TEST GUIDE ENGLISH SUBTEST I - CSETs

English Subtest I
18. Read the passage below from "An Ox Looks at Man," a poem by Carlos Drummond de Andrade;
then answer the question that follows.
The narrator of the poem is an ox; in the passage below, the ox considers the place of humans in the
world.
All their 1 expression lives in their eyes—and loses itself
to a simple lowering of lids, to a shadow.
And since there is little of the mountain about them—
nothing in the hair or in the terribly fragile limbs
but coldness and secrecy—it is impossible for them
to settle themselves into forms that are calm, lasting,
and necessary. . . .
1 their: throughout the passage, the third-person pronouns (their, them) refer to human beings
This passage most clearly illustrates
which of the following poetic devices?
A. use of metaphor to stress the
similarities between human
experience and the life of animals
B. use of personification to critique
humanity's disconnection from the
natural world
C. use of conventions associated with
the genre of the animal fable to
satirize the comic foibles of human
beings
D. use of irony to highlight the
thoughtless brutality of human
beings toward animals
California Subject Examinations for Teachers Test Guide 13