A novel opens, 'It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.' Which restatement is accurate?

A novel begins, 'It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness.' What does the sentence say?

A narrator says, 'You have seen how a man was made a slave; you shall see how a slave was made a man.' Which paraphrase is accurate?

In Macbeth, 'False face must hide what the false heart doth know.' Which restatement fits the line?

A speaker says, 'I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will.' Which paraphrase is accurate?

A character says, 'The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, / But in ourselves, that we are underlings.' Which restatement is accurate?

A poem begins, 'I celebrate myself, and sing myself, / And what I assume you shall assume.' What can a reader infer about the speaker?

Macbeth says, 'I have no spur / To prick the sides of my intent, but only / Vaulting ambition.' What can the reader conclude about his motive?

A poem describes 'the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain' that 'thrilled' the speaker. What can a reader infer?

A speaker cries, 'I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!' What inference does the figurative language license?

A speaker says, 'The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself.' What can be inferred?

A speaker says, 'And mark in every face I meet / Marks of weakness, marks of woe.' What does the passage let a reader conclude?

A novel opens, 'Call me Ishmael.' What does that imperative accomplish in that position?

A poem opens, 'Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary.' What does 'midnight dreary' do at the start?

Hamlet begins a soliloquy, 'To be, or not to be: that is the question.' What does the phrasing do?

A speaker says, 'I wandered lonely as a cloud / That floats on high o'er vales and hills.' What does the simile accomplish?

A poem opens, 'Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness.' What does the opening noun phrase accomplish?

A poem begins, 'O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being.' What does the direct address do?

A poem says, 'Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, / And sorry I could not travel both.' A student picks 'The speaker regrets the choice he made.' What is wrong with it?

A sonnet asks, 'Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? / Thou art more lovely and more temperate.' A student picks 'The beloved is exactly like summer.' What fails?

A poem begins, 'Batter my heart, three-person'd God.' A student picks 'The speaker politely asks for comfort.' Why is that not supported?

A speaker says, 'Had we but world enough and time, / This coyness, lady, were no crime.' A student says coyness is already a moral crime. What is wrong?

A speaker says, 'If music be the food of love, play on.' A student chooses 'The speaker literally wants food.' What is wrong with that reading?

A sonnet says, 'Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers; / Little we see in Nature that is ours.' A student says it praises consumer activity. What fails?

Which reading do these lines NOT support: 'The sedge has withered from the lake, / And no birds sing.'?

Which reading do these lines NOT support: 'Out, out, brief candle! / Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player'?

Which reading do these lines NOT support: 'Water, water, every where, / Nor any drop to drink.'?

Which reading do the words NOT support: 'O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?'

Which interpretation do these lines NOT support: 'Tyger Tyger, burning bright, / In the forests of the night'?

Which reading do these lines NOT support: 'Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing'?