Fiction and Nonfiction Questions in Review

The idea

Novels, short stories and nonfiction together make up thirty-five percent of the exam. For fiction, find the narrator and the point of view, the narrator's attitude, the social facts and how character is shown, through tags, reflection or stream of consciousness. For a short story, look for the turn or epiphany near the end, as in Joyce's Dubliners. For nonfiction, read it as an argument: find the thesis, the opponent, the key terms and the tone, whether Swift's mask, Johnson's weight or Arnold's urbanity. For criticism, find the claim, the evidence and the turn. Then answer by naming the narrator's or arguer's stance and the evidence the passage gives, and reject options the passage does not support.