Windmills & Giants

based on your questions from class, in an easy-to-print design. If you have questions about a question [awk] not listed here, please post a comment and one of your classmates or I will address it.

I have defined the vocabulary used in each question or possible answer. Use this as a study guide by itself, or work through the multiple choice section again, referring to this page when necessary. For your learning pleasure:

1. allusion—a reference to a work outside of the presented work
   

   paradox—sometimes used synonymously with contradiction, is a set of premises that appear to contradict the conclusion. In this question, it seems that the author is attempting to lure you into thinking that because Hester's daughter is dressed in the same colors as the symbol of her sin, that this is contradictory. The two symbols are tied in order to make a direct contrast—Pearl's appearance is described as "the scarlet letter endowed with life," between "the object of her affection and the emblem of her guilt and torture."
   

   extended metaphor—the prolonged use of a metaphor in a work. (See this article from Slate.com for a good example.)
   

2. objective narrator—a voice that reports (or narrates) action without commenting, interpreting, or analyzing
   

   subjective narrator—a voice that reports (or narrates) action while commenting, interpreting, or analyzing
   

3. analogy—interpreting an analogy requires an understanding of the connection between two things (in this question, the "object of Hester's affection" and the "emblem of her guilt and torture"), and applying this same connection to two other things ("Pearl" and "the letter A"). We find this answer by understanding that Pearl was the object of Hester's affection and the letter A was the emblem of her guilt and torture. This type of question appears in many college-prep exams, testing both critical thinking (GLOVE : HAND :: HAT : _____), and vocabulary skills (TENET : THEOLOGIAN :: HYPOTHESIS : _______).
   
4. parallel syntactic structure—illustrates the equality of several ideas in a sentence. A classic example comes from Winston Churchill's radio speech in 1940: "We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender. . . ."
   

   colloquial and idiomatic diction—word choice from a specific geographic location. Often used to establish common ground with an audience.
   

   inverted sentence—a sentence with the verb before the subject
   

5. begging the question—a logical fallacy in which the conclusion of an argument is stated in one of the premises. For example,
   

   To cast abortion as a solely private moral question, . . . is to lose touch with common sense: How human beings treat one another is practically the definition of a public moral matter. Of course, there are many private aspects of human relations, but the question whether one human being should be allowed fatally to harm another is not one of them. Abortion is an inescapably public matter. (Taken from http://www.fallacyfiles.org/begquest.html)
   

   ad hoc argument—an argument created specifically for an incident. For example, Aristotle's theory of spontaneous life from "pneuma" and various natural elements explains how insects seemingly grow from decaying matter.
   

Hope this helps. I will be editing some older posts on PELIDS and T-DIDLS tomorrow. They should be posted before Monday.

Please continue researching your candidate—we will be holding a class discussion on issues next week, so begin preparing as soon as possible.