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Figurative language and poetry — SHSAT practice questions

Figurative language and poetry on the SHSAT Reading Comprehension section covers how a poem’s images, wording, and stanza structure work together to create meaning. A student has to explain what a shift, a repeated detail, or a figurative turn is doing in the poem rather than restating the lines. The exam tends to ask how a stanza functions as a turning point, how a change in phrasing develops the poem’s meaning, or how a later return to opening details contributes to the whole. Answer choices usually contrast different purposes for the same lines, and traps include reading figurative language literally or treating a local effect as the poem’s main idea.

  • Section: Reading Comprehension 46 questions on the paper
  • 133 practice questions in the app

Sample questions

The Kite’s Second Sky

At noon, the kite came down.
Not falling—folding—
its blue paper buckled at the spine,
its tail caught hard in the pear tree.
5
One wooden spar gave a dry crack.
The string went slack in my hand.
Above me, the open air kept moving.
Below, I gathered every piece.
 
Upstairs, where the rafters held their dusk,
10
scissors whispered; silk thread slipped
in small, soft circles through the tear.
I pressed each wrinkle flat with flour paste.
Scrape, snip, stitch: the sounds were slight,
but steady as mice behind a wall.
15
Across the blue, I laid a crimson patch,
bright as a coal that would not cool.
 
I blamed the wind for wanting ruin,
as if each gust had teeth,
as if the clouds had set a trap,
20
as if the sky disliked what climbed.
I tied new knots too tight with anger.
The frame bent under my careful hands.
A thing can break from being held
as surely as from being hurled away.
 
25
Then I stopped hiding the jagged seam.
I trimmed the patch into a narrow river
running red from wingtip down to tail.
The tear became its winding bank;
the knots, small bridges crossing over.
30
What had looked like damage in the dusk
looked, by lamplight, almost like a map.
I let the paste dry without my touch.
 
At dawn I climbed the hill again,
and waited while the grass blades leaned.
35
No command could make the stillness open.
Then one cool current lifted,
pulled
the mended frame against the string—
not free of me, not mine to steer,
40
but drawing me a step uphill.
 
Higher, the red river flashed and vanished,
flashed and vanished as the kite turned.
Now the wind seemed less a set of teeth
than breath entering a paper lung.
45
I loosened my grip to give it room.
The line hummed low along my thumb.
I had blamed the wind for every break;
I thanked it now for testing every knot.
 
At noon, the kite came down once more,
50
not folding now, but circling—
a blue wing carrying its red river
slowly through the pear tree’s shade.
The string grew slack inside my hand.
The open air kept moving overhead.
55
This time, I did not gather broken pieces.
I gathered the line, and left the sky.

Question 1

How does the fourth stanza serve as a structural turning point in the poem?

  1. AIt shifts the speaker’s goal from concealing the tear to making the tear part of the kite’s design.
  2. BIt shifts the setting from the dim attic to the open hill where the kite will be launched.
  3. CIt shifts the speaker’s attention from repairing the frame to determining what broke it.
  4. DIt shifts the speaker’s goal from concealing the tear to making the kite look as if it had never been torn.
Show answer

Answer: A — It shifts the speaker’s goal from concealing the tear to making the tear part of the kite’s design.

The speaker stops hiding the jagged seam and shapes the crimson patch into a river, so the tear becomes part of the kite’s design. The setting does not move to the hill until the next stanza. The speaker is not investigating what broke the kite, and the river and map images keep the damage visible rather than making the kite look as if it had never been torn.

Question 2

How does the change from “I blamed the wind” to “I thanked it now” (lines 47–48) help develop the poem’s meaning?

  1. AIt shows that the speaker now treats the wind as a cooperative partner that no longer endangers the kite.
  2. BIt marks the speaker’s new understanding that resistance can test and strengthen what has been mended.
  3. CIt reveals that the speaker values the kite’s appearance less than its ability to fly quickly.
  4. DIt suggests that the speaker’s anger disappears because the wind has become weaker.
Show answer

Answer: B — It marks the speaker’s new understanding that resistance can test and strengthen what has been mended.

Earlier, the speaker treats the wind only as a destructive enemy; later, the speaker thanks it for testing every repaired knot. That change marks a new understanding that resistance can strengthen a mend. It does not recast the wind as a harmless partner, claim that appearance matters less than speed, or suggest that the speaker’s anger fades because the wind has grown weaker.

Question 3

How does the final stanza’s return to details from the opening stanza contribute to the poem as a whole?

  1. AIt shows that the repaired kite repeats its first failed flight, suggesting that careful work cannot overcome chance.
  2. BIt confirms that the speaker has restored the kite perfectly by making the ending duplicate the opening.
  3. CIt suggests that the speaker’s experience has ended where it began because the wind remains impossible to understand.
  4. DIt creates a circular structure while changed details show that a descent once viewed as failure is now accepted as part of flight.
Show answer

Answer: D — It creates a circular structure while changed details show that a descent once viewed as failure is now accepted as part of flight.

Both stanzas mention noon, a slack string, the moving air, and the kite coming down. However, “circling” replaces “folding,” and the speaker gathers the line rather than broken pieces, showing a changed response to the descent.

Practice 133 Figurative language and poetry questions in the app

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