in Underneath the Bough: A Book of Verses by Michael Field (pseudonym of Katherine Bradley and Edith Cooper) (1893) Solitary Death, make me thine own, And let us wander the bare fields together; Yea, thou and I alone Roving in unembittered unison forever. I will not harry thy treasure-graves, I do not ask thy still hands a lover; My heart within me craves To travel till we twain Time’s wilderness discover. To sojourn with thee my soul was bred, And I, the courtly sights of life refusing, To the wide shadows fled, And mused upon thee often as I fell a-musing. Escaped from chaos, thy mother Night, In her maiden breast a burthen that awed her, By cavern waters white Drew thee her first-born, her unfathered off-spring toward her. On dewey plats, near twilight dingle, She oft, to still thee from men’s sobs and curses In thine ears a-tingle, Pours her cool charms, her weird, reviving chaunt rehearses. Though mortals menace thee or elude, And from thy confines break in swift transgression. Thou for thyself art sued Of me, I claim thy cloudy purlieus my possession. To a long freshwater, where the sea Stirs the silver flux of the reeds and willows, Come thou, and beckon me To lie in the lull of the sand-sequestered billows: Then take the life I have called my own And to the liquid universe deliver; Loosening my spirit’s zone, Wrap round me as thy limbs the wind, the light, the river. In context, the use of the underlined and bolded phrase “have called” in the last stanza serves which of the following purposes?

In reference to “this life,” the “have called my own” construction suggests that the speaker is not ready to die, and actively resents death’s power to override his or her will. The use of “have called” in reference to “this life” suggests that the speaker is, in fact, dead, and that the poem is addressed from beyond the grave. The use of “have called” in reference to “this life” reveals that the speaker is actually speaking on behalf of Death, not to it. This revelation functions as the climax of the poem. The use of “have called” suggests that the speaker has been deceptive in the past, and alerts the reader, for the first time, that the speaker may be unreliable in his or her statements. In reference to “this life,” the “have called my own” construction suggests that the speaker’s sense of a rigid, personally defined self is illusory in the face a fluid and “liquid universe.”

Adapted from "The Mouse’s Petition" in Poems by Anna Letitia Barbauld (1773) Found in the trap where he had been confined all night by Dr. Priestley, for the sake of making experiments with different kinds of air “To spare the humbled, and to tame in war the proud.” - Virgil OH! hear a pensive captive"s prayer,For liberty that sighs;And never let thine heart be shutAgainst the prisoner"s cries. For here forlorn and sad I sit, Within the wiry grate;And tremble at th" approaching morn, Which brings impending fate. If e"er thy breast with freedom glow"d,And spurn"d a tyrant"s chain,Let not thy strong oppressive forceA free-born mouse detain.Oh! do not stain with guiltless bloodThy hospitable hearth;Nor triumph that thy wiles betray"dA prize so little worth.The scatter"d gleanings of a feastMy scanty meals supply;But if thine unrelenting heartThat slender boon deny, The cheerful light, the vital air,Are blessings widely given;Let nature"s commoners enjoyThe common gifts of heaven.The well-taught philosophic mindTo all compassion gives;Casts round the world an equal eye,And feels for all that lives.If mind, as ancient sages taught,A never dying flame,Still shifts thro" matter"s varying forms,In every form the same,Beware, lest in the worm you crushA brother"s soul you find;And tremble lest thy luckless handDislodge a kindred mind. Or, if this transient gleam of dayBe all of life we share,Let pity plead within thy breast,That little all to spare.So may thy hospitable boardWith health and peace be crown"d;And every charm of heartfelt easeBeneath thy roof be found.So when unseen destruction lurks,Which men like mice may share,May some kind angel clear thy path,And break the hidden snare. The underlined excerpt is framed as a conditional for what rhetorical purpose?

The conditional is used to relate the addressee's personal sense of freedom and justice to the conditions he is imposing on the speaker. The conditional is used to contrast the addressee's physical comfort and security with the physical conditions of the speaker. The conditional is used to suggest that the speaker has never valued freedom and has always behaved in an oppressive and tyrannical manner. The conditional is used to relate the addressee's personal sense of freedom and justice to the condition of human prisoners. The conditional is used to frame the excerpt as an ultimatum: if the speaker wishes to remain free, he must free the speaker.

1   If but some vengeful god would call to me
2   From up the sky, and laugh: "Thou suffering thing,
3   Know that thy sorrow is my ecstasy,
4   That thy love"s loss is my hate"s profiting!"

5   Then would I bear it, clench myself, and die,
6   Steeled by the sense of ire unmerited;
7   Half-eased in that a Powerfuller than I
8   Had willed and meted me the tears I shed.

9   But not so.   How arrives it joy lies slain,
10 And why unblooms the best hope ever sown?
11 —Crass Casualty obstructs the sun and rain,
12 And dicing Time for gladness casts a moan. . . .
13 These purblind Doomsters had as readily strown
14 Blisses about my pilgrimage as pain.

(1898)

In line 7, the speaker mentions "a Powerfuler than I" (line 7). To whom is this referring?

"Time" (line 12)

the speaker's "love" (line 4)

"Casualty" (line 11)

"some . . . god" (line 1)

"Doomsters" (line 13)

1 They are not long, the weeping and the laughter,
2 Love and desire and hate:
3 I think they have no portion in us after
4 We pass the gate.

5 They are not long, the days of wine and roses:
6 Out of a misty dream
7 Our path emerges for a while, then closes
8 Within a dream.
(1896)

What is the subject of the verb "closes" (line 7)?

"path" (line 7)

"dream" (line 6)

"Our" (line 7)

"roses" (line 5)

"dream" (line 8)

Quiz/Test Summary

Title: SAT Literature: Grammar And Syntax

Questions: 10

Contributed by: