修辞练习

Choose the correct word(s) to complete each sentence.1.The _______(preceding/proceeding) messafe was brought to us byGeneral Motors.2.He says he would write an English course book if he could fing a(n)_______(accomplice/collaborator) to deal with the less interesting parts.3.The whole audience was _____ (affected/infected) by her sad storyand many burst into tears.4.if you put too many patatoes in that bag, it will _______(burst/crack).5.For many years, mark has been suffereing from the _______(delusion/illusion) that he is a great man.6.I cannot ________ (tolerate/suffer) any more of your nonsense.7.Changing from solid to liquid, water takes in heat from all substancesnear it, and this _______(transition/absorption) produces artificial cold surrounding it.8.I didn’t say anything like that at all. You are purposely ______(revising/ distorting) my ideas to prove your point.9.I ______ (acknowleged/ express) with thanks the help of mycolleagues in the prepareation of this new column.10.To survive in the intense trade competition between countries, wemust _____ (enhance / gear) the qualities and varieties of products we make to the world-market demand.11.I can’t ______(accept/ receive) your point of view, nor can I followyour advice.12.My uncle went ot the police station to _______ (claim/ demand) thelost watch.(key: preceding collaborator affected burst delusion tolerate absorption distorting acknowledge gear accept claim)Delelte the superfluous word(s) in each of the following phrases. Give the reason for the deletion.1. actual experience2. valuable assets3. adequate enough4. completely eliminated5. important essentials6. mutual cooperation7. assemble together 8. a variety of different people(key:1. actua l experience: we wouldn’t refer to it as an experience if it didn’tactually happen2. valuable assets: all assets have value3. adequate enough: there are no degrees of adequacy4. completely eliminated: elimination indicates completeness5. important essentials: all essentials are important6. mutual cooperation: there is no cooperation without mutuality7. assemble together: assemble means putting together8. a variety of different people: variety contains the idea of difference ) Delelte the superfluous word(s) in each of the following sentences. Give the reason for the deletion.1.Beverage bottles and cans now comprise ten percent of all municipalgarbage and waste in the state of Texas.2.I introduced and implemented a new textbook inventory system.3.I am anxious and eager to help you with the Sulliven campaign.4.We need your help and assistance next year5.Please collect and gather together all the facts on Bufflo’s HancockBuilding.6.I will communicate with you and write you at your business address. (key:1.all garbage is waste—one of them can be eliminated without losingany essential information. And waste should be deleted.2.the act of introducing the system includes its implementation—andimplemented should be deleted.3.anxiety includes eager desire—either anixous or eager should bedeleted.4.all assistance is help—either help or assistance should be deleted.5.collect means gather together—and gather together should be deleted.6.writing is a means of communication—communication with you andshould be deleted. )In each of the following pairs of sentences, pick out the more impressive one and give your reasons.1.a. The child was happy.b. The child giggled as the mother shook her toy monkey.2. a. He stumbled along with his friend supporting him.b. He seemed to have difficulty in walking alond.3. a. One tottering windmill broke the flat horizon.b. A feeling of loneliness and wasteness pervaded the scene.4. a. I found that flies were practically wiped out in China.b. during my two-week travel in China, I only saw two flies.5.a. The animal gave a sign of restlessness.b. The wolf paced back and forth, sniffing and ground; he raised hishead and howled sharply twice, then paced and sniffed again. (key: b a a b b)Identify alliteration, assonance, consonance and onomatopoeia in the following.1.Speech is silver, but silence is golden.2.little strokes fell great oaks.3.the horrors I saw there—but I dare not describe that dreadful sight.4.I see also the dull, drilled, docile, brutish masses of the Hun solditeryplodding on like a swarm of crawling locust. (Winston S. Churchill)5.The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew,The furrow flollowed free (Coleridge)6.May they wander stage by stageOf the same vain Pilgrimage,Stumbling on, age after age,Night and day, mile after mile,At each and every stile, withal,May they catch their feet and fall. (Robert Graves) 7. I wish people wouldn’t rustle their programs while the orchestra is playing.10、Whose woods these are I think I know.His house is in the village, though;He will not see me stopping hereTo watch his wooes fill up with snow.My little horse must think it queerTo stop without a farm house nearBetween the woods and frozen lakeThe darkest evening of the year. (Robert Frost)(key:1.alliteration—speech, silver, silence2.assonance—strokes, oaks3.alliteration—dare, describe, dreadful4.alliteration—dull, drilled, docileassonance—swarm, crawling; docile, soldiery, locusts5.alliteration—fair, foam, flew, furrow, followed, freeassonance—blew, flew; free, breeze6.alliteration—stage, same, stumbling, stile; feet, fallassonance—may, they, stage, same, vain, age, day; night, mile, stile consonance—stage, pilgrimage, age; mile, stile, withal, fall7. onomatopoeia—rustle10. alliteration—woods, watch, withoutAssonance—know, though, snow; here, queer, near, year; think, it, village, will, fill, little; these, see, me, between,evening; stopping, not , watch, stop )Identify puns employed in the following. Explain how they work in each case.1. Have a nice trip, buy-buy! ( A sign in front of a shop at the airport)2. In Nature there is neither left nor right nor wrong. (John Masefield)3. You will go nuts for the nuts you get in Nux. (ads for nuts)4.To England will I steal, and there I’ll steal. (Shakespeare)5. She guessed I’d go crazy if I didn’t sail, and yet certainly I’d gocrazy if I did.6. Customer: I would like a book, please?Bookseller: Something light?Customer: That doesn’t matter. I have my car with me.10. A: “Her husband leads a dog’s life.”B: “That’s right. He growls all day and snores all night.”Read each of the following sentences carefully. Tell what type of sentence it is. If it is a loose sentence, change it into a periodic one; if it is a periodic sentence, change it into a loose one.1. She sang the National Anthem, holding the sheet music in her hand in case she forgot the words.2. He chased the robber, ignoring his won safety and the likelihood that robber was alarmed.3. Wondering what to say, nervously rubbing his nose, he stood silently for a moment.4. Built at a cost of 16 million dollars, with a mile-long center span and supported at either end by stone towers that were once the tallest buildings in the country, the Brooklyn Bridge celebrated its centenary in 1983.5. Bill Tilden, a master of court tactics with a flair for the dramatic who combined an overpowering forehand with a rifle-shot serve, dominated world tennis during the twenties.6. He served the stew with embarrassment, knowing that several of his guests were excellent cooks who were too polite to complain.7. Despite the fact that the vast majority of the Indians were friendly, the Spanish invaders murdered or raped many of the Indians they met.8. We are choosing the assistant manager from among several applicants since they have strong qualifications in accounting as well as being as being trained in customer service.Combine or rearrange each of the following groups of sentences into a single smoother sentence by condensing one of the sentenced into a phrase.1. The sports commentator listed the opponent’s many winning matches. He wanted to emphasize her experience.2. The advertisement featured fresh peaches and plums. The advertisement caught my eye.3. The driver flashed his lights and leaned on the horn. He brought the car to a screeching halt.4. Our skis hang on brackets. The brackets are on the side of the garage. The brackets are just below the rafters.5. Doris avoided talking nonsense. She decided to memorize her campaign speech.6. Alfred Nobel was the Swedish inventor of dynamite. He established the Nobel Prizes with a bequest of nine million dollars.7. The children were fascinated by the magician. They pressed closer in order to study his hands.8. The defendant testified that she had been tortured. She showed the jury her scars.9. The Olympic games are held every four years. They have developed political overtones.10. The students had worked hard. They got high marks in their exams. Rewrite the following paragraphs by combining the choppy sentences. 1. We ran Lyndon City’s preservation project on a very low budget. Two clerical assistants and I worked out of offices provided by the city. We mailed letters to thousands of residents. We planned and coordinated promotional parties and information sessions. We developed grant proposals to federal and state agencies.2. I never receive a bill for the school tax. I am told it was issued late in September. I was surprised when I received a bill for $1, 1142.50 plus the late payment fine of $75.87. I received this bill in January. I have since talked with the city tax collectors. They told me they sent the September bill to Mr. and Mrs. Graf. Mr. and Mrs. Graf are the former owners of the property.Identify the figure(s) of speech used in each of the following sentences.1. I was destroyed with fatigue.2. Three of may friends were killed in the last three weeks in Chigaco. That certainly isn’t conductive to peach of mind.3. every cloud has a silver linging.4. To have such a relationship is no small thing.5. He met his Waterloo in 1940, when the project he heavily invested waas collapsed.6. The cost-saving program became an expensive economy.7. I’ll teach you to make a fool of me.8. You want your pound of flesh, don’t you?9. I am sorry to hear that your grandfather passed on.10. I won’t send my watch to the watchmaker; I don’t want it to be damaged.11. The cultivation of a hobby and new forms of interest is not a business that can be undertaken in a day or swiftly improved by a mere command of the will. The growth of alternative mental interest is a long process. The seeds musth be carefully chosen; they must fall on good ground; they must be sedulously tended, if the vivifying fruits are to be at hand when needed.12. What a noble illustration of the tender laws of his favored country!—they let paupers go to sleep!13. “your grammar is...” she had intended saying awful, but she amended it to “is not particularly good.”(Jack London)14. They said, when he stood up to speak, stars and strips came right out in the sky and once he spoke against river and made it sink into the ground. They said, when he walked the woods with his fishing rod, Killal, the trout, would jump out of the streams into his pockets,for they knew it was not use putting up a fight against hime; and, when he argued a case, he could turn on the harps of the blessed and the shaking of the earth underground. That was the kind of man he was, and his big farm up at Marshfield was suitable to him...A man with a mouth like a mastiff, a brow like a moutain and eyes like burning anthracite—that was Danil Webster in his prime.(key:1.hyperbole—destroy2.understatement—not conductive to peace of mind3.allegory4.no small thing—understatement5.Waterloo—allusion6.oxymoron—expensive economy7.irony—teach you to make a fool of me8.allusion—pound of flesh9.euphemism—passed on10.innuendo—to be damaged11.a nalogy12.irony—noble illustration, tender laws13.euphemism—not particularly good14.hyperbole )1、There were fresh bows ,and the faces grew more and more serious each time the name Hiroshima was repeated .(synecdoche)-1.But later my hair began to fall out , and my belly turned towater .I felt sick ,and ever since then they have been testing andtreating me .(alliteration)2.Acre by acre ,the rain forest is being burned to create fastpasture for fast-food beef .(alliteration)-3.And she stops and tries to dig a well in the sand with her toe.(exaggeration)-4.I feel my whole face warming from the heat waves it throwsout .(exaggeration)5.“Mama,”Wangero said sweet as a bird .“can I have these oldquilts?”(simile)6.She gasped like a bee had stung her .(simile)7.We will never parley; we will never negotiate with Hitler orany of his gang. We shall fight him by land, we shall fight himby sea, we shall fight him in the air. (Parallelism)8.Just as the industrial Revolution took over an immense range oftasks from men’s muscles and enormously expandedproductivity. (Metonymy)9.Who can ever imagine me looking a strange white man in theeye? rhetorical question)O, Wind, if winter comes, can spring be far behind? rhetorical question Didn’t I tell you to hand in your paper by Friday? rhetorical question who wouldn’t have dreamed of becoming rich overnight? (rhetorical question)they kept talking, talking, talking all night long. Repetitionthere she stretched, growing warmer and warmer, sleepier and sleepier. (Repetition)faith is a good guide, reason is a better guide, truth is the best quide. Repetitionextremely sorry I am for my mistakes. Inversionwhat she had said I didn’t hear. Inversionknock someone did on the door at midnight. Inversionso eloquently did he speak that all of us were moved to tears. Inversion we are caught in war, wanting peace. We’re torn by division, wanting unity. (parallelism)but the houses were cold, closed, unfriendly. (parallelism)we can gain knowledge by reading, by reflection, by observation or bypractice. (parallelism)what light is to the eyes, what air is to the lungs, what love is to the heart, liberty is to the soul of man. Climaxthe drunkard smashed the glasses, upturned the table, and hit an old woman. Climaxhe has gone, he has escaped, he has broken away. Climaxalas! Alas! What shall I do? I’ve lost my wife, my car and my best hat!AnticlimaxWhere shall I find hope, happienss, friends, cigarrettes? Anticlimax He lost his empire, his family and his foutain pen. AnticlimaxWhen I saw you last, rose,You were only so high—How fast time goes! (Austin Dobson) apostropheJudge, O you gods, how dearly Caser loved him. (Shakespeare) apostropheTo be prepared for war is one of the most efficient means of preserving peace. AntithesisThe life of the wolf is the death of the lamb. AntithesisThere is only one good, that is knowledge; thereis only one evil, that is ignorance. AntithesisYou should have here earlier. Understatementwar is not healthy for children and other living things. UnderstatementI’m sort of angry at your rashness.He had some cheerful wine at the party. Transferred epithetNurse Duckett reacted to the question with a startled gasp.Transferred epithetThe child gazed in wide-eyed amazement. Transferred epithetThe parental discipline can be described as cruel kindness. Oxymoron He passes an existence of competitive transquility. OxymoronOnly the man who has known fear can be truely brave. ParadoxThose who have eyes apparenly see little. Paradoxfill in the form with plain words/ expressions or euphemistic words/ expressions as indicated(key:1.take without permussion2.weight watcher; calorie countdown3.pornographic movie4.suicidal attack5.mental home; mental hospital; mental health center6.plain-looking; homely7.elderly; senior; the still-youthful8.death penalty。