Study Guide SOL Reading Test 2014-15(up dated7-23)
Apply knowledge-literary terms/vocabulary
11 Grade Vocabulary for SOL
Term / Definition / ExampleAlliteration / Repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of words / Peter Piper Picked a Peck of Pickled Peppers
Assonance / The repetition of vowel in conjunction with dissimilar consonant sounds / Lick and pin, face and strait
Consonance / The repetition of similar consonant sounds at the end of words or accented syllables / Biscuit and state, kiss and case
Onomatopoeia / Words that sound like what they mean / Buzz, thud, clip-clop, hiss
Metaphor / A comparison between 2 unlike objects – states one is the other / Susie is the sun of my life
The light of my life
Simile / A comparison between 2 unlike objects – uses like or as; than or resembles / Johnny is as strong as an ox
Cute as a kitten
Personification / Giving human qualities to animals or objects. / a smiling moon, a jovial sun; the door opened with a sigh
Symbol / an object, sign, or image that is used to stand for something else / Flag may be used to symbolize a nation. Dove symbolizes peace.
Hyperbole / exaggeration or overstatement / I'm so hungry I could eat a horse.
He's as big as a house.
Oxymoron / Putting two contradictory words together. / hot ice, cold fire, wise fool, sad joy, military intelligence, eloquent silence
Paradox / A statement that contains ideas that seem contradictory. / Wise fool; I can resist anything but temptation; the beginning of the end; cruel to be kind
Imagery / language that evokes one or all of the five senses: seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, touching. / The teenager's face had oil dripping from his forehead, and acne erupting from each swollen, red pore. His body odor smelled of perspiration and old laundry. The taste of his kiss was like stale chips and Red Bull. It was a very unpleasant experience.
Analogy / the comparison of two pairs which have the same relationship. The key is to ascertain the relationship between the first so you can choose the correct second pair. Part to whole, opposites and results are types of relationships you should find. / hot is to cold as fire is to ice OR hot:cold fire:ice
audible is to hear as tactile is to feel;
end is to terminate as hire is to employ
poet is to poem as author is to book
Cliché / An idea or expression that has become tired and trite from overuse, itsfreshness and clarity having worn off. / Break a leg; time will tell; light as a feather; live and learn
Theme / The general idea or insight about life that a writer wishes to express.
Idiom / does not seem to make sense if taken literally / “under the weather”, “give me some sugar” “she is on top of the world”
Tone / the attitude a writer takes towards a subject or character: / serious, humorous, sarcastic, ironic, satirical, tongue-in-cheek, solemn, objective
Understatement / The opposite of hyperbole,
Figure of speech employed by writers or speakers to intentionally make a situation seem less important than it really is. It deliberately decreases the severity of a situation.
It usually has an ironic and sarcastic effect. / If you win $10 million in the lottery, and you tell your friends, “It’s a little bit of change.”
If your basketball team wins by 50 points, and your coach says, “We did okay.”
If it is 5 degrees below freezing, and you say, “It’s chilly.” Well, that’s an UNDERSTATEMENT!
Irony / implied discrepancy between what is said and what is meant.
Three kinds of irony:
1. verbal irony is when an author/ or character says one thing and means something else.
2. dramatic irony is when an audience perceives something that a character in the literature does not know.
3. irony of situation is a discrepancy between the expected result and actual results. / 1. Water is as clear as mud" - The person actually says that the water is not at all clear.
2.Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare - Romeo finds Juliet drugged and assumes she is dead. He kills himself then she awakens, see that he is dead and kills herself.
3. The police station gets robbed.
Pun / A figure of speech which consists of a deliberate confusion of similar words or phrases for rhetorical effect, whether humorous or serious.
“Play on words” / 1. A bicycle can't stand alone because it is two-tired.
2. What's the definition of a will? (It's a dead giveaway).
3. Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
4. A backward poet writes inverse.
Allusion / a reference within a work to something famous outside it, such as a well-known person, place, event, story, or work of art, literature, music, pop culture. / When Patrick Henry referred to The Odyssey and The Bible in his speech, he was making an allusion to those works.
mood / The atmosphere that pervades a literary work with the intention of evoking a certain emotion or feeling from the audience. In drama, mood may be created by sets and music as well as words; in poetry and prose, mood may be created by a combination of / The moods evoked by the more popular short stories of Edgar Allen Poe, for example, tend to be gloomy, horrific, and desperate.
External conflict / Conflict between a character and another character or force
Internal conflict / Conflict within a character
Foil / a character who provides a contrast to another character
Foreshadowing / Clues that suggest events that will occur
Protagonist / The main character
Antagonist / The person or thing against the main character
Flat character / One dimensional,, only one main character or personality trait
Round character / Shows many character or personality traits, more complex
Static character / Stays the same throughout the story
Dynamic character / Changes by the end of the story
Plot Structure includes the following:
exposition–gives the characters, the setting the basic situation
conflict–the problem
rising action–conflicts and events that lead up to the climax
climax–the moment of most excitement or highest suspense
falling action–events that help wrap up the conflicts
resolution–the end, how the conflicts are resolved
Point of View:
First Person–uses “I” and the narrator tells about him or herself
Third Person, limited–describes the thoughts and feelings of only one character
Third Person, Omniscient–all-knowing, can describe the thoughts and feelings of any character
Reporting Category: Use word analysis strategies and word reference skills
*Use context to infer the meaning of unfamiliar words
Vocabulary: Context Clues
Context clues are words in a sentence or paragraph that help the reader deduce (reason out) the meaning of an unfamiliar word.
A. Types of Context Clues
There are five major types of context clues:
1. Synonym Clue: Sometimes an unfamiliar word is used as a synonym (a word having either the same or similar meaning as another word). You can infer (figure out) the meaning of the unfamiliar word by replacing it with the familiar word.
Example: I feel completely satiated; in fact, I am so full that I could not possibly eat another morsel of food.
“Full” is a synonym for “satiated.” We can conclude that the word “satiated” means full or satisfied.
2. Comparison Clue: Sometimes an unfamiliar word is used in a comparison with a familiar word or group of words.
Example: The children huddle around their teacher, like baby chicks around a mother hen.
The children are being compared to baby chicks around a mother hen; we can conclude, then, that “huddle” means “crowd together closely.”
Note: The phrase “like baby chicks around a mother hen” is a simile. A simile is a literary device that uses the words “like” or “as” to describe one thing by comparing it with another.
3. Contrast Clue: Sometimes an unfamiliar word may be used in contrast to a familiar word or group of words. You can infer the meaning of the unfamiliar word by giving it the opposite meaning of the familiar word.
Example: Unlike Robin, who is full of life, Rachel is lackluster.
The opposite of “full of life” is “empty of life.” The word “lackluster” is used to contrast Robin and Rachel. We can conclude, then, that the word “lackluster” means “lacking liveliness.”
4. Explanation Clue: Sometimes an unfamiliar word may be followed with an explanation, in which a familiar word or group of words is used.
Example: Marsha is insatiable; she can eat all day and never feel full.
Here, the second part of the sentence (“she can eat all day and never feel full”) is used to explain the first part of the sentence (“Marsha is insatiable”). We can conclude, then, that “insatiable” means “incapable of being full” or “incapable of being satisfied.”
5. Example Clue: Sometimes an unfamiliar word may be followed by an example, in which the familiar word is used.
Example: In college, you can choose courses from a broad range of academic disciplines, such as history, economics, mathematics, and psychology.
You are probably familiar with the primary (first) meaning of the word “discipline” - - control. But that doesn’t quite fit in the context of the above sentence. The word “discipline” also has a secondary meaning; we can use the context of the sentence to figure out this meaning. The word is followed by several examples: history, economics, mathematics, and psychology. (Note: The words “such as” let us know that examples will follow.) We can conclude, then, that each of these subjects is an example of a discipline and that the word “discipline” means “a branch of instruction or learning.”
Nonsense Word Activity
The underlined word in each sentence below is a nonsense word; it is not a real word. Using all of the word strategies that you have learned, try to figure out its intended meaning.
1. Although the dentist tried to be as gentle as possible, I still felt considerable popodo.
2. If you want to go to college one day, you need to dorrididoopvery hard in all of your classes.
Roots and Affixes-
A word can consist of three parts: the root, a prefix, and a suffix.
Prefixes and suffixes are known as affixes because they are affixed to (attached to) a root.
Prefixes and suffixes, which originated as words themselves, are now syllables added to roots to create new words.
The root is the base element of the word—the part of the word that contains the basic meaning (definition) of the word.
A prefix is a syllable(s) forming a word element placed before a root, word, or word group to modify the meaning or make a new word.
A suffix is a syllable(s) forming a word element that is placed after a root, word, or word group to modify the meaning or make a new word. The suffix may also modify the word’s grammatical function by redefining its part of speech (e.g., noun, verb, adjective, adverb).
Common Roots Common PrefixesCommon Suffixes
struct = build un = not, none able = capable of
port = carry pre = before, in advance ion = act or process; condition
graph = writing re = again, back ology = study of
bio = lifesub = under, below ful = quantity that fills
tract = pull dis = not, noneless = without, missing
flect, flex = bend auto = self
dict, dic = speak, say de = away, from, reverse of
im = in, into
Practice:
- autobiography
- biography
- biology
- predictable
- subtract
- graphology
- disrespectful
- submarine
- reclosable
- predict
*Understand the purpose of text structures
Text organizational patterns:
- • Enumerating/Listing
- • Time Sequence/ chronological
- • Development/Process
- • Main Idea and Details
- • Fact and Opinion
- • Compare/Contrast
- • Cause/Effect
- Spatial -a method of organization in which details are presented as they are (or were) located in space
Autobiography-a history of a person's life written or told by that person
Biography- author is writing about another person’s life
Nonfiction (not fake) is opposite of fiction as it is informative and comprises the interesting facts with analysis and illustrations. Factual
Fiction- it is made up not true
Which question is answered in paragraph #?
Only 1 question can be answered out of the 4 choices
Which question is NOT answered in paragraph# ?
3 questions can be answered in the paragraph
Purpose of writing
Theme - fiction (the message)
Purpose –nonfiction (why was it written)
*Explain how imagery and figures of speech appeal to the reader’s senses and experience.
*Making connections using metaphors
Consider the following passage from “Letter to President Pierce, 1855” by Chief Seattle, excerpted from the Spring 2003 Released Test for End of Course English/Reading:
The whites, too, shall pass—perhaps sooner than other tribes. Continue to contaminate your bed, and you will one night suffocate in your own waste. When the buffalo are all slaughtered, the horses all tamed, the secret corners of the forest heavy with the scent of many men, and the view of the ripe hills blotted with talking wires, where is the thicket? Gone. Where is the eagle? Gone.
“What is the significance of the use of the object ‘bed’ in this passage? What is Chief Seattle’s purpose in using this word?”
*Make an inference based on a pair of texts
*Explain how imagery and figures of speech appeal to the reader’s senses and experience
* Figurative language
*Tone
* Text structure
How to Identify and answer INFERENCE questions successfully.
In order to answer inference questions, you must let go of prejudices and prior knowledge of the subject being read and use the passage to PROVE that the inference you select is correct. Details (supporting details, vocabulary, character’s actions, descriptions, dialogue) MUST be used from the passage.
Try it
Based on the information in the passage, it could be suggested that the narrator believes Elsa's prior marriages to be:
A. uncomfortable, but well-suited to Elsa
B. satisfactory and dull to Elsa
C. cold and damaging to Elsa
D. awful, but worth it to Elsa
The widow Elsa was as complete a contrast to her third bridegroom, in everything but age, as can be conceived. Compelled to relinquish her first marriage after her husband died in the war, she married a man twice her years to whom she became an exemplary wife despite their having nothing in common, and by whose death she was left in possession of a splendid fortune, though she gave it away to the church. Next, a southern gentleman, considerably younger than herself, succeeded to her hand, and carried her to Charleston, where, after many uncomfortable years, she found herself again a widow. It would have been remarkable if any feeling had survived through such a life as Elsa's; it could not but be crushed and killed by the early disappointment of her first groom's demise, the icy duty of her second marriage, and the unkindness of her third husband, which had inevitably driven her to connect the idea of his death with that of her comfort.
To find clues that point to the correct answer, look for descriptions that would support those first adjectives in the answer choices. Here are some of the descriptions of her marriages in the passage:
- "…she became an exemplary wife despite their having nothing in common…"
- "…after many uncomfortable years, she found herself again a widow."
- "…the icy duty of her second marriage and the unkindness of her third husband which had inevitably driven her to connect the idea of his death with that of her comfort."
How to Identify the Main Idea
The main idea of a paragraph is the point of the passage, minus all the details.
It's the big picture - the Solar System vs. the planets.
The football game vs. the fans, cheerleaders, quarterback, and uniforms.
The Oscars vs. actors, the red carpet, designer gowns, and films.
Summarize the passage in one sentence that includes the gist of every idea from the paragraph.
Try it:
A new hearing device uses a magnet to hold the detachable sound-processing portion in place. Like other aids, it converts sound into vibrations. But it is unique in that it can transmit the vibrations directly to the magnet and then to the inner ear. This produces a clearer sound. The new device will not help all hearing-impaired people - only those with a hearing loss caused by infection or some other problem in the middle ear. It will probably help no more than 20 percent of all people with hearing problems. Those people who have persistent ear infections, however, should find relief and restored hearing with the new device.
Directions: Read the excerpts and answer the questions that follow.
2003 Commonwealth of Virginia Department of Education page16
Letter to President Pierce, 1855
Chief Seattle
1 We know that the white man does not understand our ways. One portion of the land is the same to him as the next, for he is a stranger who comes in the night and takes from the land whatever he needs. The earth is not his brother, but his enemy, and when he has conquered it, he moves on. He leaves his fathers’ graves, and his children’s birthright is forgotten. The sight of your cities pains the eyes of the red man. But perhaps it is because the red man is a savage and does not
understand.
2 There is no quiet place in the white man’s cities. No place to hear the leaves of spring or the rustle of insect’s wings. But perhaps because I am a savage and do not understand, the clatter only seems to insult the ears. The Indian prefers the soft sound of the wind darting over the face of the pond, the smell of the wind itself cleansed by a mid-day rain, or scented with the pin˜ on pine. The air is precious to the red man. For all things share the same breath—the beasts, the trees, the man. Like a man dying for many days, he is numb to the stench.
3 What is man without the beasts? If all the beasts were gone, men would die from great loneliness of spirit, for whatever happens to the beasts also happens to man. All things are connected. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of the earth.