English Grade 10 AP Exam Review Flashcards

Flashcards for English Grade 10 AP Exam Review focusing on vocabulary from the provided lecture notes.

Mood (Atmosphere)

Overall feeling/emotional atmosphere that the reader experiences (e.g., eerie, joyful, tense). Created through setting, imagery, & word choice.

Tone

Author's attitude toward the subject, characters, audience. Can be sarcastic, hopeful, angry, etc.

Main Conflict

Central struggle between opposing forces in the story, which drives the plot. It can be internal (within a character) or external (between characters or against society/nature/etc.)

Setting (Contemporary)

Time and place in which the story occurs. Contemporary means the story is set in the present or modern-day era.

Character Development

Process by which a character changes or grows throughout the story, often as a result of the conflict or events in the plot.

Themes

Main ideas or underlying messages of the story. Often universal, such as love, justice, freedom, or identity.

Turning Point

Moment of major change or shift in the direction of the story, often where the main character faces a crucial decision or event (also called the climax).

Moral

Lesson or message the story conveys about life or human nature—often found in fables, parables, or stories with strong ethical messages.

Resolution of Main Conflict

Part of the story where the main conflict is resolved, whether through success, failure, compromise, or understanding.

Symbols

Objects, characters, or events that represent larger ideas or concepts (e.g., a dove symbolizing peace). Can be universal or contextual.

Metaphor

Direct comparison between two unlike things without using “like” or “as.” Example: “Time is a thief.”

Irony

Contrast between expectation & reality, including verbal irony (saying the opposite of what is meant), situational irony (an unexpected outcome), and dramatic irony (the audience knows something the characters do not).

Inciting incident

Event that sparks the main conflict & gets the story moving.

Rising action

Series of events that build tension & develop the conflict, leading up to the turning point/climax.

Turning point

Most intense/dramatic moment, conflict reaches its peak.

Falling action

Events that happen after the turning point, leading toward the resolution.

Alliteration

Used by poets for special effect; the use of several words in a line with the same initial letter or sound. E.g: “of the forest’s ferny floor”

Assonance

Kinda a rhyme, usually when 2 words with the same vowel sound but different constants are placed in the rhyming position E.g: feel, sleet / eye, hide.

Connotation

Associative meaning of a word not its dictionary meaning. E.g: black may symbolize death or a dark mood.

Couplet

Usually composed of 2 successive rhyming lines that have the same metre E.g: Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.

Denotation

Specific meaning of a word (literal) E.g: black refers to the colour black.

Figurative Language

Imaginative use of words to imply more than their literal meaning (metaphor, simile, etc).

Simile

Comparison using the word(s) like or a, highlights similarity between the two E.g: “dead as doornail”.

Metaphor

Compares 2 different things E.g: He was a beast.

Personification

Attributing human qualities to inanimate objects/ abstract ideas E.g: “opportunity knocked at the door”.

Foot (iamb)

Word of group of words that form a unit of metre, usually of two syllables, containing an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable E.g: “be-LONG”.

Form

Organization of the material of a poem, rhythm, theme mood, imagery. Sometimes the term is used to refer specifically to a verse from.

Free Verse

Verse that lacks regular metre, rhyme, line length or stanzaic pattern.

Hyperbole

Compares 2 objects through exaggeration E.g: “I almost died laughing”.

Iambic

Foot of verse with 1 unstressed syllable followed by one stressed usually it is indicated by marks E.g: Japan.

Imagery

Sensory content of a poem, that which involves the reader's senses – sight, tough, etc. E.g: The entire city was blanketed in fog.

Irony

Use of words to suggest a meaning opposite to what is stated. (Sarcasm is a term under this umbrella) E.g: The teacher failed the test.

Metre

Pattern of stressed & unstressed syllables. Described in therms that indicate the nature & number of feet.

Omotopeia

A copy of a sound E.g: hiss, moan, gurgle.

Rhyme

Repetition of similar sounds in the ending of words E.g: lark & mark.

Rhythm

Pattern created by the movement of accented & unaccented syllables.

Stanza

Unit of lines of poetry, can be compared to the paragraph in prose.

Symbol

Object by the poet to suggest many deeper levels of meaning beyond the usual way E.g: lighthouse = beacon of hope.

Theme

Central idea usually expressed as abstract noun E.g: the loss of cultural identity, love, hope.

Tone

Writer’s attitude to subject or reader E.g: morose, optimistic.

Trochee

Foot of verse with 1 stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable E.g: Table → Emphasis must be on 1st syllable to make sense.

Allegory

Story, poem, picture that can be interpreted to reveal a hidden message/meaning (usually a moral or political one) Eg: Animal Farm.

Aphorism

Brief & witty statement that conveys a general truth or insightful observation Eg: “actions speak louder than words”.

Asyndeton

Conjunctions like “and, or, but” are omitted from a list to create a faster pace Eg: “I came, I saw, I conquered”.

Ballad

Narrates a story in short stanzas, recount of a tragic, comic or heroic story with emphasis on a central dramatic event, also could be a story of love.

Elegy

Poems with serious reflections, typically a passionate expression for those who passed away.

Enjambment

Sentence or phrase that runs onto the next line without pause or ending punctuation, creates a sense of flow or urgency.

Epic Verse

Lengthy narratives which focus on the retelling of the heroic deeds of an extraordinary person or group of people.

Eulogy

Speech of writing that praises someone or something highly, typically someone who has just died.

Haiku

Traditional Japanese 3 line poem with a 5-7 syllable structure.

Homonym

Each of 2 or more words having the same spelling or pronunciation but different meaning and origins Eg: right, write / see, sea.

Inversion

International reordering of words to deviate from the standard stance structure. Eg: “Fair is foul, and foul is fair”.

Justaxposition

Placing contrasting elements, ideas, or images side-by-side to highlight their differences or create a new meaning Eg: “Love’s not time’s fool”.

Lampoon

Literature that uses humour to harshly criticize someone or something Eg: "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."

Pastoral

A literary genre that romanticizes rural life, often featuring shepherds, natural landscapes, and idealized views of the countryside.

Sonnet

14-line poem, typically written in iambic pentameter, with a specific rhyme scheme.

Litotes

Ironic understatement in which an affirmative is expressed by a negative of its contrary Eg: "you won't be sorry, meaning you'll be glad "

Mood

Refers to the overall atmosphere or emotional feeling the poem evokes in the reader.

Motif

Recurring theme, symbol, image, or idea that appears throughout a work to reinforce a central meaning or theme.

Ode

A lyric poem, often ceremonial, that praises or celebrates a person, place, thing, or idea.

Omniscient

A poem where the narrator has complete knowledge of the story, characters, and events.

Pun

Uses wordplay to create multiple interpretations within a poem; can be found in various types of poetry, including nonsense verse and limericks.

Quatrain

A stanza (a group of lines) consisting of four lines, known for their flexibility in rhyme schemes and meter.

Satire

Uses humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to criticize or mock human mistakes and societal shortcomings.

Synesthesia

Where one sense is described in terms of another. Eg: Yellow cocktail music.

Independent Clause

Complete sentence that has a subject & verb, expresses complete thought. Ex: She went to the store.

Dependent Clause

Has a subject & verb but does not express a complete thought. Ex. Because she was hungry….

Simple Sentence

1 independent clause. Ex. She reads every day

Compound Sentence

2 independent clauses, joined by a conjunction (NOTE: Remember FANBOYS: for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so). Ex: She reads every day, and writes in her journal.

Complex Sentence

1 independent clause + 1 or more dependent clause(s). Ex: Although she was tired, she still finished her book.

Compound-Complex Sentence

2 or more independent clauses + 1 or more dependent clauses. Ex: Although she was tired, she finished her book, and she wrote a review.

Simple Past

Completed action in the past. Ex. She left at noon.

Past Perfect

An action that happened before another in the past. Ex. She had left before I arrived.

Zero Conditional

Used for universal truths/ facts that are always true. If + present simple, present simple → If you heat ice, it melts.

1st Conditional

Used for realistic future possibilities. If + present simple, will + base verb. If it rains tomorrow, we will cancel the trip.

2nd Conditional

Used for imaginary/unlikely situations in the present or future. If + past simple, would + base verb. If I won the lottery, I would travel around the world.

3rd Conditional

Used for unreal/hypothetical situations in the past. If + past perfect, would have + past participle. If I had studied harder, I would have passed the test.

Noun

Word that names a person, place, thing or idea. Can be concrete or abstract. Can be proper form.

Pronouns

Word that takes the place of a noun. Can be the subject or the object.

Articles

Words that introduce nouns. Can be indefinite or definite.

Adjectives

Words that describe nouns or pronouns. Used to answer the questions: What kind, which one, how many/much.

Verbs

Words that express action or a state of being.

Adverbs

Words that modify verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs, and often end in -ly, but not always. Used to answer the questions How? When? Where? Why?

Conjunctions

Words that join words, phrases, or clauses.

Prepositions

Words that show relationships (place, time, direction) and begin prepositional phrases. Form phrases with nouns/pronouns.

Verbals

Verbs used as nouns (gerunds), adjectives (participles), or to express actions/intentions (infinitives).