Every area of study has its own vocabulary, and it’s important to be familiar with the specific terms and concepts in a certain field when starting a course or working towards a career in that area. In fact, it’s useful to have a general idea of the vocabulary and terminology used in a variety of areas outside of your own field of study as well. Having a broad range of knowledge and familiarity with a wide scope of information will help you on examinations such as the GRE, which test your knowledge in multiple areas, and on many college entrance examinations.

One type of test that is common to the GRE and SAT is literary analysis. In a literary analysis, you are asked to read one or more passages and write your conclusions about the characters, the relationships between them, the plot and subplots, and whether the author uses any literary device, such as allegory or motif. You might also be asked a set of questions about the content of the passage, or your interpretation of what the author intended to say. Here are some terms and definitions that you might find useful in this type of exercise, and which also often appear in the instructions on exam questions regarding the analysis of a passage of text:

personification (noun or verb)
Definition: The act of giving an abstract idea or an inanimate object the qualities of a human being (a synonym is anthropomorphism).
Example: The forest fire hissed and roared angrily, reaching out arms of flame to pull in helpless animals to their death.

allusion (noun) / allude (verb)
Definition: A reference to another already-published and generally (or so the author assumes) well-known work.
Example: The novel’s main characters, four motorcycle-riding men who take over and destroy towns by first preventing food deliveries and then slaughtering the citizens, are an obvious allusion to the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse in the Bible.

protagonist (noun)
Definition: The main character in a story.
Example: Scrooge, the protagonist in Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol,” is cold-hearted and unsympathetic character until he is finally redeemed at the end of the story.