Figure of speech
Simile: A comparison between two things not alike with comparative words.
Ex: My feet smells like a rose that have committed suicide.
Metaphor: Implied comparison without a comparative word.
Ex: A plane is a caged bird.
Ex: The young goalie skyrocketed to fame but now he's crashed
Analogy: inference from one subject or word to another.
Ex: the grand bibliotheque might have the key for your future; it unlocks many doors to knowledge.
Ex: The humain brain, when compared to a computer, is really simple. A computer can execute a billion calcuation per second and some people have difficulty when adding numbers. It's still a mystery why the computers are letting us be masters over them.
Allusion: reference to something. It can be direct or indirect.
Ex: His achilles heel was his lack of personnality.
Personnification: When human caracteristics are given to inanimate objects or animals.
Ex: The car approved with a honk.
Hyperbole: exaggerated statements to evoke strong feelings.
Ex: There is more dust in my room than on the moon.
Understatement: Statement wich is lesser than the expression expected.
Ex: It's just a flesh wound, said the man who had lost both arms.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
LEL #4
For my final learning express library course, I chose to do another one that was about vocabulary. It's the word analogy practice 1. I figured this would allow me to further evaluate myself in my knowledge of the meaning of words.
I didn't like this test. There was no explanation for what was the answer I should be looking for. It took me quite some time to figure out the questions. For example, every question was like this : word1 : word2 :: word? : word4. I understood that it could mean : word1 to word2 is like word ? to word4. But in many other question, it seemed like word1=word? and word2=word4. I was really confused and I think that they could have better explained the situation. Also, for being the first test in a serie of 4, it was very difficult and there was a lot of words I have never seen before. That's considering I read a lot in english.
I got 75%, but I guess I was lucky because there was a lot of answers I guessed because all the words were unknown to me.
I give it a 3/10 because someone took the pain to do this test.
I didn't like this test. There was no explanation for what was the answer I should be looking for. It took me quite some time to figure out the questions. For example, every question was like this : word1 : word2 :: word? : word4. I understood that it could mean : word1 to word2 is like word ? to word4. But in many other question, it seemed like word1=word? and word2=word4. I was really confused and I think that they could have better explained the situation. Also, for being the first test in a serie of 4, it was very difficult and there was a lot of words I have never seen before. That's considering I read a lot in english.
I got 75%, but I guess I was lucky because there was a lot of answers I guessed because all the words were unknown to me.
I give it a 3/10 because someone took the pain to do this test.
LEL #3
For my third LEL I did the reading skills diagnostic: Literary text. I figured I could see how well I read in english. I had to read three text and a poem and correctly answer questions about them.
I scored 34/40, wich makes 85%.
I found this test rather interesting, because even if it was rather long, I love reading. But still, I think that two text would have been enough. When I saw the third text to read, I was a little discouraged to read all that only for a diagnostic test.
I didn't find this test so hard, but it wasn't easy either. I had to think and read the texts again and again to be sure I had understood. The question were about comprehension of the plot and the author's meaning and many other things like main ideas, point of view and vocabulary.
I didn't really learn anything new, but I guess doing tests like this are good practice to read and analyse faster. That would come in handy for tests wich I don't have much time.
I would give this test a 10/10. It's a well conceived practice tool.
I scored 34/40, wich makes 85%.
I found this test rather interesting, because even if it was rather long, I love reading. But still, I think that two text would have been enough. When I saw the third text to read, I was a little discouraged to read all that only for a diagnostic test.
I didn't find this test so hard, but it wasn't easy either. I had to think and read the texts again and again to be sure I had understood. The question were about comprehension of the plot and the author's meaning and many other things like main ideas, point of view and vocabulary.
I didn't really learn anything new, but I guess doing tests like this are good practice to read and analyse faster. That would come in handy for tests wich I don't have much time.
I would give this test a 10/10. It's a well conceived practice tool.
LEL #2
For my second LEL course, I took the vocabulary and spelling pratice #1. It consisted of fifty questions. Again, I didn't use the dictionnary to answer, because I am aiming to evaluate myself before working on improvement.
There was ten questions about vocabulary. I had to choose a synonym for specific words. I found that section pretty easy. Then the questions were varied from completing analogies to filling blanks in sentences. It took me half an hour to answer the fifty questions and it was mostly easy, but there was some questions wich I had to ponder a little more than usual. It was kinda interesting at first, but I soon grew bored to answer because the questions were very repetitive and some of them obsolete because the answer could be deduced from the previous question.
I scored 82%, wich for me seems alright. Finding a test easy doesn't mean it is. There was some answers that I gave that weren't the ones I was thinking about. I was a little disapointed about myself because I knew the good answer and I was just eager to finish. I did learn a few things though. For example, panacea means an absolute cure, something that could fix all disorders. I also thougth that to proscribe meant to recommend something, but in fact, it meant to forbid it. If not for those two words, I understood what the others meant, if not specifically.
I guess that kind of test would be helpful to enrich my vocabulary too, but it was a little too easy for my taste. I would give it 7/10 for this test because of that.
There was ten questions about vocabulary. I had to choose a synonym for specific words. I found that section pretty easy. Then the questions were varied from completing analogies to filling blanks in sentences. It took me half an hour to answer the fifty questions and it was mostly easy, but there was some questions wich I had to ponder a little more than usual. It was kinda interesting at first, but I soon grew bored to answer because the questions were very repetitive and some of them obsolete because the answer could be deduced from the previous question.
I scored 82%, wich for me seems alright. Finding a test easy doesn't mean it is. There was some answers that I gave that weren't the ones I was thinking about. I was a little disapointed about myself because I knew the good answer and I was just eager to finish. I did learn a few things though. For example, panacea means an absolute cure, something that could fix all disorders. I also thougth that to proscribe meant to recommend something, but in fact, it meant to forbid it. If not for those two words, I understood what the others meant, if not specifically.
I guess that kind of test would be helpful to enrich my vocabulary too, but it was a little too easy for my taste. I would give it 7/10 for this test because of that.
LEL #1
When I talk in english, I often don't know how to express myself because of my poor vocabulary. That's why I chose to do the three synonym and antonym practices for my first exercice in the Learning Express Library.
I had an unlimited time to answer twenty questions per tests. I did them without any dictionnary.
In the first test, I passed with 80%. The test was fairly easy and I finished it quickly. There was some words, like abridge, wich I didn't know the definition, but I knew approximatively what they mean. The only drawback is that there was an error in the correction : the good answer wasn't the one in their explanation (my own answer was still false though).
I scored 75% in the second test. It was a little thougher than the first, but not by that much. There was still some words I don't see often, but I was good enough to deduce the meaning for some of them.
I thougth I had some difficulty with the last one, but I scored 80%. I had to guess some answers, but I was right for most of them.
I think those tests showed me that I understand english well enough. However, it wouldn't hurt to know more words to talk more fluidly. It was interesting because it made me practice something I actually wanted to improve.
I would give it 10/10, but minus one point because of the correction error. So 9/10
I had an unlimited time to answer twenty questions per tests. I did them without any dictionnary.
In the first test, I passed with 80%. The test was fairly easy and I finished it quickly. There was some words, like abridge, wich I didn't know the definition, but I knew approximatively what they mean. The only drawback is that there was an error in the correction : the good answer wasn't the one in their explanation (my own answer was still false though).
I scored 75% in the second test. It was a little thougher than the first, but not by that much. There was still some words I don't see often, but I was good enough to deduce the meaning for some of them.
I thougth I had some difficulty with the last one, but I scored 80%. I had to guess some answers, but I was right for most of them.
I think those tests showed me that I understand english well enough. However, it wouldn't hurt to know more words to talk more fluidly. It was interesting because it made me practice something I actually wanted to improve.
I would give it 10/10, but minus one point because of the correction error. So 9/10
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Hills like white elephants
Outline
Litterary thesis :
Hills like white elephants shows us a conversation between a couple concerning an abortion with the point of view of the man and the girl in the story.
Symbols:
White elephants can represent the fact that the woman is pregnant. The man sees it as an obstacle while the girl sees it as an extraordinary thing.
Also, the train tracks separates the landscape in two. One side is dry, barren and there are hills while the other is green and fertile farmlands. The girl always ''looks across the hills''. We can assume she is considering the idea of the abortion.
When that the man moves himself the luggage to the other side of the station, we can assume that he is the one making the decisions. This is contradictory compared with what he said to her, that it was her opinion about it that mattered.
Litterary thesis :
Hills like white elephants shows us a conversation between a couple concerning an abortion with the point of view of the man and the girl in the story.
Symbols:
White elephants can represent the fact that the woman is pregnant. The man sees it as an obstacle while the girl sees it as an extraordinary thing.
Also, the train tracks separates the landscape in two. One side is dry, barren and there are hills while the other is green and fertile farmlands. The girl always ''looks across the hills''. We can assume she is considering the idea of the abortion.
When that the man moves himself the luggage to the other side of the station, we can assume that he is the one making the decisions. This is contradictory compared with what he said to her, that it was her opinion about it that mattered.
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