Contoh Soal Answer questions about a literary text
Contoh Soal Answer questions about a literary text - When you read a funny story, poem or article, you’ll find yourself smiling or even laughing, and feeling much happier afterwards. How do writers achieve this magic? And how can we understand this art and maybe even practice it in our speech and writing? That’s what we’ll learn in this lesson.
Different people find different things funny, but there are a few tricks that humor writers use to get us laughing. Let’s see what they are.
1. Setting up expectations and delivering completely different results: Surprise is an important element of humor. Read the poem we began with. We’re not expecting the birds to be living in a beard, and that’s what makes the poem so funny.
2. Unlikely comparisons and exaggerations: Authors often use comparisons between two very different objects or exaggeration to create a joke. For example:
The principal’s speech about the 100 Years’ War was about as long as the real thing.
The speech was probably long, but he writer exaggerates and compares it to the length of the war itself.
3. Funny sounds: Believe it or not, whoosh and splosh and cuckoo are among sounds that make people smile, and such sounds are often used by writers to add humor to their work.
4. Using well-known funny situations: sometimes writers rely on old jokes to make us laugh. Read this and see if you can guess what happens next:
Dumpitty was so busy reading the newspaper as he walked along the road, that he did not notice that the cleaners had not yet made their rounds. It seemed like monkeys had been having a picnic on the road, because it was littered with banana peels….
Is Dumpitty going to have a hard fall? Very likely. Are we going to laugh? It’s bad manners, but the answer is yes!
There are lots of other ways humor is created, and you can learn as you go along, by thinking about why something is funny when you read it. For now, let’s read a humorous story and see what we’ve learnt.
SOAL 1
Read the excerpt and answer the question below.
Adapted from A Tramp Abroad by Mark Twain
In the Middle Ages a most prodigious fire-breathing dragon used to live in the region, and made more trouble than a tax-collector. He was as long as a railway-train, and had the customary impenetrable green scales all over him. His breath bred pestilence and conflagration, and his appetite bred famine. He ate men and cattle impartially, and was exceedingly unpopular. The German emperor of that day made the usual offer: he would grant to the destroyer of the dragon, any one solitary thing he might ask for; for he had a surplus of daughters, and it was customary for dragon-killers to take a daughter for pay.
Who is the author making fun of in this passage?
SOAL 2
Read the excerpt and answer the question below.
So the most renowned knights came from the four corners of the earth and retired down the dragon's throat one after the other. A panic arose and spread. Heroes grew cautious. The procession ceased. The dragon became more destructive than ever. The people lost all hope of succor, and fled to the mountains for refuge.
What happened to the knights who tried to fight the dragon?
SOAL 3
Read the excerpt and answer the question below.
At last Sir Wissenschaft, a poor and obscure knight, out of a far country, arrived to do battle with the monster. A pitiable object he was, with his armor hanging in rags about him, and his strange-shaped knapsack strapped upon his back. Everybody turned up their noses at him, and some openly jeered him. But he was calm.
What do you think “turned up their noses” means?
SOAL 4
Read the excerpt and answer the question below.
Sir Wissenschaft simply inquired if the emperor's offer was still in force. The emperor said it was—but charitably advised him to go and hunt hares and not endanger so precious a life as his in an attempt which had brought death to so many of the world's most illustrious heroes.
But this tramp only asked—"Were any of these heroes men of science?" This raised a laugh, of course, for science was despised in those days.
Why did the people laugh at Sir Wissenschaft’s question?
SOAL 5
Read the excerpt and answer the question below.
But the knight was not in the least ruffled. He said he might be a little in advance of his age, but no matter—science would come to be honored, some time or other. He said he would march against the dragon in the morning. Out of compassion, then, a decent spear was offered him, but he declined, and said, "spears were useless to men of science." They allowed him to sup in the servants' hall, and gave him a bed in the stables.
How was this knight different from the others?
SOAL 6
Read the excerpt and answer the question below.
When he started forth in the morning, thousands were gathered to see. The emperor said:
"Do not be rash, take a spear, and leave off your knapsack."
But the tramp said:
"It is not a knapsack," and moved straight on.
The dragon was waiting and ready. He was breathing vast volumes of smoke and lurid blasts of flame. The ragged knight stole warily to a good position, then he unslung his cylindrical knapsack—which was simply the common fire-extinguisher known to modern times—and the first chance he got he turned on his hose and shot the dragon square in the center of his cavernous mouth. Out went the fires in an instant, and the dragon curled up and died.
What do you think “warily” means?
SOAL 7
Read the excerpt and answer the question below.
This man had brought brains to his aid. He had reared dragons from the egg, in his laboratory, he had watched over them like a mother, and patiently studied them and experimented upon them while they grew. Thus he had found out that fire was the life principle of a dragon; put out the dragon's fires and it could make steam no longer, and must die. He could not put out a fire with a spear, therefore he invented the extinguisher. The dragon being dead, the emperor fell on the hero's neck and said:
"Deliverer, name your request," at the same time beckoning out behind with his heel for a detachment of his daughters to form and advance.
Why did the emperor ask his daughters to advance?
SOAL 8
Read the excerpt and answer the question below.
But the tramp gave them no observance. He simply said:
"My request is, that upon me be conferred the monopoly of the manufacture and sale of spectacles in Germany."
The emperor sprang aside and exclaimed:
"This transcends all the impudence I ever heard! Why didn't you ask for the imperial revenues at once, and be done with it?"
What did the emperor think of the knight’s request?
SOAL 9
Read the excerpt and answer the question below.
But the monarch had given his word, and he kept it. To everybody's surprise, the unselfish monopolist immediately reduced the price of spectacles to such a degree that a great and crushing burden was removed from the nation. The emperor, to commemorate this generous act, and to testify his appreciation of it, issued a decree commanding everybody to buy this benefactor's spectacles and wear them, whether they needed them or not.
Who reduced the price of spectacles?
SOAL 10
Which of these adds humor to the story?