← SHSAT

Reading Poetry on a Test

The one text type most students have never answered a multiple-choice question about: lines, breaks, stanzas, images, figures, speaker, tone and sound.

10 topics · 38 questions

Each topic is a path, not a menu: work down it in order and every question builds on the one above. Click any of them to watch the answer draw itself.

The Line as a Unit of Meaning

  1. How it worksHow does a line of verse act as a unit of meaning that a line of a paragraph never does?
  2. Worked exampleWalk me through what 'I never said / I would stay' does that 'I never said I would stay' cannot.
  3. Common mistakeWhy isn't every line of a poem a complete thought just because it sits alone on its own row?
  4. Going furtherWhat changes when a poet drops one long line in after five very short ones?
Your turneasy1 of 3
Compare the two versions. A. I never said I would stay 15 years. B. I never said I would stay 15 years. What does version A do that version B cannot?

Line Breaks and Enjambment

  1. How it worksHow does a phrase running past the end of a line drag its meaning into the next line with it?
  2. Common mistakeWhy isn't a break at the end of a line the same kind of pause as a comma or a period?
  3. Worked exampleWalk me through both readings of 'the door was open / to anyone who knocked', line by line then whole.
  4. Going furtherWhat happens to a poem's pace when every single line ends exactly where its sentence ends?
Your turneasy1 of 3
Read the lines. For 29 years the door was open to anyone who knocked. What does reading line by line, then as a whole, reveal?

Stanzas and How a Poem Is Built

  1. How it worksHow does each stanza take one turn, so a poem's shape is readable before you read a word of it?
  2. Worked exampleWalk me through a four stanza poem where three stanzas describe a drought and the last describes rain.
  3. Going furtherWhat changes about reading a poem that has no stanza breaks anywhere in it?
Your turneasy1 of 3
Read the poem. The well went down 221 feet and came up dry. The corn stood to the knee and stopped. My father read the sky each night the way a man reads a bill he cannot pay. Then in October it rained for three days and nobody went outside to watch. What does the stanza structure do?

Imagery

  1. How it worksHow do concrete details aimed at the senses assemble a picture the poem never states outright?
  2. Worked exampleWalk me through what 'the kettle ticking as it cooled' tells you about the hour and the room.
  3. Common mistakeWhy isn't imagery only about the things you could see in a photograph?
  4. Going furtherWhat happens to an image when the poet brings it back at the end in a colder setting?
Your turneasy1 of 3
Read the line. The kettle ticking as it cooled, and the 6 chairs pushed back. What does the line tell you?

Simile and Metaphor

  1. How it worksHow does a metaphor lay one picture over another so that only their shared qualities light up?
  2. Worked exampleWalk me through exactly what carries over in 'her voice was a low door you had to duck through.'
  3. Going furtherWhat changes when a poet keeps a single metaphor running through an entire poem?
  4. Common mistakeWhy isn't a figure of speech decoration you could delete without losing any meaning?
Your turneasy1 of 3
Read the line. Her voice was a low door you had to duck through, and she said the same 9 words every evening. What carries over from the door to the voice?

Personification

  1. How it worksHow does one human verb attached to an object hand that object a whole personality?
  2. Worked exampleWalk me through what 'the city held its breath' claims about a place that has no lungs.
  3. Common mistakeWhy isn't every comparison involving a person an example of personification?
Your turneasy1 of 3
Read the line. For 15 minutes the city held its breath, and then the sirens started. What does the line claim?

The Speaker and the Poet

  1. How it worksHow does a poet build a speaker with an age, a voice and a mood that are not the poet's own?
  2. Common mistakeWhy isn't a grieving poem proof that the writer was grieving on the day it was written?
  3. Worked exampleWalk me through who is talking in a poem where 'I' is eight years old in a grandmother's kitchen.
  4. Going furtherWhat changes about a poem when the speaker turns out to be an animal or an object?
Your turneasy1 of 3
Read the poem. I am 9 and the kitchen is too high for me. My grandmother hands down the flour tin and says the word for it in a language I will not learn until she is gone. Who is talking?

Tone in a Poem

  1. How it worksHow do a handful of word choices set the attitude of an entire poem?
  2. Worked exampleWalk me through the tone of 'the good china came out, and nobody ate' using only its word choices.
  3. Common mistakeWhy isn't the tone of a poem the same thing as the mood the poem leaves you in?
  4. Going furtherWhat happens to tone when a poem turns against itself in the final two lines?
Your turneasy1 of 3
Read the lines. The good china came out, all 30 pieces, and nobody ate. What is the tone?

Repetition, Rhyme and Sound

  1. How it worksHow does a repeated word collect new meaning each time the poem circles back to it?
  2. How it worksHow do beat and rhyme make a rhythm strip you can see, with the stressed syllables as tall bars?
  3. Worked exampleWalk me through what changes when 'and still the river rose' closes three stanzas in a row.
  4. Going furtherWhat happens to a rhyme scheme when the last rhyme you were set up to expect never arrives?
Your turneasy1 of 3
A poem of 7 stanzas closes three of them with the line 'and still the river rose'. What changes across the three appearances?

Why a Poetry Question Is Not a Prose Question

  1. How it worksHow does central idea become a poem's whole gesture rather than a sentence you can put a finger on?
  2. Worked exampleWalk me through answering what the words convey in a poem, where the evidence is an image and a break.
  3. Common mistakeWhy isn't there a topic sentence waiting in a poem no matter how carefully you hunt for one?
  4. Ties togetherHow do the scope circles that work on an article change shape when the text is a fourteen line poem?
Your turneasy1 of 3
A student hunts a 20 line poem for a topic sentence and cannot find one. Why not?