The rhythmic pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in poetry is best described as?

• A. Rhyme
• B. Cadence
• C. Rhythm
• D. Meter

Answer: (D)

Meter describes the regular pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables that underlies a poem’s rhythm. It’s the formal system poets use to give lines a predictable beat, often organized into feet like iambs (unstressed then stressed) or trochees (stressed then unstressed); five iambs in a line create iambic pentameter, a common meter in English poetry. Other terms relate to rhythm in broader or different ways—rhythm is the overall flow of sound, cadence is the rise and fall of voice in a passage, and rhyme is the matching of sounds, typically at line ends. Understanding meter helps you see how poets craft structure and musicality through repeated stress patterns.