Part B: Reading Comprehension

Alliteration

The occurrence of the same letter or sound at the beginning of adjacent or closely connected words.

Allusion

An expression designed to call something to mind without mentioning it explicitly; an indirect reference.

Attitude

How an author or character feels about something in a novel.

Caption

A short piece of text placed under or beside a picture that describes it or explains what is happening.

Cliché

An overused phrase or element that has lost its originality, impact, and meaning.

Comparison

A consideration or estimate of the similarities or dissimilarities between two things or people.

Contrast

The state of being strikingly different from something; a juxtaposition.

Context

The circumstances surrounding events, ideas, and statements, allowing for full understanding and assessment.

Elaboration

The process of selecting and integrating details that support, explain, illustrate, and/or develop ideas.

Ellipsis

The narrative device of omitting a portion of the sequence of events, allowing the reader to fill in narrative gaps.

Hyperbole

An extreme exaggeration specifically for literary or rhetorical effect.

Imagery

Visual description or description through figurative language.

Implies

Suggests the truth or existence of something not expressly stated.

Irony

The expression of meaning by using language that normally signifies the opposite.

Metaphor

A figure of speech that describes an object in a way that is not literally true, without using like or as.

Parenthetical

A phrase that is not essential to the rest of the sentence but adds crucial information.

Personification

The attribution of personal nature to nonhuman objects, representing human traits in nonhuman things.

Playwright

A writer of plays.

Rhetorical question

A question asked to make a point, rather than to elicit an answer.

Shift

A literary device in which tone or mood in a piece changes to define characters or events.

Speaker

The perspective from which a narrative is told.

Stage direction

A non-spoken text that describes movement or actions on stage.

Tension

The sense that something ominous is imminent.

Theme

The central idea around which a piece of literature is focused.

Tone

The narrator’s attitude as conveyed by their specific word choice.

Voice

The author's opinion or attitude expressed in the piece.