Stylistic tests
Part I
1. Find the word which is bookish in style:
a. darkness b. harmony
c. foolish d. glad
2. Find the word which is colloquial in style:
a. parent b. father
c. dad d. ancestor
3. Find a non-literary word (slang):
a. wife b. sister
c. missus d. mother
4. Find a non-literary word (professionalism):
a. a shop c. a store
b. a lab d. a bam
5. Find a non-literary word (low-colloquial):
a. bad c. awful
b. negative d. bloody
6. Find a non-literary expression (vulgarism):
a. to shut up c. to be silent
b. to be quiet d. to stop talking
7. Find the word in which the emotive charge is heavier:
a. large c. tremendous
b. big d. vast
8. Find an example of personal metaphor:
a. She is like a snake in the grass. b. He bought a head of cabbage.
с. The moon is riding in the sky d. The moon is like a silver coin
9. Find an example of metonymy:
a. He had only a few coppers in the pocket. b. We got to the mouth of the river.
c. He was a lion in the fight d. The valley was silent
10. Find an example of a dead (trite) metaphor:
a. cold reason b. cruel heat
c. the flower of his life d. the hand of the watch
11. Find a case of synecdoche:
a. Everything smiled at him. b. All hands aboard!
c. The childhood of the earth. d. The leg of the table was broken.
12. Find an example of personification:
a. The kettle is boiling. b. He is not a Pushkin, but his poems are good
c. I don’t like her sharp tongue. d. The wind was singing in the trees.
13. Find an example of chiasmus:
a. He went to bed again, and thought, and thought, and thought it over and over.
b .We were talking about how bad we were. Bad from the medical point of view.
с Down dropped the breeze, the sails dropped down.
d. You have been busy, busy, busy, haven’t you?
14. Find an example of anadiplosis:
a. I am sorry, I am so very sorry, I am so extremely sorry.
b. With Bewick on my knee, I was then happy; happy at least in my own
c. Money is what he is after money!
d. Those evening bells! Those evening bells!
15. Find an example of climax:
a. They talked and talked all night,
b. Youth is lovely, age is lonely.
c. It was a lovely city, a beautiful city, a fair city, a veritable gem of city.
d. He played a tune over and over again
Part II
Task: define the lexical or syntactical stylistic device (SD):
16. A devil of a sea rolls in that bay. (Byron)
a. chain epithet b. reversed epithet c. metonymy
17. My mother was wearing her best grey dress and gold brooch and a feint pink flush under each cheekbone. (W. Golding)
a. metaphor b. metonymy c. zeugma
l8. Have you been seeing any spirits? Or taking any?
a. antithesis b. pun c. zeugma
19. Every Caesar has his Brutus.
a. antonomasia b. metaphor c. simile
20.I should answer, I should tell you (Longfellow)
a. climax b. suspense c. detachment
21. Women are not made for attacks. Wait they must.
a. inversion b. gradation c. ellipsis
22. We are met here as the guests of – What shall I call them? – The three Graces of the Dublin musical World. The table burst into applause. (J. Joyce)
a. simile b. metonymy c. allusion
23. Oh! Sweetness of the pain. (J. Keats)
a. antithesis b. oxymoron c. metaphor
24. I think that is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about it. (0. Wilde)
a. irony b. pun c. zeugma
25. He had not been unhappy all day. (E. Hemingway)
a. metonymy b. metaphor c. litotes
26. They speak like saints, and act like devils.
a. antithesis b. repetition c. gradation
27. No wonder, his father wanted to know what Bossiney meant, no wonder. (J. Galsworthy)
a. anaphora b. epiphora c. framing
28. Mr. Pneumonia was not what you would call a chivalric old gentleman.
(0. Henry)
a. personification b. metonymy c. simile
29. He sings, and he sings, and forever sings he – “I love my Love and my Love loves me”. (Coleridge)
a. framing b. chiasmus c. chain repetition
30. Of course, it’s important. Incredibly, urgently, desperately important.
a. enumeration b. climax c. hyperbole