SAT II Literature : SAT Subject Test in Literature
Study concepts, example questions & explanations for SAT II Literature
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Example Questions
Example Question #1 : 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 is this passage’s meter?
Pathetic verse
Free verse
Bathetic verse
Blank verse
Sprung rhythm
Free verse
The lines do not have a set number of syllables nor any pattern of stressed and unstressed beats, so we can deduce that this is free verse. Blank verse is lines of unrhymed iambic pentameter, and sprung rhythm is a pattern designed to mimic the cadences of natural spoken speech. Pathos and bathos are both rhetorical strategies, not types of poetic meter.
Passage adapted from Stephen Crane’s “In the Desert” (1895)
Example Question #2 : Form, Structure, Grammar, And Syntax
Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,
And sweetest in the gale is heard; (5)
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.
I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea; (10)
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.
(1886)
In the majority of this passage’s lines, what is the poetic meter?
Iambic trimeter
Spondaic blank verse
Iambic tetrameter
Spondaic tetrameter
Spondaic trimeter
Iambic trimeter
A few of these lines are indeed written in iambic tetrameter. However, most are in iambic trimeter – a pattern of three pairs of syllables. These syllables alternate in an unstressed-stressed rhythm, as with all iambs.
Passage adapted from Emily Dickinson’s “Hope is the Thing With Feathers” (1886)
Example Question #1 : Grammar And Syntax: Poetry
Adapted from "The Mouse’s Petition" in Poems by Anna Letitia Barbauld (1773)
Found in the trap where he had been confined all night by Dr. Priestley, for the sake of making experiments with different kinds of air
“To spare the humbled, and to tame in war the proud.” - Virgil
OH! hear a pensive captive's prayer,
For liberty that sighs;
And never let thine heart be shut
Against the prisoner's cries.
For here forlorn and sad I sit,
Within the wiry grate;
And tremble at th' approaching morn,
Which brings impending fate.
If e'er thy breast with freedom glow'd,
And spurn'd a tyrant's chain,
Let not thy strong oppressive force
A free-born mouse detain.
Oh! do not stain with guiltless blood
Thy hospitable hearth;
Nor triumph that thy wiles betray'd
A prize so little worth.
The scatter'd gleanings of a feast
My scanty meals supply;
But if thine unrelenting heart
That slender boon deny,
The cheerful light, the vital air,
Are blessings widely given;
Let nature's commoners enjoy
The common gifts of heaven.
The well-taught philosophic mind
To all compassion gives;
Casts round the world an equal eye,
And feels for all that lives.
If mind, as ancient sages taught,
A never dying flame,
Still shifts thro' matter's varying forms,
In every form the same,
Beware, lest in the worm you crush
A brother's soul you find;
And tremble lest thy luckless hand
Dislodge a kindred mind.
Or, if this transient gleam of day
Be all of life we share,
Let pity plead within thy breast,
That little all to spare.
So may thy hospitable board
With health and peace be crown'd;
And every charm of heartfelt ease
Beneath thy roof be found.
So when unseen destruction lurks,
Which men like mice may share,
May some kind angel clear thy path,
And break the hidden snare.
In context, the use of the bolded and underlined word "trembled" serves what purpose?
To illustrate the physically uncomfortable circumstances of the speaker's captivity
To illustrate the moral and religious confusion the speaker feels in a changing and dangerous world with a physical manifestation of that mental state
To illustrate the unease and sadness the speaker feels in captivity with a physical manifestation of that mental state
To illustrate the speaker's fear of his captor's wrath
To illustrate the excitement the speaker feels at being released from his captivity with a physical manifestation of that mental state
To illustrate the unease and sadness the speaker feels in captivity with a physical manifestation of that mental state
In this context, the word "trembled" was chosen to illustrate the unease and sadness that captivity has engendered in the speaker with a physical manifestation of that mental state. The earlier reference to the speaker's sitting "forlorn and sad" in captivity ties directly with the statement that he "tremble[s] at th' approaching morn."
There is no indication given that the speaker is physically afraid of his captor (indeed, his petition is quite candid to this captor). The poem consists of the speaker petitioning for his release, so it stands to reason that this release has not yet been agreed to. The speaker does not seem morally or theologically confused, but is rather presenting a fairly cohesive moral viewpoint. While the speaker's physical circumstances in captivity are said to be uncomfortable, in this case the "trembl[ing] is attributed to mental states, rather than physical coldness or discomfort.
Example Question #3 : Form, Structure, Grammar, And Syntax
Adapted from "The Mouse’s Petition" in Poems by Anna Letitia Barbauld (1773)
Found in the trap where he had been confined all night by Dr. Priestley, for the sake of making experiments with different kinds of air
“To spare the humbled, and to tame in war the proud.” - Virgil
OH! hear a pensive captive's prayer,
For liberty that sighs;
And never let thine heart be shut
Against the prisoner's cries.
For here forlorn and sad I sit,
Within the wiry grate;
And tremble at th' approaching morn,
Which brings impending fate.
If e'er thy breast with freedom glow'd,
And spurn'd a tyrant's chain,
Let not thy strong oppressive force
A free-born mouse detain.
Oh! do not stain with guiltless blood
Thy hospitable hearth;
Nor triumph that thy wiles betray'd
A prize so little worth.
The scatter'd gleanings of a feast
My scanty meals supply;
But if thine unrelenting heart
That slender boon deny,
The cheerful light, the vital air,
Are blessings widely given;
Let nature's commoners enjoy
The common gifts of heaven.
The well-taught philosophic mind
To all compassion gives;
Casts round the world an equal eye,
And feels for all that lives.
If mind, as ancient sages taught,
A never dying flame,
Still shifts thro' matter's varying forms,
In every form the same,
Beware, lest in the worm you crush
A brother's soul you find;
And tremble lest thy luckless hand
Dislodge a kindred mind.
Or, if this transient gleam of day
Be all of life we share,
Let pity plead within thy breast,
That little all to spare.
So may thy hospitable board
With health and peace be crown'd;
And every charm of heartfelt ease
Beneath thy roof be found.
So when unseen destruction lurks,
Which men like mice may share,
May some kind angel clear thy path,
And break the hidden snare.
The underlined excerpt is framed as a conditional for what rhetorical purpose?
The conditional is used to suggest that the speaker has never valued freedom and has always behaved in an oppressive and tyrannical manner.
The conditional is used to relate the addressee's personal sense of freedom and justice to the conditions he is imposing on the speaker.
The conditional is used to relate the addressee's personal sense of freedom and justice to the condition of human prisoners.
The conditional is used to contrast the addressee's physical comfort and security with the physical conditions of the speaker.
The conditional is used to frame the excerpt as an ultimatum: if the speaker wishes to remain free, he must free the speaker.
The conditional is used to relate the addressee's personal sense of freedom and justice to the conditions he is imposing on the speaker.
The highlighted excerpt is framed as a conditional (accomplished through the use of "if" at the beginning of the stanza) in order to relate the addressee's personal sense of freedom ("thy breast with freedom glowed") and justice ("spurn'd a tyrant's chain") to the conditions he is imposing ("thy strong oppressive force") on the speaker by "detain[ing]" him.
The excerpt is concerned with the speaker's sense of justice, not his physical circumstances. The use of "if" actually hints that the addressee has, in fact, felt the glow of freedom in his breast and has "spurn'd a tyrant's chain." If the addressee had never been concerned with these issues, the entreaty would bear no rhetorical weight. Human prisoners are not mentioned. Throughout the poem, the speaker is "petitioning" for justice and ethical consideration, not imposing ultimatums on his addressee.
Example Question #2 : Grammar And Syntax
Adapted from “Solitary Death, make me thine own” in Underneath the Bough: A Book of Verses by Michael Field (pseudonym of Katherine Bradley and Edith Cooper) (1893)
Solitary Death, make me thine own,
And let us wander the bare fields together;
Yea, thou and I alone
Roving in unembittered unison forever.
I will not harry thy treasure-graves,
I do not ask thy still hands a lover;
My heart within me craves
To travel till we twain Time’s wilderness discover.
To sojourn with thee my soul was bred,
And I, the courtly sights of life refusing,
To the wide shadows fled,
And mused upon thee often as I fell a-musing.
Escaped from chaos, thy mother Night,
In her maiden breast a burthen that awed her,
By cavern waters white
Drew thee her first-born, her unfathered off-spring toward her.
On dewey plats, near twilight dingle,
She oft, to still thee from men’s sobs and curses
In thine ears a-tingle,
Pours her cool charms, her weird, reviving chaunt rehearses.
Though mortals menace thee or elude,
And from thy confines break in swift transgression.
Thou for thyself art sued
Of me, I claim thy cloudy purlieus my possession.
To a long freshwater, where the sea
Stirs the silver flux of the reeds and willows,
Come thou, and beckon me
To lie in the lull of the sand-sequestered billows:
Then take the life I have called my own
And to the liquid universe deliver;
Loosening my spirit’s zone,
Wrap round me as thy limbs the wind, the light, the river.
In context, the use of the underlined and bolded phrase “have called” in the last stanza serves which of the following purposes?
The use of “have called” in reference to “this life” suggests that the speaker is, in fact, dead, and that the poem is addressed from beyond the grave.
The use of “have called” in reference to “this life” reveals that the speaker is actually speaking on behalf of Death, not to it. This revelation functions as the climax of the poem.
In reference to “this life,” the “have called my own” construction suggests that the speaker is not ready to die, and actively resents death’s power to override his or her will.
The use of “have called” suggests that the speaker has been deceptive in the past, and alerts the reader, for the first time, that the speaker may be unreliable in his or her statements.
In reference to “this life,” the “have called my own” construction suggests that the speaker’s sense of a rigid, personally defined self is illusory in the face a fluid and “liquid universe.”
In reference to “this life,” the “have called my own” construction suggests that the speaker’s sense of a rigid, personally defined self is illusory in the face a fluid and “liquid universe.”
The key word in this construction is “called”, by saying that he or she has merely “called” his or her life his or her own the speaker is suggesting that this is not, in fact, the case. This rigidly defined sense of self is overridden by the poem's focus on the abstract aspects of death, and the “liquid universe.”
The use of “called” calls into question only the speaker’s accuracy in having “called this life [his or her] own”, not his or her reliability as a speaker in the poem overall; it does not suggest that he or she is already dead, nor does it call into question Death’s power to end his or her life.
Example Question #1 : Grammar And Syntax: Poetry
Passage adapted from Edna St. Vincent Millay's "Spring" (1921).
To what purpose, April, do you return again?
Beauty is not enough.
You can no longer quiet me with the redness
Of leaves opening stickily.
I know what I know. 5
The sun is hot on my neck as I observe
The spikes of the crocus.
The smell of the earth is good.
It is apparent that there is no death.
But what does that signify? 10
Not only under the ground are the brains of men
Eaten by maggots.
Life in itself
Is nothing,
An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs. 15
It is not enough that yearly, down this hill,
April
Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.
The word "You" in line 3 refers to __________.
the impersonal you
the month of April
death
a person named April
beauty
the month of April
The "you" in line 3 refers to the month of April. The first line of the poem establishes April as the "you" that will be spoken to throughout the poem. The key clue for this question is the direct reference to "April" in line 1.
One can infer that the April that is being addressed is the month of April and not a person because of the title of the poem, "Spring," and the description of April returning each year.
Example Question #12 : Syntax And Structure Of Excerpts
Passage adapted from Edna St. Vincent Millay's "Spring" (1921).
To what purpose, April, do you return again?
Beauty is not enough.
You can no longer quiet me with the redness
Of leaves opening stickily.
I know what I know. 5
The sun is hot on my neck as I observe
The spikes of the crocus.
The smell of the earth is good.
It is apparent that there is no death.
But what does that signify? 10
Not only under the ground are the brains of men
Eaten by maggots.
Life in itself
Is nothing,
An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs. 15
It is not enough that yearly, down this hill,
April
Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.
The final three lines are primarily developed through __________.
consonance
simile
idiom
personification
anecdote
personification
These lines are developed primarily through personification because the month of April (a time of the year, something not human) is being described with human attributes, such as the ability to run and throw flowers.
An "anecdote" is a short, amusing story told for the purpose of demonstrating a point or for entertainment. An "idiom" is an expression that is not interpreted literally but has a commonly accepted meaning that is different from what the individual words in the phrase would imply. A "simile" is a figure of speech that makes a compares two different things using the words "like" or "as." "Consonance" is the use of the same consonant sound throughout a sentence or phrase.
Example Question #72 : Interpreting Excerpts
1 Yes, long as children feel affright
2 In darkness, men shall fear a God;
3 And long as daisies yield delight
4 Shall see His footprints in the sod.
5 Is't ignorance? This ignorant state
6 Science doth but elucidate --
7 Deepen, enlarge. But though 'twere made
8 Demonstrable that God is not --
9 What then? It would not change this lot:
10 The ghost would haunt, nor could be laid.
11 Yea, ape and angel, strife and old debate --
12 The harps of heaven and the dreary gongs of hell;
13 Science the feud can only aggravate --
14 No umpire she betwixt the chimes and knell:
15 The running battle of the star and clod
16 Shall run for ever -- if there be no God.
(1876)
What is the subject of the verb "enlarge" (line 7)?
the speaker (implied)
The addressee, because the verb is an imperative.
"Science" (line 6)
God
"This ignorant state" (line 5)
"Science" (line 6)
The subject of a verb is the thing which performs the action of that verb. For instance, in the sentence, "The dog barks," the "dog" is the subject of the verb "barks" because the dog is the thing which does the barking.
In lines 5-7, the poem reads: "This ignorant state / Science doth but elucidate-- / Deepen, enlarge..." In other words, science elucidates, deepens, and enlarges "this ignorant state." Science is the thing performing the action of all three of those verbs, "enlarge" included, and therefore "science" (line 6) is the subject of the verb "enlarge."
Passage excerpted from the epic poem Clarel by Herman Melville (1876).
Example Question #73 : Interpreting Excerpts
1 Yes, long as children feel affright
2 In darkness, men shall fear a God;
3 And long as daisies yield delight
4 Shall see His footprints in the sod.
5 Is't ignorance? This ignorant state
6 Science doth but elucidate --
7 Deepen, enlarge. But though 'twere made
8 Demonstrable that God is not --
9 What then? It would not change this lot:
10 The ghost would haunt, nor could be laid.
11 Yea, ape and angel, strife and old debate --
12 The harps of heaven and the dreary gongs of hell;
13 Science the feud can only aggravate --
14 No umpire she betwixt the chimes and knell:
15 The running battle of the star and clod
16 Shall run for ever -- if there be no God.
(1876)
What is the direct object of the verb "aggravate" (line 13)?
"umpire" (line 14)
"only" (line 13)
"the feud" (line 13)
"science" (line 13)
"ape and angel" (line 11)
"the feud" (line 13)
The direct object of a verb is the thing that receives the action of that verb. For instance, in the sentence, "The cat eats the food," the "food" is the direct object of the verb "eats" because it is the thing being eaten.
That said, in line 13, "Science the feud can only aggravate," the "feud" is the thing being aggravated. Therefore, "the feud" is the direct object of the verb "aggravate" in this line.
Passage excerpted from the epic poem Clarel by Herman Melville (1876).
Example Question #11 : Grammar And Syntax
Adapted from Life and Remains of John Clare "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" by John Clare (1872, ed. J. L. Cherry)
I am! Yet what I am who cares, or knows?
My friends forsake me, like a memory lost.
I am the self-consumer of my woes,
They rise and vanish, an oblivious host,
Shadows of life, whose very soul is lost.
And yet I am—I live—though I am toss'd
Into the nothingness of scorn and noise.
Into the living sea of waking dream,
Where there is neither sense of life, nor joys,
But the huge shipwreck of my own esteem
And all that's dear. Even those I loved the best
Are strange—nay, they are stranger than the rest.
I long for scenes where man has never trod—
For scenes where woman never smiled or wept—
There to abide with my Creator, God,
And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept,
Full of high thoughts, unborn. So let me lie,
The grass below; above, the vaulted sky.
What is the effect of the enjambment of the underlined text?
It causes confusion for the reader
It emphasizes the nothingness
It can be interpreted as portraying the action of being tossed
It allows the author to keep the stanzas at six lines whilst keeping the same subject as the first paragraph
All of these answers are correct
All of these answers are correct
We can say that the sentence that spans from the end of the first stanza to the start of the second stanza allows the author to keep the same idea while adhering to the form of six-line stanzas. We can also say that it emphasizes both the nothingness of the first line of the stanza and the action of being “tossed into the nothingness.” We can also say it causes confusion for the reader, as it is attempting to draw the reader into the confusion portrayed in the first two stanzas; therefore, we can say all of these answers are correct.
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