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lesson pretestMultiple Choice

Pretest

Question 1 • Language Arts 9

Read the excerpt from "Choice: A Tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr." by Alice Walker. We loved the land and worked the land, but we never owned it; and even if we bought land, as my great-grandfather did after the Civil War, it was always in danger of being taken away, as his was, during the period following Reconstruction. Which rhetorical device does the author use in this excerpt?

Answer
A
synecdoche
B
antithesis
C
metonymy
D
zeugma

Explanation

The excerpt places contrasting ideas side by side: the people “loved the land and worked the land,” yet “never owned it.” This sharp contrast between their labor and attachment to the land and their lack of ownership is antithesis. The other choices name different kinds of figurative language and do not best describe this contrast.

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