RBSE VU English Literature study plan

Define and illustrate 25 core literary terms (metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche, irony, paradox, conceit, apostrophe, understatement) with an original example for each

Classify the three major rhetorical appeals and identify two devices of arrangement (antithesis, parallelism, chiasmus) in short passages you supply

Distinguish metre, foot, and line length, then scan five lines of iambic pentameter and mark stress and feet

Build a personal glossary template with columns for term, definition, example, and common confusion

Identify and explain the conventions of the sonnet, ode, elegy, ballad, dramatic monologue, and free verse

Annotate one sonnet for rhyme scheme, volta, and turn of argument without external notes

Analyse sound devices (alliteration, assonance, consonance, enjambment) and state their effect on pace in two poems

Compare how two poems use a single image to build theme, writing one paragraph of contrast

Map the plot structure of a tragedy onto exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and catastrophe

Explain the functions of soliloquy, aside, and dramatic irony with a worked example from a play you have read

Characterise a tragic protagonist by tracing hamartia, reversal, and recognition

Distinguish comedy of manners, farce, and problem play by their conventions

Distinguish the narrative points of view (first person, omniscient, limited, objective) and detect shifts within a passage

Analyse how a narrator's reliability is constructed through gaps, contradiction, and tone

Identify the conventions of the essay, biography, autobiography, and literary criticism as non-fiction forms

Re-test 15 terms from week 1 and correct any definition you could not state from memory

Build a timeline placing Old English, Middle English, Renaissance, Restoration, Romantic, Victorian, and Modern periods with approximate date ranges

List three defining features and two representative authors for each period

Trace one theme, such as nature or the individual, across three periods and note how its treatment changes

Match ten short unidentified extracts to their likely period using diction and syntax clues

Summarise the major works, style, and thematic concerns of six set authors in two sentences each

Quote and explain three short passages from representative texts, stating why each is characteristic

Link each author to the period and literary movement covered in week 5

Draft comparison points between two authors writing on a shared theme

Define and contrast formalism, biographical criticism, psychoanalytic criticism, Marxist criticism, feminist criticism, and postcolonial criticism

Apply two different critical lenses to the same short text and show how the readings diverge

Distinguish author, narrator, and implied reader when interpreting a passage

Evaluate an interpretation for unsupported assumption and state the evidence that would strengthen it

Sit a timed 60-question mixed mock covering all eight domains and record the score by domain

Re-teach your two weakest domains using your own glossary, timeline, and profile sheets

Practise four timed unseen-passage analyses, one each for poetry, drama, prose, and rhetoric

Consolidate a one-page revision sheet of the 20 facts you most often miss