Read the excerpt from "The Gift of the Magi."

Had the queen of Sheba lived in the flat across the airshaft, Della would have let her hair hang out the window some day to dry just to depreciate Her Majesty’s jewels and gifts. This excerpt is an example of which kind of characterization?

A. indirect characterization, because it is showing Della’s pride in her long hair
B. direct characterization, because it is describing Della’s skill for decorating
C. indirect characterization, because it is revealing Della’s cultural heritage
D. direct characterization, because it is describing Della’s prized possessions

Which of these excerpts is most clearly an example of narrative poetry? a. “in xanadu did kubla khan/a stately pleasure dome decree…” b. “and all that’s best of dark and bright/meet in her aspect and her eyes…” c. “who can contemplate fame through clouds unfold/the star which rises…” d. “one shade the more, one ray the less/had half impaired the nameless grace…”

Which line in this excerpt from the great gatsby by f. scott fitzgerald contains a simile? about half way between west egg and new york the motor-road hastily joins the railroad and runs beside it for a quarter of a mile, so as to shrink away from a certain desolate area of land. this is a valley of ashes—a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and finally, with a transcendent effort, of men who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air. occasionally a line of grey cars crawls along an invisible track, gives out a ghastly creak and comes to rest, and immediately the ash-grey men swarm up with leaden spades and stir up an impenetrable cloud which screens their obscure operations from your sight.

Read the passage below and answer the question. somehow, it was hotter then: a black dog suffered on a summer’s day; bony mules hitched to hoover carts flicked flies in the sweltering shade of the live oaks on the square. men’s stiff collars wilted by nine in the morning. in the excerpt above, the phrase "stiff collars wilted by nine in the morning" suggests that despite the heat, men still dressed up the men in the town were vain men's clothing appeared its best on hot days the men were not accustomed to wearing nice clothes