Lessons · Verbal Reasoning
CLT Verbal Reasoning · Lesson
Rhetoric
Rhetoric questions ask about how a writer persuades: repetition, rhetorical questions, metaphor, contrast, appeals to shared values, and the effect of word choices.
- Name the device if you can: repetition, parallel phrases, a question that expects no answer, a comparison.
- Then ask what effect it has on the reader: emphasis, urgency, irony, warmth, authority.
- The right choice names both the device and a fitting effect.
Q. "With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right" — the repeated "with" mainly...
Answer builds a steady rhythm that gives each of the speaker's commitments equal weight.
Parallel phrases join ideas and stress them. The effect is emphasis and balance, not doubt or humor.
- A choice that describes the device but gives the wrong effect is the usual trap.
- Rhetorical questions are almost always used to make a point, not to ask for information.
Every practice question comes with a full explanation, including why each wrong choice is wrong. Free, with no account.