 Preparing for poetry assessments and exams can be especially stressful, and this is more so if you're preparing for unseen poetry because these are poems that you've never seen before, you don't know what to anticipate, and thus you cannot even prepare in advance. However, what I want to show you is actually when it comes to preparing for any form of poetry assessment or learning how to analyze and evaluate any form of poem, there are five techniques that always come up in poems. Irrespective of the poem, there are five techniques. If you learn them, whatever poem is put in front of you, you will be able to come up with five separate points on these poems. OK, so when it comes to poetry and especially unseen poetry, which is poems that you've never seen before, these are the five techniques you should anticipate when it comes to preparing for your poetry. And when you're sitting in your exams or when you're sitting in an in class assessment, so you're not entirely sure how to even begin, how to get started, literally just look through the different verses in the poem and spot these five techniques and already you're going to get started. Now, the first technique to always remember will always come in any poem is alliteration. Just to recap, alliteration is basically two or more words within a line of poetry, which start with the same letter, big bad bear, that's alliteration because it starts with B. This, of course, the only exception is any words that start with S. We call that sibilance, like slithering snake. OK, however, aside from S, any other letters, they are consonants. They, if there's two or more, would start with the same letter. That's what we call alliteration. This you can bank on coming up in any poem that's put in front of you. The second technique which you can almost always anticipate coming up is metaphor. Remember that a metaphor is a technique where another object or another thing is compared and described as if something were something else. OK, so in other words, if I describe someone as a ninja, if, for instance, if you call somebody a pig, that's a metaphor because that person is not an actual pig. It's not an actual animal. You're using another different animal or a different object to compare them to them, but you're not using lack or as. OK, so just always remember, metaphor is when you describe something as if it were something else and when it comes to poetry, you can always bank on unseen poetry or any poem that's put in front of you will always include a metaphor. The third technique which you can bank on is semantic field of whatever category. OK, just remember, semantic field is two, three or more words which belong to a wider category. I'll give you an example. Roses, daffodils and sunflower belong to the wider category or the wider semantic field of flowers. iPad, laptop, phone belongs to the semantic field of technology, chair, table and sofa belongs to the semantic field of furniture. OK, so you can always bank the third technique. You can always bank on coming up in any poetry is semantic field. It's just you need to be able to spot the two or more words that belong to a certain category and then mention. OK, so these two or these three words belong to the semantic field of whatever it is. OK, the fourth technique you can always bank on and this, of course, is the other flip side to metaphor is a simile. OK, simile is a very popular with poets and always remember that simile is when you compare two things using like or as as big as a giant, for instance, as flat as a surface, whatever it is, it's basically when two things are compared using like or as as white as a cloud, as white as a pearl. OK, as red as blood, again, similes are a very, very popular technique with poets and this is one technique you can always bank on coming up with any poem that you've ever seen. OK, so again, when you look at the poem, if you've never seen it before, especially, you can always look for as or like that's used and then more than likely it will be tied to a comparison. We tied to a simile. Now, the fifth and final technique you can always bank on in poetry is on Jean Mont. Remember, on Jean Mont, within a line of poetry is when the line runs on without any punctuation at the end of the line, it just runs on to the next. This speeds up the pace of the poem. So always remember, on Jean Mont, within a verse is when in a line of poetry, there is no punctuation at the end of that line on Jean Mont. And again, this is incredibly popular with poets. Always remember, on Jean Mont speeds up the pace of the poem because if you were to read it out loud or you were to perform that poem, you don't pause because there's no punctuation. You just carry on to the next line. You only pause when you see the next form of punctuation. So just to really quickly recap, if you're preparing especially for unseen poetry, these are the five things to anticipate in any poem. If, for instance, you have your exams, always remember, especially with unseen poetry or even seen poetry. OK, these are the five main techniques you can always bank on appearing within any poem. Number one, alliteration, number two, metaphor, number three, semantic field, number four, simile and number five on Jean Mont. So hopefully that helps in perhaps making this process of preparing for poetry assessments and even preparing, especially for unseen poetry, less stressful. Thanks so much for listening.