Literature: Poetry
Poetry questions test whether you can move from the literal sense of a stanza to its feeling and its craft. The paper typically asks for the central idea, the tone, identification and explanation of a figure of speech, paraphrase of given lines, and the message or relevance of the poem. Answers are short, so precision matters more than length.
What the questions want
- Central idea: one or two sentences - situation, then attitude.
- Tone/mood: one adjective plus the words that create it.
- Devices: simile, metaphor, personification, alliteration, onomatopoeia, refrain, imagery. Name it, quote it, explain the effect.
- Paraphrase: same meaning in your own words; not a word-by-word gloss.
- Message: what the reader is meant to feel or do, tied to the last stanza.
Worked example
Extract: "The wind is an old beggar that knocks at every door, / and the leaves run out to him, pennies on the floor." Q. Identify and explain one figure of speech. Model: "The wind is personified as a beggar who 'knocks at every door', and the fallen leaves become 'pennies' in a metaphor. This makes the wind seem persistent and needy rather than merely strong, turning an autumn scene into an image of giving." Reasoning: naming the device is only half the answer. The mark is for the effect, and the effect must be tied to the exact quoted words, not to a general impression of the poem.
Traps that cost marks
- Calling a metaphor a simile because it "compares" two things.
- Listing devices without explaining what they do.
- Writing a full paraphrase when the question asks only for the theme.
- Guessing a rhyme scheme without marking the end sounds of each line.
- Ignoring the word limit and drifting into a general essay on the poet.