Cambridge Secondary Stage 9 English Olympiad Preparation Flashcards

A set of vocabulary flashcards reviewing key terms, literary devices, grammar structures, and higher-order thinking skills derived from Cambridge Secondary Stage 9 English Olympiad guidelines.

Narrative Tenses

The advanced combination of Past Simple, Past Continuous, and Past Perfect used within a single story or extended text.

Relative Clauses

Clauses introduced by relative pronouns (who, which, whose, where, whom), categorized into defining and non-defining clauses where punctuation is crucial.

Connectors

Advanced conjunctions and transition words showing contrast, cause and effect, or concession, followed by either a full clause or a noun phrase.

Metaphor

A figure of speech involving a direct comparison between two things without using 'like' or 'as'.

Simile

A figure of speech that compares two things using the words 'like' or 'as'.

Personification

A figure of speech in which inanimate objects are given human traits, qualities, or abilities.

Hyperbole

Exaggerated statements or claims used to create a dramatic effect.

Oxymoron

A literary device that combines two words with contradictory meanings together, such as 'deafening silence'.

Pragmatic Distinction

The ability to understand the hidden social function or intent behind spoken dialogue rather than just the literal sentence meaning.

Register

The degree of formality in language, categorized into formal (academic/professional), semi-formal, and informal (slang/casual conversation).

Sentence Unscrambling

A higher-order thinking exercise that tests complex sentence structure by identifying the main Subject, Finite Verb, conjunctions/relative pronouns, and modifiers.

Idiomatic Prepositions

Fixed prepositional combinations (e.g., interested in, capable of, accustomed to, differ from, oblivious to) that must be paired correctly.

Multi-Error Analysis

An advanced error-recognition task involving complex sentences divided into parts to identify multiple errors in subject-verb agreement, tenses, diction, or parallel structure.