Grammar Skills: Style & Tone

The author wants to use understatement as a rhetorical style. Which choice best accomplishes this goal?

You took my brand-new car without asking, drove it 800 miles, and scraped the entire front bumper? Yeah, you could say I’m extremely upset!

• NO CHANGE

• This makes me so happy!

• Yeah, you could say I'm a little annoyed!

• I've never been angrier in my life!

The author wants to use overstatement in order to emphasize the speaker’s exhaustion. Which choice best accomplishes this goal?

I’ve been working on legal briefs all day. I’m so exhausted I could sleep for hours!

• NO CHANGE

• don't think I can sleep right now!

• won't be able to sleep for hours!

• could sleep for years!

In order to emphasize the contrast between a sunrise and the author’s attitude, the author wants to use two adjectives that are derived from the same root word. Which choice best accomplishes this goal?

Sunrises are, I admit, generally very majestic. But usually (if I have my way) anything that occurs before 8 a.m. is wasted on me. When the sun begins his incredible ascent, I prefer to be an inglorious huddle of sheets, crusted with sleep and willfully blind.

• NO CHANGE

• glorious ascent, I prefer to be an inglorious

• glorious ascent, I prefer to be a ragged

• stunning ascent, I prefer to be a pitiful

The writer wants to use exaggeration in order to emphasize the relative insignificance of a mistake. Which choice best accomplishes this goal?

My friend Joseph, we are told, has committed the oversight of forgetting to bring his homework to class. This demonstrates a multitude of failings, personal and academic, which will forever bar him from the ranks of human society.

• NO CHANGE

• committed the grave crime

• made the inconvenient error

• unfortunately made the mistake

The author wants to use the same word as two different parts of speech. Which choice best accomplishes this goal?

She did not hate many things, although she disliked the very act of hating things.

• NO CHANGE

• although she hated that emotion.

• except for that very emotion.

• except for hate itself.