Alberta Diploma Exams · English Language Arts 30-1

Literary devices and writing conventions

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

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

All 20 questions

  1. Which sentence contains a simile?
  2. Which term describes "The classroom was a zoo on the last day of term"?
  3. A writer says, "I have told you a million times to close the door." This is
  4. What is dramatic irony?
  5. Which phrase is an oxymoron?
  6. A narrator calls a stingy man "a real Scrooge." This is an allusion to
  7. In a story, a storm gathers whenever a character is about to receive bad news. The storm functions as
  8. An early scene shows a rifle hanging above the fireplace and a character warning that it is loaded. This technique is
  9. Which line contains alliteration?
  10. What is the difference between the denotation and the connotation of the word "home"?
  11. In Shakespeare's Macbeth, which tragic flaw most directly leads to Macbeth's downfall?
  12. Which revision corrects the dangling modifier in "Walking down the street, the trees looked beautiful"?
  13. Which sentence uses parallel structure correctly?
  14. Which revision fixes the comma splice in "The test was long, everyone finished on time"?
  15. Which statement is the strongest thesis for an essay?
  16. An advertisement shows a lonely abandoned dog to persuade viewers to donate. This is mainly an appeal to
  17. "What lovely weather!" says a woman standing in a downpour. This is
  18. A satirical article proposes that all homework be assigned to the teachers. The writer most likely intends to
  19. A poem places a crowded, noisy market next to an empty, silent field in consecutive stanzas. This technique is
  20. A writer begins an essay with a warm, joking tone, then shifts to short, blunt sentences when discussing a tragedy. The shift most likely signals

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