Rhetorical Devices Quiz

Saying that a company was “downsizing” instead of “firing” workers.

• enumeration

• epistrophe

• exigence

• euphemism

“To be or not to be. That is the question.” This repetitive structure uses…

• hypophora

• diacope

• anaphora

• epistrophe

When we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, ‘Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!’ This listing Martin Luther King, Jr. uses in this passage is a form of…

• enumeration

• euphemism

• epistrophe

• exigence

“We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live.” Abraham Lincoln uses with these two phrases to connect the men who died toward their legacy.

• diacope

• enumeration

• juxtaposition

• hypophora

In “Letter From a Birmingham Jail,” King, Jr. says, “There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, ‘When will you be satisfied?’ We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality.” He asks a question, then answers it. This is known as…

• diacope

• hypophora

• anaphora

• epistrophe

In “Letter From a Birmingham Jail,” King, Jr. states, “This ‘wait’ has almost always meant ‘never.’ It has been a tranquilizing thalidomide, relieving the emotional stress for a moment, only to give birth to an ill-formed infant of frustration.” Which of the following is a strategy he uses when he compares the wait to a “tranquilizing thalidomide?”

• Understatement

• Onomatopoeia

• Polysyndeton

• Analogy

Gloria Steinem discussed an interview with Mrs. Nixon to illustrate how few role models exist for women. This story is an example of a(n)...

• antithesis

• anecdote

• oxymoron

• symbolism

To become less active, less intense, or less in amount

• cultivated

• aggrandized

• abated

• accentuated

Erase or remove completely (something unwanted or unpleasant)

• cultivate

• accentuate

• expunge

• corroborate

Inclined to lay down principles as incontrovertibly true.

• deference

• lithe

• aggrandize

• dogmatic