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Difficulty: MediumUnseen Text Appreciation and Analysis

Which of the following correctly pairs each unseen literary line (Items 1–4) with the primary figure of speech or literary device it exemplifies?

  • Item 1: The solitary traveller was no novice in traversing the treacherous mountain path.Litotes
  • Item 2: The noble general conquered vast empires, subdued fierce tyrants, and lost his favourite button.Bathos
  • Item 3: She executed her ambitious plans with precision and her tea with milk.Zeugma
  • Item 4: Work hard to live well, and live well to work happily.Chiasmus

Answer

Item 1 corresponds to Litotes; Item 2 corresponds to Bathos; Item 3 corresponds to Zeugma; Item 4 corresponds to Chiasmus.
Each unseen line matches its distinct rhetorical device based on structural and stylistic characteristics: double-negative understatement yields litotes; anticlimactic descent yields bathos; single-verb dual-application yields zeugma; and syntactical inversion yields chiasmus.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Examine Item 1: 'The solitary traveller was no novice...'
The statement uses understatement via negation ('no novice' meaning 'an expert').
Affirming a thought by denying its contradictory opposite is the defining feature of litotes.
2
Examine Item 2: 'The noble general conquered vast empires, subdued fierce tyrants, and lost his favourite button.'
The narrative drops suddenly from solemn, lofty themes to an insignificant detail.
This unintentional or sudden descent from the sublime to the ridiculous/trivial is known as bathos.
3
Examine Item 3: 'She executed her ambitious plans with precision and her tea with milk.'
A single predicate word ('executed') governs two distinct phrases with different meanings.
Linking one word to two other words in disparate semantic contexts forms a zeugma.
4
Examine Item 4: 'Work hard to live well, and live well to work happily.'
Concepts are presented in an ABBA reversed grammatical order.
A rhetorical inversion of phrase structure across consecutive clauses is chiasmus.

Key Concept

Identification and stylistic analysis of figures of speech in unseen literary excerpts
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Topics

Unseen Text Appreciation and Analysis

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