The images are symbolical

I was much struck recently by a young lady I was tutoring who gave the right answer when confronted with a question from an old "Practical Criticism" paper; that is, a verse was quoted, and she was to spot the date of it, giving her reasons. Sure enough, she found the images showed that this bit was late eighteenth-century; but what the examiners would not have found out was that she had no idea what the verse was saying. It urged you to carry out one of those terrific pieces of landscape gardening, cutting away the side of a hill, digging a lake, planting a forest, to improve the prospect from your country house. She thought the verse was only pictures of scenery, because she never bothered with verbs; to answer questions in the examination you only needed the images. I do not think you could really get through on this plan, but some people think you can. When the examination question says "Evaluate the following poem," the student will happily write down, "Significantly, the images are symbolical." What they signify, or what they symbolize, he does not say; he considers that if he did he would look low-class and philistine.
-William Empson, Argufying, 167