All SAT II Literature Resources
Example Questions
Example Question #1 : Structure And Form: Drama
MEPHISTOPHELES: Tut, Faustus,
Marriage is but a ceremonial toy;
And if thou lovest me, think no more of it.
I’ll cull thee out the fairest courtesans,
And bring them every morning to thy bed;(5)
She whom thine eye shall like, thy heart shall have,
Be she as chaste as was Penelope,
As wise as Saba, or as beautiful
As was bright Lucifer before his fall.
Here, take this book peruse it thoroughly: [Gives a book.] (10)
The iterating of these lines brings gold;
The framing of this circle on the ground
Brings whirlwinds, tempests, thunder and lightning;
Pronounce this thrice devoutly to thyself…
(1592)
This passage is an example of what literary form?
Monologue
Soliloquy
Petrarchan sonnet
Eclogue
Epistolary poem
Monologue
Here, we have to be careful to distinguish between a monologue and a soliloquy. The former is an extended speech given when other characters are on stage, and the latter is an extended speech given when no other characters are on stage (or when the speaker thinks there are no other characters on stage). Based on the fact that the speaker here is addressing someone directly, we can deduce that this passage is a monologue.
Passage adapted from Christopher Marlowe’s The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus (1592)
Example Question #2 : Structure And Form: Drama
HENRY V: And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember'd;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he today that sheds his blood with me (5)
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks (10)
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.
(1600)
This passage is an example of what dramatic form?
Soliloquy
Aside
Dramatis personae
Deus Ex Machina
Monologue
Monologue
In this passage, King Henry V addresses a large group of soldiers. Because the extended speech is thus presented in front of others, it is a monologue and not a soliloquy. An aside, on the other hand, is a lengthy speech delivered to or for the benefit of the audience and not the other characters. A dramatis personae is a list of characters at the beginning of a play. Deus ex machina is the use of a contrived plot device or outside power to solve a problem in a story, novel, or play (e.g. Shakespeare’s use of pirates in Hamlet).
Passage adapted from William Shakespeare’s Henry V (1600)
Example Question #1 : Structure And Form: Drama
KING LEAR: Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!
You cataracts and hurricanes, spout
Till you have drench'd our steeples, drown'd the cocks!
You sulph'rous and thought-executing fires,
Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts, (5)
Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder,
Strike flat the thick rotundity o' th' world,
Crack Nature's moulds, all germains spill at once,
That makes ingrateful man!
(1606)
What is this passage’s poetic meter?
Blank verse
Free verse
Heroic couplets
Hendecasyllabics
Dactylic hexameter
Free verse
Unlike much of Shakespeare’s work, which is typically in iambic pentameter, this poem does not have a fixed meter. It also does not have a fixed rhyme scheme. This makes it an example of free verse.
Passage adapted from William Shakespeare’s King Lear (1606)
Example Question #1 : Syntax And Structure Of Excerpts
Adapted from Coriolanus by William Shakespeare (III.iii.152-167)
You common cry of curs! whose breath I hate
As reek o' the rotten fens, whose loves I prize
As the dead carcasses of unburied men
That do corrupt my air, I banish you;
And here remain with your uncertainty!
Let every feeble rumor shake your hearts!
Your enemies, with nodding of their plumes,
Fan you into despair! Have the power still
To banish your defenders; till at length
Your ignorance, which finds not till it feels,
Making not reservations of yourselves,
Still your own foes, deliver you as most
Abated captives to some nation
That won you without blows! Despising,
For you, the city, thus I turn my back:
There is a world elsewhere.
The syntax and punctuation of the highlighted lines __________.
suggest that the listeners are confused about what to do with the speaker
suggest that the speaker is unreliable
emphasize the speaker's anger through the use directives and exclamation points
emphasize the speaker's desperation to stay in the city through the use of exclamation points
imply that speaker is the one who is uncertain and fearful
emphasize the speaker's anger through the use directives and exclamation points
The highlighted lines emphasize the speaker's anger through the use of exclamation points (for emphasis) and mean-spirited directives to those listening to him. The use of these directives, combined with the exclamation points, gives the sense that the speaker is shouting angrily at his listeners.
He does not seem uncertain, nor does he seem desperate to stay, as he is wishing ill on those who will. There is nothing in the highlighted lines to directly suggest that he is unreliable or that he is the one who is uncertain and fearful.
Example Question #1 : Structure And Form: Drama
TROILUS: Peace, you ungracious clamours! peace, rude sounds!
Fools on both sides! Helen must needs be fair,
When with your blood you daily paint her thus.
I cannot fight upon this argument;
It is too starved a subject for my sword. (5)
What is the meter of the majority of this passage?
None of these choices
Iambic tetrameter
Dactylic hexameter
Blank verse
Trochaic pentameter
Blank verse
This passage is mostly written in iambic pentameter: a pattern of five pairs of unstressed-stressed syllables.
Passage adapted from William Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida (1602).
Example Question #3 : Structure And Form: Drama
TROILUS: Peace, you ungracious clamours! peace, rude sounds!
Fools on both sides! Helen must needs be fair,
When with your blood you daily paint her thus.
I cannot fight upon this argument;
It is too starved a subject for my sword. (5)
Which line in this passage most deviates from the intended meter?
Line 5
Line 4
Line 2
Line 1
Line 3
Line 2
This passage is mostly written in iambic pentameter, but the cadence of line 2 falters in the middle upon “Helen.” Following the rhythm of iambic pentameter would place the emphasis on the second syllable of “Helen,” which is not how the name is usually pronounced. Lines 3-5 adhere perfectly to iambic pentameter.
Passage adapted from William Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida (1602).
Example Question #1 : Structure And Form: Drama
Adapted from Act 1, Scene 1, ln. 78-119 of The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus by Christopher Marlowe (1604) in Vol. XIX, Part 2 of The Harvard Classics (1909-1914)
FAUST: How am I glutted with conceit of this!
Shall I make spirits fetch me what I please,
Resolve me of all ambiguities,
Perform what desperate enterprise I will?
I’ll have them fly to India for gold,
Ransack the ocean for orient pearl,
And search all corners of the new-found world
For pleasant fruits and princely delicates;
I’ll have them read me strange philosophy
And tell the secrets of all foreign kings;
I’ll have them wall all Germany with brass,
And make swift Rhine circle fair Wittenberg;
I’ll have them fill the public schools with silk,
Wherewith the students shall be bravely clad;
I’ll levy soldiers with the coin they bring,
And chase the Prince of Parma from our land,
And reign sole king of all the provinces;
Yea, stranger engines for the brunt of war
Than was the fiery keel at Antwerp’s bridge,
I’ll make my servile spirits to invent.
[Enter VALDES and CORNELIUS]
Come, German Valdes and Cornelius,
And make me blest with your sage conference.
Valdes, sweet Valdes, and Cornelius,
Know that your words have won me at the last
To practice magic and concealed arts:
Yet not your words only, but mine own fantasy
That will receive no object, for my head
But ruminates on necromantic skill.
Philosophy is odious and obscure,
Both law and physic are for petty wits;
Divinity is basest of the three,
Unpleasant, harsh, contemptible, and vile:
’Tis magic, magic, that hath ravish’d me.
Then, gentle friends, aid me in this attempt;
And I that have with concise syllogisms
Gravell’d the pastors of the German church,
And made the flowering pride of Wittenberg
Swarm to my problems, as the infernal spirits
On sweet Musaeigus, when he came to hell,
Will be as cunning as Agrippa was,
Whose shadows made all Europe honor him.
The underlined section signals a shift in Faustus' __________.
mode of address, from direct address to soliloquy
tone, from angry to whimsical
mode of address, from soliloquy to direct address
subject matter, from the occult practices to practical travel plans
tone, from defiant to obsequious
mode of address, from soliloquy to direct address
The highlighted lines signal a shift in Faustus' mode of address from soliloquy to direct address. At the beginning of the passage, Faustus remarks on his own emotional state ("How am I glutted with conceit") and proceeds to enumerate on his own fantasies to himself and the audience. When Valdes and Cornelius enter, Faustus shifts his mode of address to address them instead of himself.
The subject matter always remains at least somewhat focused on the occult. Faustus' tone is never particularly obsequious, and it starts out as whimsical rather than defiant or angry.
Example Question #1 : Comparisons And Contrasts
Adapted from Act 1, Scene 1, ln. 78-119 of The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus by Christopher Marlowe (1604) in Vol. XIX, Part 2 of The Harvard Classics (1909-1914)
FAUSTUS: How am I glutted with conceit of this!
Shall I make spirits fetch me what I please,
Resolve me of all ambiguities,
Perform what desperate enterprise I will?
I’ll have them fly to India for gold,
Ransack the ocean for orient pearl,
And search all corners of the new-found world
For pleasant fruits and princely delicates;
I’ll have them read me strange philosophy
And tell the secrets of all foreign kings;
I’ll have them wall all Germany with brass,
And make swift Rhine circle fair Wittenberg;
I’ll have them fill the public schools with silk,
Wherewith the students shall be bravely clad;
I’ll levy soldiers with the coin they bring,
And chase the Prince of Parma from our land,
And reign sole king of all the provinces;
Yea, stranger engines for the brunt of war
Than was the fiery keel at Antwerp’s bridge,
I’ll make my servile spirits to invent.
[Enter VALDES and CORNELIUS]
Come, German Valdes and Cornelius,
And make me blest with your sage conference.
Valdes, sweet Valdes, and Cornelius,
Know that your words have won me at the last
To practice magic and concealed arts:
Yet not your words only, but mine own fantasy
That will receive no object, for my head
But ruminates on necromantic skill.
Philosophy is odious and obscure,
Both law and physic are for petty wits;
Divinity is basest of the three,
Unpleasant, harsh, contemptible, and vile:
’Tis magic, magic, that hath ravish’d me.
Then, gentle friends, aid me in this attempt;
And I that have with concise syllogisms
Gravell’d the pastors of the German church,
And made the flowering pride of Wittenberg
Swarm to my problems, as the infernal spirits
On sweet Musaeigus, when he came to hell,
Will be as cunning as Agrippa was,
Whose shadows made all Europe honor him.
Which of the following contrasts is most relevant to the passage?
Conventional knowledge and magic
Past and present
Illusion and reality
Activity and passivity
Light and darkness
Conventional knowledge and magic
The most relevant contrast in the passage is the contrast between conventional knowledge and magic. While Faustus describes magic as being fascinating, he frames conventional knowledge as "odious," "petty," and "base."
While illusion and reality are extremely important themes in the overall play, they are not the most relevant contrast seen in this passage. Light and darkness, as a contrast for this passage, is an overly vague answer, and is not discussed directly in this excerpt.
Example Question #4 : Structure And Form: Drama
MERCUTIO:
O, then, I see Queen Mab hath been with you.
She is the fairies' midwife, and she comes
In shape no bigger than an agate-stone
On the fore-finger of an alderman,
Drawn with a team of little atomies (5)
Athwart men's noses as they lie asleep…
And in this state she gallops night by night
Through lover's brains, and then they dream of love;
O'er courtiers' knees, that dream on court'sies straight;
O'er lawyers' fingers, who straight dream on fees… (10)
Sometime she gallops o'er a courtier's nose,
And then dreams he of smelling out a suit…
(1597)
What type of verse is this?
Mock heroic
Free verse
Blank verse
Heroic verse
Confessional poetry
Blank verse
Here we have unrhymed lines of iambic pentameter. Were they in rhymed pairs, we would have heroic couplets, and were they satirical rhymed pairs, we would have a mock heroic. Since, however, the lines are uncoupled, this is simply blank verse.
Passage adapted from William Shakespeare’s Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet (1597)
Example Question #851 : Sat Subject Test In Literature
HAMLET: … What would he do,
Had he the motive and the cue for passion
That I have? He would drown the stage with tears
And cleave the general ear with horrid speech,
Make mad the guilty and appal the free,(5)
Confound the ignorant, and amaze indeed
The very faculties of eyes and ears. Yet I,
A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak,
Like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause,
And can say nothing. No, not for a king, (10)
Upon whose property and most dear life
A damned defeat was made. Am I a coward?
Who calls me villain?
What type of verse is this?
Sestina
Blank verse
Sonnet
Free verse
Mock heroic
Blank verse
Here we have unrhymed lines of iambic pentameter. Were they in rhymed pairs, we would have heroic couplets, and were they satirical rhymed pairs, we would have a mock heroic. However, since the lines are uncoupled, this is simply blank verse. A sonnet is typically a 14-line love poem, and a sestina is a series of 6-line stanzas concluded by one 3-line stanza.
Passage adapted from William Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Hamlet Prince of Denmark. (1603)
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