Literature and Prose/Poetry Appreciation
Literature and Prose/Poetry Appreciation rewards close reading of the prescribed RBSE Class 12 texts. Questions ask for central idea, character, theme and tone, and poetry questions often require you to identify and explain a figure of speech in a given line.
Answering literature questions
- Match length to marks: one line for one mark, three or four sentences for three marks, a structured paragraph for five.
- Anchor every claim in a word, phrase or line from the text; paraphrase briefly, then explain.
- A character answer needs a trait, evidence and effect. 'He is impulsive: he acts before he thinks, as when he leaves without telling anyone.'
- Poetry: name the device, quote it, then state what it does. Metaphor, simile, personification, alliteration, onomatopoeia, oxymoron, irony and rhyme scheme (abab, aabb) are the usual labels.
Worked example
Lines: 'The river wears a silver coat / and hums a borrowed tune.' Reasoning: a river cannot wear or hum, so the lines give it human qualities, which is personification. 'Silver coat' suggests moonlight on the water; 'borrowed tune' suggests a sound not its own, perhaps echoing the wind. The effect is to make the landscape feel alive and slightly secretive. A complete answer names the device, quotes it, and states the effect.
Traps
Retelling the story instead of answering the question, summarising a poem without naming devices, inventing quotations, writing the poet's biography when the theme is asked for, and ignoring the marks-to-length ratio.