Virginia Reading SOL Practice Test

Understanding how a narrator’s point of view controls what the reader knows is being tested. Third person limited is when the story is told by an outside narrator who focuses on one character. You get access to that character’s thoughts, feelings, and perceptions, and you learn about events mainly through that character’s experiences. The narrator can describe what other characters do, but inside information about anyone else’s thoughts isn’t shared unless that comes through the focal character. This setup gives a close look at one character while keeping some distance from the rest of the cast, which is why it limits knowledge to a single character’s perspective. In contrast, third person omniscient lets the narrator know everything about all characters, and first person keeps the narration inside the experiences of the narrator themselves. Second person shifts the narration to the reader, which doesn’t fit the idea of focusing on a single character’s experiences.