How to Study for a Test on Poetry Terms
Most teachers want to enhance their students’ enjoyment of poetry by making sure they understand the elements that contribute to a poem. They will usually give a test at some point to make sure students know the names of those elements and their functions. Studying for this kind of test is not as difficult as it seems. You simply need to break down the information into small sections and provide yourself with a few memorization tricks.
Other People Are Reading
Instructions
-
-
1
Provide yourself with a visual picture to remember everything you need to know about imagery—which means the devices that help the poet get an image across. For a simile, remember that “the sun is like a golden ball”; but in a metaphor, we would simply say that “the sun is a golden ball,” leaving out the word “like.” While you’re picturing that sun, imagine it smiling at you—that’s personification, making the sun seem like a person. And if you can visualize someone saying, “He would go to the sun and back for a few bucks,” you know that person has utilized hyperbole, or an exaggeration.
-
2
Remind yourself that melody is easy to remember because it has to do with sound. Start with the term "alliteration," which sounds a lot like the word “letter”; in alliteration, you’ll find lots of words beginning with the same letter or consonant sound. “Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers” is a tongue-twister, but it’s also alliteration. Close to alliteration is assonance, which performs the same function, only with vowels. To remember that, think of “An angry cat snapped up a rat”—all of those short “a” sounds should help you remember assonance. To remember the 12-letter word "onomatopoeia," break it into four 3-letter parts--ono, mat, opo, eia—and then whisper it to remind yourself that onomatopoetic words are those which sound like sounds. ("Hoot," "hiss" and "drip" are other examples.) Rhyme is also a melodic device: Think of “The Cat in the Hat” as an example of single rhyme and “The kitty isn’t pretty” as an example of double (two-syllable) rhyme.
-
-
3
Rhythm (also called metric pattern) can best be memorized by using a pencil to beat out rhythmic patterns on the top of your desk. Using the examples of various rhythms found in the site listed in Resources, practice combinations. Beat out, for example, some iambic pentameter (used by Shakespeare) or some trochaic tetrameter. Once you get the beat going, you’ll have them memorized in no time, especially if you practice with friends.
-
4
Use poetry you have read in class to help you memorize different types of poems. You’ll easily remember that narrative poems tell a story. However, for odes, elegies, sonnets and others your teacher included in the unit, memorize the type by adding the name of the type to the title of the poem: “Let Me Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day Sonnet,” for example.
-
1
Tips & Warnings
Find out if the test will contain an essay portion; if so, you may be asked to discuss the theme (or central message) of a poem.
