New York State Literacy CST Practice Exam

Tone is the narrator’s or speaker’s attitude toward the subject, and it shapes how we understand a text. To identify it, look at word choice and the connotations those words carry, the imagery and sensory details the author uses, and the mood created by sentence length and structure—short, abrupt sentences can feel urgent or tense, while longer, flowing sentences can feel calm or reflective. Punctuation, rhythm, and any figurative language also signal tone. By gathering these clues, you can tell whether the author is serious, humorous, skeptical, hopeful, sarcastic, or something else, which helps you interpret the writer’s purpose and how the text is meant to affect the reader. Tone isn’t about temperature, it isn’t the same as genre, and you can identify it from the text itself.