Grade 12 English Poetry Exam
2023/2024 Latest Test Questions With
Verified Solutions
Allegory - Answer Allegory is a figure of speech in which abstract ideas and principles are described in terms of characters, figures, and events. It can be employed in prose and poetry to tell a story with a purpose of teaching an idea and a principle or explaining
an idea or a principle.
Example: Animal Farm
Alliteration - Answer Repeated consonant sounds at the beginning of a series of words. Example: I kicked cold coffee coloured puddles is alliteration because of the repeating "ck" sound.
Allusion - Answer A reference in one piece of literature to something from another piece
of literature. Allusions can also be references to person/events/places in history, religion, or myth. Example: The rise in poverty will unlock the Pandora's box of crimes. - This is an allusion to one of Greek Mythology's origin myth, "Pandora's box".
Analogy - Answer an explanation of one thing by compare it point by point with something else
Example: John Donne in his poem "The Flea" uses analogy of a flea to describe his love with his beloved.
"This flea is you and I, and this
Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is"
In the quoted lines, he tells his darling that as a flea has sucked blood from both of them
and their blood has mingled in its gut, so the flea has become their "wedding bed".
Apostrophe - Answer address to an absent or imaginary person
Assonance - Answer repetition of the vowel sound.
example: Men sell the wedding bells.
Ballad - Answer A long poem that tells a story, usually a folk tale or legend, in rhyme. Often set to music, the traditional ballad typically has a refrain or chorus, which adds to its musical qualities. It uses stanza. Ballad stanza - Answer A ballad stanza is a quatrain (4 line verse) of alternating
tetrameter and trimeter lines. The rhyme scheme is a-b-c-b (sometimes abab).
Blank verse - Answer Unrhymed iambic pentameter. For example: I fear that Hamlet knows of my dark deed
I must dispatch this canker from my sight
Or lose what I have strived so hard to gain
Fain would I forfeit fortune, crown, and Queen
cacophony - Answer the term refers to the use of words with sharp, harsh, hissing and unmelodious sounds primarily those of consonants to achieve desired results. Uses dissonances like p, b, d, g, k, ch-, sh- etc.
Example: "I detest war because cause of war is always trivial."
cliche - Answer A phrase, line or expression that has been so overused, it is boring and commonplace
Example: "it was a dark and stormy night" or "red with anger."
colloquialism - Answer informal words or expressions appropriate to conversation and not usually acceptable in formal writing
Example: The weather today is okay, so let's go hang out.
connotation - Answer The unspoken, unwritten series of associations made with a
particular word. example: the word "dog," depending on how it is used, might connote faithfulness, loyalty, and devotion. On the other hand, the word "dog" could connote viciousness.
consonance - Answer Repeating consonant sounds in the middle of words. This device.
Example: If elephants laugh carefully, it is because they are
afraid is an example of consonance with the repeating "f" sound. Notice that the 'ph', 'gh' and 'f' letter patterns all make the "f" sound.
couplet - Answer Two lines of poetry that rhyme. The last two lines of an English sonnet
work together to make a couplet. Example:
Roses are red, violets are blue
Sugar is sweet and so are you
2023/2024 Latest Test Questions With
Verified Solutions
Allegory - Answer Allegory is a figure of speech in which abstract ideas and principles are described in terms of characters, figures, and events. It can be employed in prose and poetry to tell a story with a purpose of teaching an idea and a principle or explaining
an idea or a principle.
Example: Animal Farm
Alliteration - Answer Repeated consonant sounds at the beginning of a series of words. Example: I kicked cold coffee coloured puddles is alliteration because of the repeating "ck" sound.
Allusion - Answer A reference in one piece of literature to something from another piece
of literature. Allusions can also be references to person/events/places in history, religion, or myth. Example: The rise in poverty will unlock the Pandora's box of crimes. - This is an allusion to one of Greek Mythology's origin myth, "Pandora's box".
Analogy - Answer an explanation of one thing by compare it point by point with something else
Example: John Donne in his poem "The Flea" uses analogy of a flea to describe his love with his beloved.
"This flea is you and I, and this
Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is"
In the quoted lines, he tells his darling that as a flea has sucked blood from both of them
and their blood has mingled in its gut, so the flea has become their "wedding bed".
Apostrophe - Answer address to an absent or imaginary person
Assonance - Answer repetition of the vowel sound.
example: Men sell the wedding bells.
Ballad - Answer A long poem that tells a story, usually a folk tale or legend, in rhyme. Often set to music, the traditional ballad typically has a refrain or chorus, which adds to its musical qualities. It uses stanza. Ballad stanza - Answer A ballad stanza is a quatrain (4 line verse) of alternating
tetrameter and trimeter lines. The rhyme scheme is a-b-c-b (sometimes abab).
Blank verse - Answer Unrhymed iambic pentameter. For example: I fear that Hamlet knows of my dark deed
I must dispatch this canker from my sight
Or lose what I have strived so hard to gain
Fain would I forfeit fortune, crown, and Queen
cacophony - Answer the term refers to the use of words with sharp, harsh, hissing and unmelodious sounds primarily those of consonants to achieve desired results. Uses dissonances like p, b, d, g, k, ch-, sh- etc.
Example: "I detest war because cause of war is always trivial."
cliche - Answer A phrase, line or expression that has been so overused, it is boring and commonplace
Example: "it was a dark and stormy night" or "red with anger."
colloquialism - Answer informal words or expressions appropriate to conversation and not usually acceptable in formal writing
Example: The weather today is okay, so let's go hang out.
connotation - Answer The unspoken, unwritten series of associations made with a
particular word. example: the word "dog," depending on how it is used, might connote faithfulness, loyalty, and devotion. On the other hand, the word "dog" could connote viciousness.
consonance - Answer Repeating consonant sounds in the middle of words. This device.
Example: If elephants laugh carefully, it is because they are
afraid is an example of consonance with the repeating "f" sound. Notice that the 'ph', 'gh' and 'f' letter patterns all make the "f" sound.
couplet - Answer Two lines of poetry that rhyme. The last two lines of an English sonnet
work together to make a couplet. Example:
Roses are red, violets are blue
Sugar is sweet and so are you
