Function of Event Sequence: Poetry Practice Test

Read the poem below, in which a speaker addresses a younger sibling leaving for college.

Title: “Orientation”

You packed your shirts like folded flags,

each one a color you will forget to wear.

Mom kept circling the suitcase, smoothing

wrinkles that weren’t there.

In the driveway, you checked your phone

for a map you already knew.

Dad said, “Text when you get there,”

as if there were only one there.

On the highway, the billboards grew louder:

EXIT / EAT / BUY / EXIT.

Your laugh came in short bursts,

like a car trying to start.

At the dorm, you hugged me quickly,

then turned toward the door

without looking back—

and the hallway swallowed you

with the soft click of its light.

How does the poem’s event sequence—from packing to the driveway to the highway to the dorm hallway—primarily contribute to the poem’s meaning?

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Read the poem below, in which a speaker sorts through a deceased parent’s belongings in a late-night kitchen.

Title: “Inventory, 2:13 A.M.”

I.

The kettle cools; the sink keeps its small drip.

I open the drawer of rubber bands and spoons,

find a key labeled SHED and hold it up

as if the light could translate it.

II.

In the pantry, a jar of cloves—unopened—

breathes out its dark, medicinal sweetness.

Behind it: receipts curled like moth wings,

all the years of milk and nails and aspirin

adding up to a thin, stubborn paper.

III.

On the table: your watch, still set

to the hour you stopped answering.

I press my thumb to its face; it fogs,

then clears, as if forgiving me.

IV.

At last, the trash: a grocery list

with “bread” misspelled, crossed out twice.

I fold it, unfold it, and fold it again—

small as a bandage—before I throw it away.

How does the poem’s sequence of objects—from the shed key and pantry jar to the watch and finally the discarded grocery list—primarily function?

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