Function of POV: Poetry Practice Test

Read the following poem, in which a speaker describes a hospital waiting room after receiving uncertain test results, and answer the question.

"Waiting Room"

The television mumbles

a daytime verdict.

A woman peels an orange

like it’s a slow confession.

You sit with your hands

folded in their own prayer,

watching the clock practice

its indifferent circles.

When the nurse calls a name

you don’t recognize,

your body answers anyway—

half rising, half hope.

Outside, the parking lot shines

with recent rain.

You tell yourself the world

is always this clean.

Which choice best describes the function of the poem’s use of second person (“you”) to depict the waiting-room experience?

Read the following poem and answer the question that follows.

Title: “From the Jar on the Top Shelf”

She keeps me above the cumin and the tea,

a glass throat full of coins that no longer spend.

When the house is quiet, she shakes me

like a small storm to count what’s left.

She says it’s for emergencies—

a word that tastes like metal.

But I have watched her buy roses

after an argument, watched her tip a driver

and call it kindness.

Sometimes she forgets I’m here.

Then I become pure weight,

a silence that shines.

How does the poem’s shift from third-person (“she”) to first-person (“I”) most affect the poem’s meaning?