AP Terms

Question 1

allegory

Answer 1

extended narrative in prose/verse in which characters/events/settings represent abstract qualities and in which the writer intends a second meaning to be beneath the surface of the story; underlying meaning may be moral, religious, political, social, or satiric

Question 2

allusion

Answer 2

an expression designed to call something to mind without mentioning it explicitly; an indirect or passing reference.

Question 3

cacophony

Answer 3

harsh, awkward, dissonant, sounds, used deliberately in poetry and in prose

Question 4

colloquial

Answer 4

the use of slang or informalities in speech or writing. Not generally acceptable for formal writing, colloquialism gives a work a conversational, familiar tone. Colloquial expressions in writing include local or regional dialects.

Question 5

denotation

Answer 5

the literal or primary meaning of a word, in contrast to the feelings or ideas that the word suggests.

Question 6

euphemism

Answer 6

more acceptable and more pleasant way of saying something that might be inappropriate or uncomfortable(sex, crime, death, etc.); used to adhere to standards of social or political correctness or to add humor or ironic understatement. Saying “earthly remains” rather than “corpse.”

Question 7

eponym

Answer 7

substitutes for a particular attribute the name of a famous person recognized for that attribute; borders on the cliché;
*You think your boyfriend is cheap. I had a date with Scrooge himself last night.

Question 8

foreshadow

Answer 8

a literary device in which a writer gives an advance hint of what is to come later in the story

Question 9

inference

Answer 9

to draw a reasonable conclusion from the information presented

Question 10

pathos

Answer 10

aspect of a literary work that elicit sorrow or pity from the audience; can be used to persuade; over-emotional

Question 11

polysyndeton

Answer 11

sentence that appears with and other conjunctions with no commas to separate with items in a series; it appears as x and y and z; opposite of asyndeton
*They read and studied and passed and cried.

Question 12

syllogism

Answer 12

form of reasoning in which two statements are made and a conclusion is drawn; made in the formal argument that consists of a major premise, a minor premise, and a conclusion; its conclusion is valid only if each of the two premises is valid.

	* Major:	All tragedies end unhappily.
	* Minor:	Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy.
	* Conclusion: Therefore, Romeo and Juliet ends           unhappily.

Question 13

tone

Answer 13

a literary compound of composition, which shows the attitudes toward the subject and toward the audience implied in a literary work

Question 14

zeugma

Answer 14

use of a word to modify two or more words when it is appropriate to only one of them or is appropriate to each but in a different way

	* to wage war and peace
	* On his fishing trip, he caught three trout and a cold.

Question 15

anaphora

Answer 15

repetition of a word or phase /clause at the beginning of two sentences in a row; usually in conjunction with a climax a deliberate form or repetition
*Slowly and grimly they advanced, not knowing what lay ahead, not knowing what they would find at the top of the hill, not knowing that they were so close to Disneyland.

Question 16

apostrophe

Answer 16

device of calling out to an imaginary, dead, or absent person or to a place thing, or personified abstraction usually to display intense emotion which cannot be held back; can interrupt a discussion

Question 17

conceit

Answer 17

elaborate, poetic comparison or image, such as an analogy or extended metaphor between seemingly dissimilar objects
*displays intellectual cleverness

Question 18

enjambed

Answer 18

the running over of a sentenced into the next couplet or line without pause at the end of a line; a run-on line

Question 19

hypophora

Answer 19

raising one or more questions and then proceeding to answer them, usually at some length; a common use is to ask the question at the beginning of the paragraph and then use that paragraph to answer it
*“What makes a king out of a slave? Courage! What makes the flag on the mast to wave? Courage!
What makes the elephant charge his tusk in the misty mist, or the dusky dusk? What makes the muskrat guard his musk? Courage!”
(The Cowardly Lion in The Wizard of Oz, 1939)

Question 20

invective

Answer 20

a verbally abusive attack against a person, cause, idea, or system

Question 21

jargon

Answer 21

special language of a profession or group; the jargon is evasive, tedious, and unintelligible to others

Question 22

pedantic

Answer 22

describes writing that borders on lecturing; it is scholarly and academic and overly difficulty and distant;“show-offy”-using big words for the sake of using big words

Question 23

red herring

Answer 23

when a writing raises an irrelevant issue to draw attention away from the real issue; considered a rhetorical fallacy because it reduces an argument to an either/or choice

Question 24

satire

Answer 24

a work that reveals a critical attitude toward some elements of human behavior by portraying it in an extreme way; satire targets groups or large concepts rather than an individual; a style of writing rather than a purpose for writing. It uses many devices such as: irony, wit, parody, caricature, hyperbole, understatement, and sarcasm. Good satire often humorous, is thought provoking and insightful about the human conditions.

Question 25

straw man

Answer 25

when a writer argues against a claim that nobody actually holds or is universally considered weak; setting up a straw man diverts attention from the real issue

Question 26

theme

Answer 26

the subject of a talk; a piece of writing, a person’s thoughts

Question 27

wit

Answer 27

intellectually amusing language that surprises and delights; uses terse language that makes a pointed statement

Question 28

synecdoche

Answer 28

figure of speech in which a part of something is used to represent a whole

* If I had some wheels, I’d go ask Mackenzie’s              hand in marriage.
* It’s sure hard to earn a dollar theses days.
* All hands on deck.