Control of Composition/Writing: Fiction/Drama Practice Test

Read the following original drama excerpt:

A small hospital waiting room. A vending machine hums. On the wall, a clock with no second hand.

DEV (standing, counting the chairs): One, two, three—

LENA (sitting, coat still on): Stop.

DEV: If I keep counting, it doesn’t move.

LENA: Time moves anyway.

DEV (sits, immediately stands again): The doctor said “soon.”

LENA: Doctors say “soon” the way people say “someday.”

(DEV presses the vending machine buttons without inserting money. The machine blinks “SELECT.”)

DEV: I can’t—

LENA: Don’t break it.

DEV (soft): I already broke something.

(LENA looks at him, then at the clock. She reaches into her pocket and pulls out two coins, places them on the armrest between them, not in his hand.)

LENA: If you’re going to do something, do that.

DEV (doesn’t take the coins): I don’t deserve to.

(LENA slides the coins closer to him with one finger. They scrape.)

Which choice best explains how the playwright’s compositional choices (especially the clock “with no second hand” and the repeated, thwarted actions) develop the scene’s central tension?

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In the following original drama excerpt, a tenant speaks with her landlord in the building lobby as a storm begins outside. The playwright uses controlled repetition and a narrowing of physical space to intensify conflict.

LOBBY. A glass door rattles in the wind. A wet umbrella stand leans.

NINA: The ceiling drips.

MR. KLINE: It’s an old building.

NINA: The ceiling drips on my bed.

MR. KLINE: You can move the bed.

NINA: I did.

MR. KLINE: Then it’s not on your bed.

(NINA takes one step closer. MR. KLINE does not move. The rattling door grows louder.)

NINA: The ceiling drips on my life.

MR. KLINE: (Smiles as if correcting a child.) That’s not a maintenance term.

NINA: What’s the term for “you knew.”

MR. KLINE: (Finally looks at the clipboard.) The term is “reported.”

(NINA reaches for the clipboard. MR. KLINE turns it so she can’t.)

Which choice best analyzes how the playwright’s compositional control—through repetition and staging—builds the scene’s argument?