What is iambic meter?

• A. An unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable
• B. A stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable
• C. Three syllables with all unstressed
• D. A rhythm with equal stress on every syllable

Answer: (A)

Iambic meter is a rhythm built from little two-syllable units called feet, where the first syllable is unstressed and the second is stressed. That rising beat—da-DUM—gives poetry a smooth, walking tempo, like the word de-LAY. When lines regularly use five of these feet per line, that’s iambic pentameter, a staple in many classic poems.

That’s why the correct choice matches exactly this unstressed-then-stressed pattern. A rhythm that goes stressed-then-unstressed would be trochaic, not iambic. A foot with three unstressed syllables isn’t an iamb, and a rhythm with equal stress on every syllable doesn’t form the rising, two-syllable iamb pattern.