BSEH SS English Elective flashcards

32 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.

Skimming vs scanning

Skimming reads quickly for gist and overall structure; scanning moves the eyes to locate a specific fact, name, date, or number. Use skimming before questions, scanning during them.

Inference question rule

The correct inference must be supported by textual evidence, not merely true in the real world. Reject options that add information the passage never states or implies.

Vocabulary in context

Substitute each option into the original sentence. The right option preserves both the sentence's meaning and its grammar, even if it is not the word's most common dictionary sense.

Tone versus mood

Tone is the writer's or speaker's attitude toward the subject, revealed by word choice. Mood is the emotional atmosphere the text creates in the reader. They can differ.

Note-making format

Use a title, headed sections, sub-headings, indentation, and short phrases rather than sentences. Abbreviations are allowed only if a key listing them is supplied.

Formal letter sequence

Sender's address, date, receiver's designation and address, subject line, salutation, body paragraphs, complimentary close, signature. Any missing element loses format marks.

Report writing features

Title, byline, place and date, then a factual body in past tense and third person or passive voice. Reports state events and findings, not the writer's personal feelings.

Notice essentials

A boxed format headed NOTICE, naming the issuing body, with date, bold heading, a body of four or five lines, and the signature with designation of the writer.

Article structure

Title and byline, an introduction stating the issue, two or three body paragraphs covering causes, effects, or solutions, and a conclusion ending with a call to action.

Complaint letter moves

State the problem and its details, supply evidence such as order number or date, describe the inconvenience caused, and request a specific remedy within a stated time.

Subject-verb agreement traps

'One of the' plus plural noun takes a singular verb. 'Each', 'every', 'either', and 'neither' are singular. 'The number of' is singular; 'a number of' is plural.

Reported speech backshift

Present becomes past, past becomes past perfect, and 'will' becomes 'would'. Pronouns shift, and time or place words change: now to then, here to there, tomorrow to the next day.

Third conditional form

If plus past perfect in the conditional clause, and 'would have' plus past participle in the main clause. It describes an unreal past situation and its imagined result.

Passive voice formation

The object becomes the subject, the verb becomes the correct tense of 'be' plus past participle, and the agent follows 'by' or is omitted when unknown or unimportant.

Modals of deduction

'Must' marks strong certainty, 'may', 'might', and 'could' mark possibility, and 'can't' marks impossibility. 'Should' and 'ought to' give advice rather than deduction.

Prepositional verb pairs

Fixed combinations must be memorised: depend on, consist of, insist on, comply with, object to, prefer to, capable of, similar to. Wrong prepositions are a common error item.

Hamartia

The tragic hero's error or flaw of judgment that sets off the chain of events leading to downfall. It is a mistake in action, not simply a moral vice.

Soliloquy versus aside

A soliloquy is a speech delivered alone on stage, revealing inner thought. An aside is a brief remark spoken so that other characters on stage do not hear it.

Dramatic irony

A gap in knowledge: the audience understands a disguise, trap, or truth that the characters on stage do not. The effect comes from watching them misread their situation.

Peripeteia and anagnorisis

Peripeteia is the reversal of fortune in a tragedy. Anagnorisis is the moment of recognition or discovery, when a character learns a crucial truth.

Theme statement form

An arguable claim about human experience, such as 'loyalty can demand the surrender of personal ambition'. A single word like 'loyalty' is a topic, not a theme.

Three types of irony

Verbal irony says the opposite of what is meant. Situational irony reverses expectation in the outcome. Dramatic irony gives the reader knowledge a character lacks.

Narrative point of view

First-person narration is limited and possibly biased; omniscient narration supplies judgments characters lack; third-person limited stays inside one character's perception. Reliability affects how much you trust the account.

Short story arc

Exposition, inciting incident, rising action, climax, falling action, resolution. Identify which stage a given extract occupies before analysing its language or significance.

Character evidence method

For each trait, name it, cite a specific incident or line proving it, then state what the trait reveals about the work's theme. Trait alone earns little credit.

Iambic pentameter

Five metrical feet per line, each an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed one, giving ten syllables. Count stresses rather than syllables when naming a metre.

Enjambment and caesura

Enjambment runs a sentence past the line break without punctuation, speeding pace. A caesura is a pause inside a line, slowing delivery and adding emphasis.

Rhyme scheme notation

Matching final sounds are labelled with the same letter: abab is alternate rhyme, aabb is a couplet pattern, abba is an envelope stanza. The notation describes sound, not meaning.

Alliteration versus assonance

Alliteration repeats consonant sounds at the beginnings of nearby words. Assonance repeats vowel sounds inside words. Consonance repeats consonants within or at the ends of words.

Sonnet and ode forms

A sonnet has fourteen lines, usually in iambic pentameter. An ode is an elevated, often lengthy address to a person, object, or abstract quality. A ballad narrates in stanzas.

Poetry analysis three steps

Quote the device, name it accurately, then explain its effect on meaning or tone. A list of devices without commentary on effect earns limited marks.

Setting as function

Setting is not decoration. Place and period constrain what characters can do, expose social pressures, and often symbolise the condition the work criticises.