Capstone: Running the Procedure Cold

This is Unit Twenty-One of Analyzing and Interpreting Literature, part one of two: the capstone, in which the procedure is run cold on the board's own sample questions. Unit twenty closed by saying one unit remained and that failures would be reported as failures. Here is this unit's governing idea, and it pays off when three consecutive questions turn out to draw on three different units: twenty units built a procedure, and the only honest test is whether it answers the questions the board actually publishes, worked in order, with the board's answer reported as the board's and nothing new introduced. We begin with what the sample set is and is not, and the procedure assembled into six moves. Then passage one, Sir Peter's complaint from Sheridan: a device question whose five options include four terms the anchor's glossary never defines, a literal question that wants only attention, and a word-in-context question an adjective settles. Then passage two, an eighteenth-century apostrophe to Vanity: a paraphrase tested by correspondence, a referent answered by recognising the form, and a tone shift located by its hinge. By the end you will be able to state the six moves. To work the board's first three questions and see why question one is the tightest. And to work the next three and see orientation pay in a second.

Three entries to start: what this unit does, what the sample set is and is not, and the whole procedure assembled into six moves in order.

Ten questions, worked in order.

AIL 2001 What This Unit Does

It runs the ten published sample questions in order, naming the type, applying the procedure the course built, and reporting the board's own answer. Nothing new is introduced. The purpose is to find out whether twenty units of method actually reach the paper; nothing new is introduced here.

Examples, not a past paper.

AIL 2002 What the Sample Set Is and Is Not

Ten questions across three passages, published by the board as examples. It is not a past paper and its proportions need not match a real one. It is the only direct evidence available about how this exam asks, which is why the whole course was calibrated against it.

Read, place, parse, settle, name, test.

AIL 2003 The Procedure, Assembled

Read the whole passage. Establish the voice. Parse any sentence that resists. Settle any word the sentence strains against. Name the device or the structure. Then test the options by elimination, and require the answer to be pointable on the page; six moves, in that order.

Eleven entries on passage one: Sir Peter's complaint, then question one and the vocabulary gap it exposes, the near-miss option, question two as attention only, question three settled by an adjective, and the lesson that three questions drew on three units.

A complaint that ends in an admission.

AIL 2004 Passage One: Sir Peter's Complaint

Sheridan's School for Scandal, the entrance speech worked in unit three. An old bachelor takes a young wife, says he has been the most miserable dog ever since, and lists her extravagances before admitting he doubts he loves her; unit three worked this passage.

Five options, one answer: clichés.

AIL 2005 Question One: Device Identification

The board quotes the happiest of men and the most miserable dog, and asks what those two phrases are best described as. It offers five options: clichés, metaphors, allusions, stock attitudes and euphemisms. The published answer is clichés, the board's answer reported as such.

Four of five terms, undefined.

AIL 2006 One Question, Five Terms, One Defined

Of those five options the anchor's glossary defines exactly one, metaphor. Cliché, allusion, stock attitude and euphemism have no headword. A candidate working from the anchor alone could not read the options of the board's first question; the anchor alone cannot read this item.

Seventy terms, and here is why.

AIL 2007 Why Seventy Terms Were Supplied

Units six, seven, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen and sixteen each supplied standard definitions the glossary omits, and the running total reached seventy. Question one is the justification: the vocabulary gap is not theoretical, it sits in the first published item.

Eliminate on the definitions.

AIL 2008 Working Question One

A cliché is a phrase worn smooth by repetition. Both of the quoted phrases are exactly that, and neither one compares two things, refers outward to another text, or softens anything. Elimination on the definitions leaves clichés, which is the board's answer; neither phrase compares anything.

True of him, not of the phrases.

AIL 2009 Why "Stock Attitudes" Is the Trap

Sir Peter's attitudes are conventional, so the option is nearly right. But the question asks about the phrases, not the attitudes, and the phrases are worn language. Unit one's trap of the true but unresponsive option is precisely this, and unit one named this trap.

The answer is in the passage.

AIL 2010 Question Two: Literal Comprehension

The board asks what kind of bride Sir Peter hoped for. The published answer is innocent and guileless. The passage says he chose with caution a girl bred wholly in the country who never knew luxury beyond one silk gown; innocent and guileless, per the board.

It tests only whether you read it.

AIL 2011 The Question Type That Underlies All Others

Unit one said literal comprehension underlies the other six types. This item tests nothing but whether the passage was read. A candidate who hunts for a device here has over-read a question that wanted only attention, so do not over-read a plain question.

Grace, in context: skill.

AIL 2012 Question Three: Word in Context

The board asks what grace means in the sentence where Sir Peter says his wife now plays her part with as ready a grace as if she had never seen a bush nor a grass plot out of Grosvenor-Square. The published answer is skill, the board's answer reported.

Ready measures fluency.

AIL 2013 The Adjective Settles It

Unit three's entry on this item found the deciding evidence: the adjective ready measures fluency rather than beauty or piety. Divine favour fails because nothing in the speech is religious, and ornament fails because ready is not an ornamental word. Skill survives; unit three worked this item.

Three items, three different tools.

AIL 2014 Three Questions, Three Units

Question one needed unit seven's device vocabulary, question two needed nothing but careful reading, and question three needed unit three's procedure. Three consecutive items drawing on three different parts of the course, which is what a real passage does; here the governing idea pays off.

Seven entries on passage two: the apostrophe to Vanity, the paraphrase question and how to test one, the referent question answered by the form, why that is orientation paying directly, the tone-shift question, and locating its hinge.

Vanity, addressed as a person.

AIL 2015 Passage Two: The Apostrophe to Vanity

An eighteenth-century prose passage addressing Vanity directly, beginning O Vanity. Unit seven defined apostrophe, direct address to an abstraction, which the anchor's glossary does not carry despite the board using one in its own sample; the glossary omits the term.

Restate; add nothing.

AIL 2016 Question Four: Paraphrase

The board asks for a paraphrase of the opening sentence. The published answer is that people do not sufficiently recognise the power of vanity. A paraphrase question wants the sentence's content restated, with nothing added and nothing lost; the board's answer, reported.

Correspondence, not plausibility.

AIL 2017 Comparing an Option Word by Word

Unit nine's trap was the paraphrase that adds, usually an explanation of motive. The test is correspondence, not plausibility: read the option against the sentence and reject anything the sentence does not contain, however reasonable it sounds; unit nine named this trap.

The addressee is the thing addressed.

AIL 2018 Question Five: Referent Tracking

The board asks what thou refers to. The published answer is Vanity. In an apostrophe the addressee is the thing named at the opening, so the whole question is answered by having noticed what kind of passage it is; naming the form answers the item.

One term, one second.

AIL 2019 Recognising a Form Answers a Question

Question five is the clearest case in the sample set of orientation paying directly. A candidate who knows the word apostrophe answers it in a second. One who does not must track pronouns backward through eighteenth-century prose under time pressure, and the alternative is slow.

The tone becomes playful.

AIL 2020 Question Six: Tone Shift

The board asks about a shift in tone across four lines. The published answer is that the tone becomes playful and humorous. Unit four established that tone options are specific and that a shift question presupposes two tones and a hinge, two tones and a hinge per unit four.

Look for the mechanical signal.

AIL 2021 Locating the Hinge

Unit four's markers: a conjunction opening a sentence, a change of tense, a move from general to particular, a question, or a sudden shortening. Look for the mechanical signal in the four lines named before arguing from how the passage feels, before arguing from feel.

That is the capstone's purpose, the six moves, passage one's three questions, and passage two's three, with the governing idea paid off in three questions drawing on three units. You can say the capstone runs ten questions in order with the board's answer reported as the board's, that the sample set is examples and the only direct evidence, and that the procedure is read, place, parse, settle, name, test. You can work Sheridan's Sir Peter: eliminate on definitions to reach clichés while knowing four of the five option words are absent from the anchor and that seventy supplied terms exist for exactly this, refuse stock attitudes as true of him but not of the phrases, answer the bride question by reading alone, and settle grace as skill because ready measures fluency. And you can work the apostrophe to Vanity: paraphrase by correspondence and not plausibility, answer thou as Vanity in a second by knowing the form, and locate a tone shift's hinge by its mechanical signal before arguing from feel. Part two finishes the shift, takes Sonnet forty-four, and gives the honest tally.