English 8 MCAP Test Prep 1-4

English 8 MCAP

Test Prep Boxes 1-4

By Cynthia Phillips

​Box 1

Plot Exposition, Rising Action, Climax, Falling Action, Resolution

Conflict generally appears in Ex​position.....develops further in Rising Action. Rising Action usually the longest part of plot.​

Point of View First person

Third person Limited

Third person Omniscient​

Theme​ central topic, message or statement in a narrative.

​Could be questions asking ----

How a character's response to the conflict develops the plot.

How a character's motivation develops the plot.​

How does a specific point of view develop ideas in a text? develop

characters or create suspense?​

How does the plot help develop the main character?

Which details help the reader infer the theme?

How does the main character reveal the theme?

Dramatic irony---​ the audience knows things that characters in the

story don't know.

​A Question from Box 1

​Yolanda had studied hard for the spelling bee. She wanted so badly to win. Each night, her mother would quiz her on difficult words, and each morning before breakfast she would review her flash cards.      At the bee, Yolanda was nervous, and she worried that she hadn't studied enough. The word she received was "lugubrious." She remembered having reviewed it, but she couldn't remember how to spell it right. She guessed, missed, and got second place in the bee. As she cried and told her mother that it had all been a waste, her mother said that she had learned a lot, and that's what was important. Yolanda decided to enter the spelling bee the next year. 

Which statement best describes how a character's response to conflict develops the plot?

​Yolanda's annoyance at her mother's high expectations leads her to give up spelling and enter a math competition instead. 

​

Yolanda's choice to give up studying after she gets frustrated makes her perform badly at the spelling bee. 

​

Yolanda's mother's decision to help her daughter study causes her to finish in the top three at the spelling bee. 

​

Yolanda's mother's comforting statement helps Yolanda decide to try for next year's spelling bee. 

​Box 2

Transforming Ideas​ updating Myths and Legends into more

contemporary versions of the story.

motif--​ a distinctive feature or dominant idea in an artistic or literary

composition.

treated motif as something similar to archetype..... remember the

archetypes we discussed are not the only ones.... there are many

myth, mythology--​ a traditional story, especially one concerning the

early history of a people or explaining some natural or social ​

phenomenon, and typically involving supernatural beings or events.

​Box 3

​Structure and Form

rhyme scheme--how it contributes meaning to a poem

alliteration, hyperbole, onomatopoeia, simile-- how they help the

meaning

line length in poetry--pacing

epic, ode, lyric poems​

​​Dramatic Conventions When a technique is used repeatedly in a drama the audience recognises its significance.

Archetypes

Comic relief​

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​Box 4

Figurative Language​

Metaphors how they both identify the tone

Allusion how they both contribute to the meaning​

​

Connotation and Denotation​

Denotation is dictionary meaning.... what the word literally says.....even though there could be multiple meanings.​

Connotation is ​the feeling a word invokes or brings forth. a definition

that has come to be accepted.

Which word is MOST clearly used connotatively?​

​

Tom asked me to watch another bizarre new science fiction movie with him.

​

​How can the author use connotation to give the following sentence a more suspenseful tone?

Calhoun reached his right hand toward​ the red wire and hoped he wasn't making a mistake as he snipped it in two.

​

Change "snipped" to "cut" 

Change "right" to "trembling" 

Change "hoped" to "prayed" 

Change "toward" to "near" ​

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