Cleft sentence
A grammatical structure that divides a sentence into two parts to emphasise a particular element. For example, 'It was her who annoyed me' (instead of 'She annoyed me').
Real World
In his 2008 victory speech, Barack Obama declared 'It is the answer told by lines that stretched around schools' — using a cleft structure to foreground 'the answer' and build dramatic emphasis for his audience.
Exam Focus
Identify the foregrounded element in the cleft and explain why the writer chose to emphasise that information over alternatives.
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