SAT II Literature : SAT Subject Test in Literature
Study concepts, example questions & explanations for SAT II Literature
All SAT II Literature Resources
Example Questions
Example Question #4 : Support And Evidence: Drama
PROLOGUE.
Now, luck yet sends us, and a little wit
Will serve to make our play hit;
(According to the palates of the season)
Here is rhime, not empty of reason.
… thus much I can give you as a token (5)
Of his play's worth, no eggs are broken,
… The laws of time, place, persons he observeth,
From no needful rule he swerveth.
All gall and copperas from his ink he draineth,
Only a little salt remaineth, (10)
Wherewith he'll rub your cheeks, till red, with laughter,
They shall look fresh a week after.
(1606)
Based on context, what is meant by “From no needful rule he swerveth” (line 8)?
The playwright observes all dramatic conventions
The playwright’s characters abandon all decorum
The playwright is a law-abiding citizen
The playwright sees no need to avoid his critics
The playwright’s characters are law-abiding citizens
The playwright observes all dramatic conventions
Based on context, we can determine that the “rules” in question are dramatic conventions followed by all playwrights. Claiming that he does not swerve from these dramatic conventions means that he observes them all dutifully.
Passage adapted from Ben Jonson’s Volpone (1606)
Example Question #5 : Support And Evidence: Drama
PROLOGUE.
Now, luck yet sends us, and a little wit
Will serve to make our play hit;
(According to the palates of the season)
Here is rhime, not empty of reason.
… thus much I can give you as a token (5)
Of his play's worth, no eggs are broken,
… The laws of time, place, persons he observeth,
From no needful rule he swerveth.
All gall and copperas from his ink he draineth,
Only a little salt remaineth, (10)
Wherewith he'll rub your cheeks, till red, with laughter,
They shall look fresh a week after.
(1606)
What is the main function of this prologue?
To provide a disclaimer and avoid upsetting the audience
To criticize the play’s numerous flaws
To entice the audience to see the play
To favorably compare this play with competing productions
To provide historical context for a future reader
To entice the audience to see the play
Although a side effect of this passage may be that it is favorably compared to a worse play, the author’s main purpose here is to praise his own play. By enumerating its positive qualities, the playwright is hoping to persuade audiences to see the play.
Passage adapted from Ben Jonson’s Volpone (1606)
Example Question #751 : Sat Subject Test In Literature
TROILUS: Peace, you ungracious clamours! peace, rude sounds!
Fools on both sides! Helen must needs be fair,
When with your blood you daily paint her thus.
I cannot fight upon this argument;
It is too starved a subject for my sword. (5)
How does the speaker prove that Helen is beautiful?
Through the use of imperative voice
By emphasizing her “starved,” emaciated frame
Through the use of litotes, intentional understatement
By juxtaposing her beauty with martial diction
By observing that only great beauty could cause such fighting
By observing that only great beauty could cause such fighting
In lines 2-3, we see the speaker explicitly state that “Helen must needs be fair, / When with your blood you daily paint her thus.” In other words, she would not inspire such violence if she was not truly beautiful. None of the other choices apply.
Passage adapted from William Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida (1602).
Example Question #31 : Support And Evidence
MERCUTIO:
O, then, I see Queen Mab hath been with you.
She is the fairies' midwife, and she comes
In shape no bigger than an agate-stone
On the fore-finger of an alderman,
Drawn with a team of little atomies (5)
Athwart men's noses as they lie asleep…
And in this state she gallops night by night
Through lover's brains, and then they dream of love;
O'er courtiers' knees, that dream on court'sies straight;
O'er lawyers' fingers, who straight dream on fees… (10)
Sometime she gallops o'er a courtier's nose,
And then dreams he of smelling out a suit…
(1597)
According to the passage, what is Queen Mab’s main activity?
Influencing political and economic policies through dreams
Inspiring sleeping professionals to greater ambitions
Bringing pleasant dreams to sleeping people
Interrupting the dreams of sleeping lovers
Bringing nightmares to unpleasant professionals
Bringing pleasant dreams to sleeping people
Based on lines 6-12, we see that Queen Mab’s dreams are specialized according to the dreamer. Each person mentioned dreams of something relevant to and pleasing for him/her. These dreams aren’t interrupted or nightmarish for the sleepers; instead, they’re pleasant.
Passage adapted from William Shakespeare’s Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet (1597)
Example Question #2 : Claims And Argument
Adapted from Richard III by William Shakespeare, I.i.1-42
Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this sun of York;
And all the clouds that lour'd upon our house
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.
Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths;
Our bruised arms hung up for monuments;
Our stern alarums changed to merry meetings,
Our dreadful marches to delightful measures.
Grim-visaged war hath smooth'd his wrinkled front;
And now, instead of mounting barded steeds
To fright the souls of fearful adversaries,
He capers nimbly in a lady's chamber
To the lascivious pleasing of a lute.
But I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks,
Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass;
I, that am rudely stamp'd, and want love's majesty
To strut before a wanton ambling nymph;
I, that am curtail'd of this fair proportion,
Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,
Deformed, unfinish'd, sent before my time
Into this breathing world, scarce half made up,
And that so lamely and unfashionable
That dogs bark at me as I halt by them;
Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace,
Have no delight to pass away the time,
Unless to spy my shadow in the sun
And descant on mine own deformity:
And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover,
To entertain these fair well-spoken days,
I am determined to prove a villain
And hate the idle pleasures of these days.
Plots have I laid, inductions dangerous,
By drunken prophecies, libels and dreams,
To set my brother Clarence and the king
In deadly hate the one against the other:
And if King Edward be as true and just
As I am subtle, false and treacherous,
This day should Clarence closely be mew'd up,
About a prophecy, which says that 'G'
Of Edward's heirs the murderer shall be.
Dive, thoughts, down to my soul: here
Clarence comes.
Which of the following, according to the speaker, is part of the reason why dogs bark at him?
He often goes hunting and smells of fresh meat.
He hates animals.
He has numerous large scars from battle.
He doesn’t have proper hygiene.
He was born prematurely.
He was born prematurely.
Regarding why the dogs bark at him, the speaker says,
“I, that am curtail'd of this fair proportion,
Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,
Deformed, unfinish'd, sent before my time
Into this breathing world, scarce half made up,
And that so lamely and unfashionable
That dogs bark at me as I halt by them . . .”
From this part of the passage, we can tell that the dogs bark at the speaker because of his appearance, making part of the reason why dogs bark at him “He was born prematurely,” as the speaker identifies this of the cause of his “deformed” appearance.
Example Question #252 : Content
HAMLET: … What would he do,
Had he the motive and the cue for passion
That I have? He would drown the stage with tears
And cleave the general ear with horrid speech,
Make mad the guilty and appal the free,(5)
Confound the ignorant, and amaze indeed
The very faculties of eyes and ears. Yet I,
A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak,
Like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause,
And can say nothing. No, not for a king, (10)
Upon whose property and most dear life
A damned defeat was made. Am I a coward?
Who calls me villain?
In this passage, to whom is Hamlet comparing himself?
Has more of a claim to vengeance than Hamlet
Has accused Hamlet of being a coward
Has a more active response to being wronged than Hamlet
Has implored Hamlet to say nothing about the “damned defeat” (line 12)
Has been accused by Hamlet of being a villain
Has a more active response to being wronged than Hamlet
In this passage, Hamlet describes his own passive response to being wronged: “unpregnant of my cause, / [I] can say nothing” (lines 9-10). He contrasts this response with a more dramatic response: “He would drown the stage with tears / And cleave the general ear with horrid speech, / Make mad the guilty and appal the free” (lines 3-5).
Passage adapted from William Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Hamlet Prince of Denmark. (1603)
Example Question #752 : Sat Subject Test In Literature
1 Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
2 Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
3 Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
4 And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:
5 Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
6 And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;
7 And every fair from fair sometime declines,
8 By chance, or nature’s changing course untrimm’d;
9 But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
10 Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,
11 Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
12 When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st;
13 So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
14 So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
To what does "this" (line 14) refer?
The speaker's beloved
The poem
The speaker's love for his or her beloved
The speaker's heart
The sun
The poem
"this" in line 14 refers to the poem: the "eternal lines," mentioned earlier in line 12.
Example Question #31 : Literary Analysis Of British Poetry To 1660
1 If but some vengeful god would call to me
2 From up the sky, and laugh: "Thou suffering thing,
3 Know that thy sorrow is my ecstasy,
4 That thy love's loss is my hate's profiting!"
5 Then would I bear it, clench myself, and die,
6 Steeled by the sense of ire unmerited;
7 Half-eased in that a Powerfuller than I
8 Had willed and meted me the tears I shed.
9 But not so. How arrives it joy lies slain,
10 And why unblooms the best hope ever sown?
11 —Crass Casualty obstructs the sun and rain,
12 And dicing Time for gladness casts a moan. . . .
13 These purblind Doomsters had as readily strown
14 Blisses about my pilgrimage as pain.
(1898)
In line 7, the speaker mentions "a Powerfuler than I" (line 7). To whom is this referring?
"Time" (line 12)
the speaker's "love" (line 4)
"Doomsters" (line 13)
"Casualty" (line 11)
"some . . . god" (line 1)
"some . . . god" (line 1)
In line 7, the speaker is referring to a god when he mentions "a Powerfuler than I." The first two stanzas emphasize that the speaker would "bear it" (line 5) to know if "some vengeful god" (line 1) "had willed and meted me the tears I shed" (line 8). If a god has "willed and meted" the speaker's tears, then that god is "Powerfuller" (line 7).
(Passage adapted from "Hap" by Thomas Hardy)
Example Question #1 : Grammar And Syntax
1 They are not long, the weeping and the laughter,
2 Love and desire and hate:
3 I think they have no portion in us after
4 We pass the gate.
5 They are not long, the days of wine and roses:
6 Out of a misty dream
7 Our path emerges for a while, then closes
8 Within a dream.
(1896)
What is the subject of the verb "closes" (line 7)?
"Our" (line 7)
"path" (line 7)
"dream" (line 6)
"roses" (line 5)
"dream" (line 8)
"path" (line 7)
The subject of a verb is the thing that performs the action of the verb. For example: In the sentence, "The dog barks," "dog" is the subject of the verb "barks."
In line 7, "path" is the thing that performs the action of the verb "closes," so it is the subject of that verb. In the same line, "path" is also the subject of the verb "emerges."
Passage adapted from "They are not long" by Ernest Dowson (1896)
Example Question #1 : Form, Structure, Grammar, And Syntax
In the desert
I saw a creature, naked, bestial,
Who, squatting upon the ground,
Held his heart in his hands,
And ate of it. (5)
I said, “Is it good, friend?”
“It is bitter—bitter,” he answered;
“But I like it
“Because it is bitter,
“And because it is my heart.” (10)
(1895)
What type of sentence is the first sentence in this passage (lines 1-5)?
None of these
Periodic
Paratactic
Telegraphic
Interrogatory
Periodic
A periodic sentence is one in which the main clause and important idea comes at the end, which is the case here. Telegraphic sentence refers to any concise sentence (usually five or fewer words in length) that omits unnecessary words and parts of speech. Parataxis or paratactic sentences are ones in which short, simple clauses are placed beside each other without subordination (e.g. “I am late; I overslept”). Interrogatory sentences are simply questions.
Passage adapted from Stephen Crane’s “In the Desert” (1895)
All SAT II Literature Resources
