Leaving Cert Ireland · English

Literary Devices, Language Genres and Close Reading

34 practice questions, each with the answer and an explanation.

Practise Literary Devices, Language Genres and Close Reading now

Random questions from this topic, one at a time. You see the answer and the explanation straight after each one.

All 34 questions

  1. Which device is used in the line "The fog crept into the harbour like a cat"?
  2. Which device is used in "Time is a thief that steals our evenings"?
  3. Which device appears in "The wind whispered through the empty classroom"?
  4. What is alliteration?
  5. Which term describes the exaggerated claim "I have told you a million times to close the door"?
  6. What is a soliloquy in a play?
  7. In the line "the smell of wet turf drifted across the yard", which sense does the imagery appeal to?
  8. Which of these is a rhetorical question?
  9. Which register would be most suitable for a formal letter to a school principal?
  10. What is dramatic irony?
  11. What is an oxymoron?
  12. Which description fits a Petrarchan sonnet?
  13. What is iambic pentameter?
  14. What is enjambment?
  15. What is a caesura in a line of poetry?
  16. What is the difference between tone and mood?
  17. What is an unreliable narrator?
  18. In a speech, a speaker says "As a doctor with twenty years' experience, I can tell you that this is safe." Which appeal is mainly being used?
  19. Which feature is most typical of the language of information?
  20. In a play, what is a foil?
  21. What is hamartia in a tragedy?
  22. A poem repeatedly describes a cracked mirror to suggest a broken sense of identity. What is the cracked mirror?
  23. What is the difference between a theme and a motif?
  24. Which term describes a novel that follows the growth of a young person into adulthood?
  25. Two images are placed side by side: a wedding feast and a bare graveyard. Which device does this show?
  26. Which structure is most effective for a body paragraph in a discursive essay?
  27. In a comparative study, what does the mode "Cultural Context" focus on?
  28. What is a euphemism?
  29. Read: "The evening was gold, and the river lay still, content as a cat; but beneath the bridge something stirred, and the water began to speak in whispers." Which pair of devices is used?
  30. Read: "I wept for the mountain, grey and bare / and cursed the sky. / Then the cloud broke: sunlight fell like coins on the stones, / and I laughed." What shift occurs?
  31. A narrator says: "Everyone agreed I had behaved perfectly, though the neighbours stopped speaking to me, and my sister moved abroad that same spring." Which conclusion best fits?
  32. Which revision best strengthens this sentence from an argument: "Everyone I know loves the new bus route, so it must be the best possible plan for the city"?
  33. A comparative essay claims: "Both texts criticise their societies, so they are the same." Which change would make the point more convincing?
  34. A poem ends: "We locked the house, / and left the key in the door." Which interpretation shows the best close reading?

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