What the exam asks
On the exam, Setting (SET) and Structure (STR) questions account for up to a quarter of the multiple-choice section. You will be asked to:
- Identify specific textual details that reveal time and place (Skill 2.A).
- Describe how a plot orders events—especially through cause and effect—and explain the function of a particular sequence of events (Skills 3.A and 3.B).
- Define the dramatic situation and explain how exposition focuses your attention on key characters, roles, and conflicts.
Core ideas
Setting: textual details of time and place
Setting (SET-1.A) includes the physical location, historical era, time of day, season, and weather. Rather than stating the setting outright, authors embed clues in sensory details, objects, and routines (e.g., “gaslights hissing in the November fog” vs. “the hum of the air conditioner in the windowless cubicle”).
Plot vs. chronology
Chronology is simply the order in which things happen in time. Plot (STR-1.A) is the deliberate, artistic sequence of connected events in which each event builds on prior ones, usually driven by cause and effect. As the great novelist E. M. Forster famously distinguished in Aspects of the Novel (1927), calling the time-ordered version a “story”:
- Story (chronology): “The king died and then the queen died.”
- Plot: “The king died, and then the queen died of grief.”
Dramatic situation and exposition
A narrative’s dramatic situation (STR-1.B) is the underlying circumstance that places characters in conflict and puts their fortunes—whether rising or falling—at stake. To understand the dramatic situation, ask: Who wants what, what stands in their way, and what happens if they fail?