Multiple Choice SL Vocab

Question 1

ambiguous

Answer 1

of doubtful or uncertain nature; wanting clearness or definiteness; difficult to comprehend or distinguish

Question 2

congenial

Answer 2

Having the same tastes, habits, or temperament; sympathetic

Question 3

conjecture

Answer 3

Inference or judgment based on inconclusive or incomplete evidence; guesswork.

Question 4

contempt

Answer 4

The feeling or attitude of regarding someone or something as inferior, base, or worthless; scorn.

Question 5

edifice

Answer 5

A building, especially one of imposing appearance or size.

Question 6

ignominoius

Answer 6

Marked by shame or disgrace: “It was an ignominious end … as a desperate mutiny by a handful of soldiers blossomed into full-scale revolt” ( Angus Deming).

Question 7

impute

Answer 7

to relate to a particular cause or source; attribute the fault or responsibility to: imputed the rocket failure to a faulty gasket; kindly imputed my clumsiness to inexperience.

Question 8

inauspicious

Answer 8

Not auspicious; ill-omened; unlucky; unfavorable: as, an inauspicious time.
Synonyms Unpropitious, unpromising, untoward.

Question 9

indignant

Answer 9

Affected with indignation; wrathful; passionate; irate; feeling wrath, as when a person is exasperated by unworthy or unjust treatment, by a mean action, or by a degrading accusation.

Question 10

indulgent

Answer 10

Disposed or prone to indulge, humor, gratify, or give way to one’s own or another’s desires, etc., or to be compliant, lenient, or forbearing; showing or ready to show favor; favorable; indisposed to be severe or harsh, or to exercise necessary restraint: as, an indulgent parent; to be indulgent to servants.
Synonyms Lenient, forbearing, tolerant, gentle. See gratify.

Question 11

necromancer

Answer 11

One who practices necromancy; a conjurer; a sorcerer; a wizard. One who practices divination by conjuring the dead

Question 12

nugatory

Answer 12

trivial, trifling or of little importance

Question 13

penitent

Answer 13

Sincerely affected by a sense of guilt, and resolved on amendment of life. Doing penance.

Question 14

pensiveness

Answer 14

The state or character of being pensive; gloomy thoughtfulness; melancholy; seriousness from depressed spirits.

Question 15

portent

Answer 15

An indication of something important or calamitous about to occur; an omen.
Prophetic or threatening significance: signs full of portent.

Question 16

repudiate

Answer 16

To reject the validity or authority of: “Chaucer . . . not only came to doubt the worth of his extraordinary body of work, but repudiated it” ( Joyce Carol Oates).

Question 17

scorn

Answer 17

Contempt or disdain felt toward a person or object considered despicable or unworthy.

Question 18

scrofula

Answer 18

A constitutional disease, generally hereditary, especially manifested by chronic enlargement and cheesy degeneration of the lymphatic glands, particularly those of the neck, and marked by a tendency to the development of chronic intractable inflammations of the skin, mucous membrane, bones, joints, and other parts, and by a diminution in the power of resistance to disease or injury and the capacity for recovery. Scrofula is now generally held to be tuberculous in character, and may develop into general or local tuberculosis (consumption).

Question 19

sepulcher

Answer 19

a burial vault, sacred relics: especially in at the alter

Question 20

suffice

Answer 20

To meet present needs or requirements; be sufficient: These rations will suffice until next week.

Question 21

verisimilitude

Answer 21

The quality or state of being verisimilar; the appearance of truth; probability; likelihood: as, the verisimilitude of a story.

Question 22

allusion

Answer 22

casual reference in literature to a person, place, event, or another passage of literature, often without explicit identification. Allusions can originate in mythology, biblical references, historical events, legends, geography, or earlier literary works. Authors often use allusion to establish a tone, create an implied association, contrast two objects or people, make an unusual juxtaposition of references, or bring the reader into a world of experience outside the limitations of the story itself. Authors assume that the readers will recognize the original sources and relate their meaning to the new context. For instance, if a teacher were to refer to his class as a horde of Mongols, the students will have no idea if they are being praised or vilified unless they know what the Mongol horde was and what activities it participated in historically. This historical allusion assumes a certain level of education or awareness in the audience, so it should normally be taken as a compliment rather than an insult or an attempt at obscurity.

Question 23

allegory

Answer 23

ALLEGORY: The word derives from the Greek allegoria (“speaking otherwise”). The term loosely describes any writing in verse or prose that has a double meaning. This narrative acts as an extended metaphor in which persons, abstract ideas, or events represent not only themselves on the literal level, but they also stand for something else on the symbolic level. An allegorical reading usually involves moral or spiritual concepts that may be more significant than the actual, literal events described in a narrative. Typically, an allegory involves the interaction of multiple symbols, which together create a moral, spiritual, or even political meaning. The act of interpreting a story as if each object in it had an allegorical meaning is called allegoresis.
If we wish to be more exact, an allegory is an act of interpretation, a way of understanding, rather than a genre in and of itself. Poems, novels, or plays can all be allegorical, in whole or in part. These allegories can be as short as a single sentence or as long as a ten volume book. The label “allegory” comes from an interaction between symbols that creates a coherent meaning beyond that of the literal level of interpretation. Probably the most famous allegory in English literature is John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress (1678), in which the hero named Christian flees the City of Destruction and travels through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, Vanity Fair, Doubting Castle, and finally arrives at the Celestial City. The entire narrative is a representation of the human soul’s pilgrimage through temptation and doubt to reach salvation in heaven.

Question 24

anecdote

Answer 24

A short narrative account of an amusing, unusual, revealing, or interesting event. A good anecdote has a single, definite point, and the setting, dialogue, and characters are usually subordinate to the point of the story. Usually, the anecdote does not exist alone, but it is combined with other material such as expository essays or arguments. Writers may use anecdotes to clarify abstract points, to humanize individuals, or to create a memorable image in the reader’s mind.

Question 25

apostrophe

Answer 25

Not to be confused with the punctuation mark, apostrophe is the act of addressing some abstraction or personification that is not physically present: For instance, John Donne commands, “Oh, Death, be not proud.” King Lear proclaims, “Ingratitude! thou marble-hearted fiend, / More hideous when thou show’st thee in a child / Than the sea-monster.” Death, of course, is a phenomenon rather than a proud person, and ingratitude is an abstraction that hardly cares about Lear’s opinion, but the act of addressing the abstract has its own rhetorical power. An apostrophe is an example of a rhetorical trope.

Question 26

hyperbole

Answer 26

the trope of exaggeration or overstatement. “His thundering shout could split rocks.” Or, “Yo’ mama’s so fat. . . .”

Question 27

irony

Answer 27

IRONY: Cicero referred to irony as “saying one thing and meaning another.” Irony comes in many forms. Verbal irony (also called sarcasm) is a trope in which a speaker makes a statement in which its actual meaning differs sharply from the meaning that the words ostensibly express. Often this sort of irony is plainly sarcastic in the eyes of the reader, but the characters listening in the story may not realize the speaker’s sarcasm as quickly as the readers do. Dramatic irony (the most important type for literature) involves a situation in a narrative in which the reader knows something about present or future circumstances that the character does not know. In that situation, the character acts in a way we recognize to be grossly inappropriate to the actual circumstances, or the character expects the opposite of what the reader knows that fate holds in store, or the character anticipates a particular outcome that unfolds itself in an unintentional way. Probably the most famous example of dramatic irony is the situation facing Oedipus in the play Oedipus Rex. Situational irony (also called cosmic irony) is a trope in which accidental events occur that seem oddly appropriate, such as the poetic justice of a pickpocket getting his own pocket picked. However, both the victim and the audience are simultaneously aware of the situation in situational irony–which is not the case in dramatic irony. Probably the most famous example of situational irony is Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal, in which Swift “recommends” that English landlords take up the habit of eating Irish babies as a food staple. See also Socratic irony.

Question 28

juxtapose

Answer 28

The arrangement of two or more ideas, characters, actions, settings, phrases, or words side-by-side or in similar narrative moments for the purpose of comparison, contrast, rhetorical effect, suspense, or character development.

Question 29

metaphor

Answer 29

A comparison or analogy stated in such a way as to imply that one object is another one, figuratively speaking. When we speak of “the ladder of success,” we imply that being successful is much like climbing a ladder to a higher and better position. Another example comes from an old television add from the 1980s urging teenagers not to try drugs. The camera would focus on a close-up of a pair of eggs and a voice would state “This is your brain.” In the next sequence, the eggs would be cracked and thrown onto a hot skillet, where the eggs would bubble, burn, and seeth. The voice would state, “This is your brain on drugs.” The point of the comparison is fairly clear. Another example is how Martin Luther wrote, “A mighty fortress is our God, / A bulwark never failing.” (Mighty fortress and bulwark are the two metaphors for God in these lines.)