All SAT II Literature Resources
Example Questions
Example Question #1 : Tone, Style, And Mood: Eighteenth And Nineteenth Century Prose
From the dim woods on either bank, Night’s ghostly army, the grey shadows, creep out with noiseless tread to chase away the lingering rear-guard of the light, and pass, with noiseless, unseen feet, above the waving river-grass, and through the sighing rushes; and Night, upon her sombre throne, folds her black wings above the darkening world, and, from her phantom palace, lit by the pale stars, reigns in stillness.
Then we run our little boat into some quiet nook, and the tent is pitched, and the frugal supper cooked and eaten. Then the big pipes are filled and lighted, and the pleasant chat goes round in musical undertone; while, in the pauses of our talk, the river, playing round the boat, prattles strange old tales and secrets, sings low the old child’s song that it has sung so many thousand years...
Harris said: “How about when it rained?”
You can never rouse Harris. There is no poetry about Harris—no wild yearning for the unattainable. Harris never “weeps, he knows not why.” If Harris’s eyes fill with tears, you can bet it is because Harris has been eating raw onions, or has put too much Worcester over his chop.
What is the tone of paragraph 4?
Parsimonious
Obstreperous
Droll
Lugubrious
Dreary
Droll
The speaker’s assessment of Harris’s character is dry, sardonic, and somewhat comedic. In other words, the tone is droll. None of the other choices make sense in the context of the speaker’s sentences.
Passage adapted from Jerome K. Jerome’s Three Men in a Boat (1889).
Example Question #1 : Tone, Style, And Mood: Prose
(1) We had taken up an oil-stove once, but “never again.” (2) It had been like living in an oil-shop that week. (3) It oozed. (4) I never saw such a thing as paraffin oil is to ooze. (5) We kept it in the nose of the boat, and, from there, it oozed down to the rudder, impregnating the whole boat and everything in it on its way, and it oozed over the river, and saturated the scenery and spoilt the atmosphere. (6) Sometimes a westerly oily wind blew, and at other times an easterly oily wind, and sometimes it blew a northerly oily wind, and maybe a southerly oily wind; but whether it came from the Arctic snows, or was raised in the waste of the desert sands, it came alike to us laden with the fragrance of paraffin oil.
(7) And that oil oozed up and ruined the sunset; and as for the moonbeams, they positively reeked of paraffin.
What is the tone of this passage?
Glamorous
Ecumenical
Comedic
Plaintive
Indigent
Comedic
Due to the author’s use of hyperbole and repetition, we can surmise that readers are meant to find humor in this passage. The tone might be comically indignant (annoyed) at the paraffin oil mishap, but don’t confuse this term with indigent (impoverished). Ecumenical refers to matters of church or religion, plaintive is a synonym for mournful, and glamorous is a synonym for beautiful or stylish. None of these terms make sense given the style and content of the passage.
Passage adapted from Jerome K. Jerome’s Three Men in a Boat (1889).
Example Question #1 : Tone, Style, And Mood: Eighteenth And Nineteenth Century Prose
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness; that, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.
(1776)
The tone of this passage could be described as ____________________.
logical and indifferent
angry and over-excited
disrespectful and irreverent
melancholy and apologetic
indignant and solemn
indignant and solemn
One possible way to describe the tone of this passage is "indignant and solemn." The adjective "indignant" means that the author(s) are writing about a wrong that has been done to them, and passionately believe that it must be corrected. "Solemn" is appropriate because the tone is very formal and serious.
Passage adapted from The Declaration of Independence of the Continental Congress of the United States of America in 1776.
Example Question #31 : Tone, Style, And Mood
(1) The Baron's lady weighed about three hundred and fifty pounds, and was therefore a person of great consideration, and she did the honours of the house with a dignity that commanded still greater respect. (2) Her daughter Cunegonde was seventeen years of age, fresh-coloured, comely, plump, and desirable. (3) The Baron’s son seemed to be in every respect worthy of his father. (4) The Preceptor Pangloss was the oracle of the family, and little Candide heard his lessons with all the good faith of his age and character. (5)
Pangloss was professor of metaphysico-theologico-cosmolo-nigology. (6) He proved admirably that there is no effect without a cause, and that, in this best of all possible worlds, the Baron's castle was the most magnificent of castles, and his lady the best of all possible Baronesses.
(1759)
What is the tone of this passage?
Pathetic
Malicious
Comedic
Flattering
Bathetic
Comedic
The author pokes fun at both the Baron’s wife and at Pangloss in this passage, and he does so in a lighthearted tone. There is no malice in his descriptions, even though they are somewhat unflattering. Pathos is a synonym for poignancy or tragedy, and bathos is a synonym for ridiculousness.
Passage adapted from Voltaire’s Candide (1759)
Example Question #32 : Tone, Style, And Mood
(1) The Baron's lady weighed about three hundred and fifty pounds, and was therefore a person of great consideration, and she did the honours of the house with a dignity that commanded still greater respect. (2) Her daughter Cunegonde was seventeen years of age, fresh-coloured, comely, plump, and desirable. (3) The Baron’s son seemed to be in every respect worthy of his father. (4) The Preceptor Pangloss was the oracle of the family, and little Candide heard his lessons with all the good faith of his age and character. (5)
Pangloss was professor of metaphysico-theologico-cosmolo-nigology. (6) He proved admirably that there is no effect without a cause, and that, in this best of all possible worlds, the Baron's castle was the most magnificent of castles, and his lady the best of all possible Baronesses.
(1759)
Which sentence in the passage is tongue-in-cheek?
Sentence 2
Sentence 5
Sentence 1
Sentence 6
Sentence 4
Sentence 6
Sentence 6 lists the several things that Pangloss “proves” in an approving tone. However, everything on the list is somewhat ridiculous, obvious, or obsequious: “He proved admirably that there is no effect without a cause” (obvious), “and that, in this best of all possible worlds, the Baron's castle was the most magnificent of castles and his lady the best of all possible Baronesses” (ingratiating).
Passage adapted from Voltaire’s Candide (1759)
Example Question #33 : Tone, Style, And Mood
(1) The Baron's lady weighed about three hundred and fifty pounds, and was therefore a person of great consideration, and she did the honours of the house with a dignity that commanded still greater respect. (2) Her daughter Cunegonde was seventeen years of age, fresh-coloured, comely, plump, and desirable. (3) The Baron’s son seemed to be in every respect worthy of his father. (4) The Preceptor Pangloss was the oracle of the family, and little Candide heard his lessons with all the good faith of his age and character. (5)
Pangloss was professor of metaphysico-theologico-cosmolo-nigology. (6) He proved admirably that there is no effect without a cause, and that, in this best of all possible worlds, the Baron's castle was the most magnificent of castles, and his lady the best of all possible Baronesses.
(1759)
Which sentence in this passage is overtly ambiguous?
Sentence 4
Sentence 3
Sentence 2
Sentence 5
Sentence 6
Sentence 3
While short, sentence 3 could be interpreted in various ways. “The Baron’s son seemed to be in every respect worthy of his father,” could be a compliment – if the father is a good person. However, if the father is a scoundrel, saying that the son is worthy of (deserves) the father would be an insult.
Passage adapted from Voltaire’s Candide (1759)
Example Question #34 : Tone, Style, And Mood
"Well, then," said he, "this is the berth for me. Here you, matey," he cried to the man who trundled the barrow; "bring up alongside and help up my chest. I'll stay here a bit," he continued. "I'm a plain man; rum and bacon and eggs is what I want, and that head up there for to watch ships off. What you mought call me? You mought call me captain. Oh, I see what you're at—there"; and he threw down three or four gold pieces on the threshold. "You can tell me when I've worked through that," says he, looking as fierce as a commander.
And indeed bad as his clothes were and coarsely as he spoke, he had none of the appearance of a man who sailed before the mast, but seemed like a mate or skipper accustomed to be obeyed or to strike. The man who came with the barrow told us the mail had set him down the morning before at the Royal George, that he had inquired what inns there were along the coast, and hearing ours well spoken of, I suppose, and described as lonely, had chosen it from the others for his place of residence. And that was all we could learn of our guest.
How can the captain’s tone be described?
Imperious
Diffident
Surreptitious
Smarmy
Deferential
Imperious
The captain immediately notes that the innkeeper should call him “captain” rather than his first name. However, we can also guess at his tone based on his gestures. The captain “threw down three or four gold pieces on the threshold” and looked “as fierce as a commander.” This quickly rules out “deferential” and “diffident” and leaves us with our best choice, “imperious.”
Passage adapted from Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island, 1883.
Example Question #41 : Genre, Style, Tone, Mood, And Other Literary Features
. . . Suffering is one very long moment. We cannot divide it by seasons. We can only record its moods, and chronicle their return. With us time itself does not progress. It revolves. It seems to circle round one centre of pain. The paralysing immobility of a life every circumstance of which is regulated after an unchangeable pattern, so that we eat and drink and lie down and pray, or kneel at least for prayer, according to the inflexible laws of an iron formula: this immobile quality, that makes each dreadful day in the very minutest detail like its brother, seems to communicate itself to those external forces the very essence of whose existence is ceaseless change. Of seed-time or harvest, of the reapers bending over the corn, or the grape gatherers threading through the vines, of the grass in the orchard made white with broken blossoms or strewn with fallen fruit: of these we know nothing and can know nothing.
For us there is only one season, the season of sorrow. The very sun and moon seem taken from us. Outside, the day may be blue and gold, but the light that creeps down through the thickly-muffled glass of the small iron-barred window beneath which one sits is grey and niggard. It is always twilight in one’s cell, as it is always twilight in one’s heart. And in the sphere of thought, no less than in the sphere of time, motion is no more. The thing that you personally have long ago forgotten, or can easily forget, is happening to me now, and will happen to me again to-morrow. Remember this, and you will be able to understand a little of why I am writing, and in this manner writing. . . .
(1897)
What is the overall tone of the passage?
Bitter and mean-spirited
Moralizing and didactic
Hopeful and at peace
Angry and vehement
Grief-stricken and desolate
Grief-stricken and desolate
An acceptable way to describe the tone of this passage would be "grief-stricken and desolate." The speaker everywhere expresses grief and sadness and pain at his situation. Similarly, "desolate" means to lack consolation, to be wretched. All the speaker's references to the pain and suffering of his present condition fit this description.
The speaker does not display vehemence or anger, nor does he seem bitter or mean-spirited--to the contrary, he seems to be speaking to someone for their own good--nor does he display hopefulness. "Didactic" means to be overtly teaching something, and while there are moments of didacticism in the last paragraph, that is not the overriding tone of the passage, and nothing in the passage could rightly be called "moralizing"--that is, pushing an explicit moral or ethical agenda.
Passage adapted from Oscar Wilde's De Profundis (1897).
Example Question #42 : Genre, Style, Tone, Mood, And Other Literary Features
. . . Suffering is one very long moment. We cannot divide it by seasons. We can only record its moods, and chronicle their return. With us time itself does not progress. It revolves. It seems to circle round one centre of pain. The paralysing immobility of a life every circumstance of which is regulated after an unchangeable pattern, so that we eat and drink and lie down and pray, or kneel at least for prayer, according to the inflexible laws of an iron formula: this immobile quality, that makes each dreadful day in the very minutest detail like its brother, seems to communicate itself to those external forces the very essence of whose existence is ceaseless change. Of seed-time or harvest, of the reapers bending over the corn, or the grape gatherers threading through the vines, of the grass in the orchard made white with broken blossoms or strewn with fallen fruit: of these we know nothing and can know nothing.
For us there is only one season, the season of sorrow. The very sun and moon seem taken from us. Outside, the day may be blue and gold, but the light that creeps down through the thickly-muffled glass of the small iron-barred window beneath which one sits is grey and niggard. It is always twilight in one’s cell, as it is always twilight in one’s heart. And in the sphere of thought, no less than in the sphere of time, motion is no more. The thing that you personally have long ago forgotten, or can easily forget, is happening to me now, and will happen to me again to-morrow. Remember this, and you will be able to understand a little of why I am writing, and in this manner writing. . . .
(1897)
What is the tone of the underlined and bolded sentence from the passage?
Bitter and angry
Jubilant and admiring
Scientific and closely observant
Horrified and disgusted
Longing and heart-broken
Longing and heart-broken
An acceptable way to describe the tone of this sentence is "longing and heart-broken." "Longing" is appropriate because it is clear that the speaker cannot see the seasons change, but wishes he could. This is evident from the lengthy description of the seasons of nature, as well as from the statement at the end: "of these we know nothing and can know nothing." If he were able, he would go and observe the beauty of the outside world, but he cannot. This makes him extremely sad, which makes "heart-broken" another good descriptor for the tone of this sentence.
Passage adapted from Oscar Wilde's De Profundis (1897).
Example Question #11 : Tone
Adapted from A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift (1729)
The number of souls in this kingdom being usually reckoned one million and a half, of these I calculate there may be about two hundred thousand couple whose wives are breeders; from which number I subtract thirty thousand couples who are able to maintain their own children, although I apprehend there cannot be so many, under the present distresses of the kingdom; but this being granted, there will remain an hundred and seventy thousand breeders. I again subtract fifty thousand for those women who miscarry, or whose children die by accident or disease within the year. There only remains one hundred and twenty thousand children of poor parents annually born. The question therefore is, how this number shall be reared and provided for, which, as I have already said, under the present situation of affairs, is utterly impossible by all the methods hitherto proposed. For we can neither employ them in handicraft or agriculture; we neither build houses (I mean in the country) nor cultivate land: they can very seldom pick up a livelihood by stealing, till they arrive at six years old, except where they are of towardly parts, although I confess they learn the rudiments much earlier, during which time, they can however be properly looked upon only as probationers, as I have been informed by a principal gentleman in the county of Cavan, who protested to me that he never knew above one or two instances under the age of six, even in a part of the kingdom so renowned for the quickest proficiency in that art.
I am assured by our merchants, that a boy or a girl before twelve years old is no salable commodity; and even when they come to this age they will not yield above three pounds, or three pounds and half-a-crown at most on the exchange; which cannot turn to account either to the parents or kingdom, the charge of nutriment and rags having been at least four times that value.
I shall now therefore humbly propose my own thoughts, which I hope will not be liable to the least objection.
I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee or a ragout.
I do therefore humbly offer it to public consideration that of the hundred and twenty thousand children already computed, twenty thousand may be reserved for breed, whereof only one-fourth part to be males; which is more than we allow to sheep, black cattle or swine; and my reason is, that these children are seldom the fruits of marriage, a circumstance not much regarded by our savages, therefore one male will be sufficient to serve four females. That the remaining hundred thousand may, at a year old, be offered in the sale to the persons of quality and fortune through the kingdom; always advising the mother to let them suck plentifully in the last month, so as to render them plump and fat for a good table. A child will make two dishes at an entertainment for friends; and when the family dines alone, the fore or hind quarter will make a reasonable dish, and seasoned with a little pepper or salt will be very good boiled on the fourth day, especially in winter.
I have reckoned upon a medium that a child just born will weigh 12 pounds, and in a solar year, if tolerably nursed, increaseth to 28 pounds.
I grant this food will be somewhat dear, and therefore very proper for landlords, who, as they have already devoured most of the parents, seem to have the best title to the children.
Which of the following best describes the tone of this passage as a whole?
Callous but hopeful
Melancholic and wistful
Light and cheerful
Satirical and good-natured
Harsh and satirical
Harsh and satirical
The tone of this poem can best be described as harsh and satirical. The speaker pretends to suggest a logical idea, but uses the suggestion as a commentary on the state of his nation and the way the rich treat and view the poor. Though there are appeals to logic, it should not be taken as completely serious, and is hyperbolic in many ways. The satire here is known as Juvenalian satire, that is satire that is not intended to playfully instruct through irony, but rather to address societal evil with harsh mockery and ridicule.
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