Chapter 7
Literary Passages
In this chapter, we'll move on to fictional texts and how to crack questions about them.
Literary passages should keep your interest up if you're not the type of person who prefers the real-world grounding of informational passages. The literary selections are more fanciful, imaginative, and for some people, easier to read. On the other hand, though, fictional passages leave a lot more scope for complexity—flashbacks, dream sequences, raving mad narrators, multiple layers of meaning—and can challenge your active reading and critical thinking skills more than informational passages drawn from the real world.
WHAT KIND OF LITERARY PASSAGES ARE ON THE TEST?
From the modern era or from an older time, with lots of dialogue or with paragraphs of lengthy descriptions—you could find it all in the literary selections. These passages don't fall into clear categories as the informational passages do. What the literary selections have in common is good storytelling—a strong plot line and well-developed characters—and the use of literary elements such as imagery and rich language. Beyond that, though, it's the Wild West and you could encounter just about any topic or type of literature.