1. Chaucer’s The Knight’s Tale is a high romance told in :
(A) rhyme royal
(B) terza rima
(C) heroic couplets
(D) verse libre
Answer: C
2. Marlowe’s first original work was :
(A) Tamburlaine the Great
(B) The Tragical History of D. Faustus
(C) The Jew of Malta
(D) The Troublesome Raigne and Lamentable Death of Edward the second
Answer: A
3. Marvell pays his homage to the Protector and a tribute to the royal dignity of Charles I in :
(A) “The Garden”
(B) “The Picture of T.C.”
(C) “Bermudas”
(D) “Horatian ode upon Cromewells’ Return From Ireland”
Answer: D
4. The Life and Death of Mr. Badman was written by :
(A) Sir Henry Wotton
(B) John Bunyan
(C) Jeremy Taylor
(D) Richard Baxter
Answer: B
5. Dr. Johnson’s A Dictionary of the English Language was published in :
(A) 1755
(B) 1756
(C) 1757
(D) 1758
Answer: A
6. The main idea of The Dunciad was taken from :
(A) The Hind and the Panther
(B) Religio Laici
(C) Mac-Flecknoe
(D) The Medal
Answer: C
7. The character of the leech gatherer appears in :
(A) The Recluse
(B) The Prelude Book I
(C) Laodamia
(D) Resolution and Independence
Answer: D
8. Table-Talk is a collection of essays by :
(A) Lamb
(B) Hunt
(C) Hazlitt
(D) De Quincey
Answer: C
9. Carlyle’s Sartor Resartus was written under the influence of :
(A) Italian romance
(B) German romance
(C) French romance
(D) British romance
Answer: B
10. The image of the Neptune taming the sea horse appears in :
(A) “Abt Vogler”
(B) “Prospice”
(C) “Andrea del Sarto”
(D) “My Last Duchess”
Answer: D
11. T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land is dedicated to Il miglior fabro (“The better Craftsman”) which refers to :
(A) Ezra Pound
(B) Baudelaire
(C) G.M. Hopkins
(D) Dante
Answer: A
12. The locale of Riders to the Sea is :
(A) Dublin
(B) Aran Island
(C) Galway
(D) Belfast
Answer: B
13. The “Bog” poems are associated with :
(A) Ted Hughes
(B) Elizabeth Jennings
(C) Tony Harrison
(D) Seamus Heaney
Answer: D
14. Edward Bond’s Bingo deals with the life of :
(A) Dryden
(B) Shakespeare
(C) Ben Jonson
(D) Marlowe
Answer: B
15. Arthur Millers The Death of a Salesman is mainly about :
(A) American dream
(B) American imperialism
(C) American pragmatism
(D) American transcendentalism
Answer: A
16. The patient in Michael Ondaatje’s The English Patient is :
(A) Almasy
(B) Caravaggio
(C) Kirpal Singh
(D) Hana
Answer: A
17. Mimetic criticism views literary work as :
(A) personalisation
(B) depersonalization
(C) imitation
(D) interpretation
Answer: C
18. The concept of “arche writing” is developed by :
(A) Fish
(B) Foucault
(C) Derrida
(D) Paul de Man
Answer: C
19. A figure of speech in which two terms opposite in meaning are placed side by side in one phrase is known as :
(A) paradox
(B) oxymoron
(C) sarcasm
(D) antithesis
Answer: B
20. A stanza of eight iambic pentametres on the pattern of ab, ab, ab, cc is known as :
(A) Rhyme royal
(B) Ottava rima
(C) Tennysonian stanza
(D) Spenserian stanza
Answer: B
Choose the correct chronological sequence in question numbers 21 to 30 :
(A) Love’s Labour’s Lost, Twelfth Night, Othello, The Tempest
(B) Twelfth Night, Love’s Labour’s Lost, The Tempest, Othello
(C) Love’s Labour’s Lost, Othello, The Tempest, Twelfth Night
(D) Othello, Twelfth Night, Love’s Labour’s Lost, The Tempest
Answer: A
(A) Ralph Roister Doister, Utopia, Astrophel and Stella, Shepherds Calendar
(B) Astrophel and Stella, Ralph Roister Doister, Shepherds Calendar
(C) Shepherds Calendar, Astrophel and Stella, Utopia, Ralph Roister Doister
(D) Utopia, Ralph Roister Doister, Shepherds Calendar, Astrophel and Stella
Answer: D
(A) Sonnet, periodical essay, gothic novel, absurd play
(B) Gothic novel, periodical essay, sonnet, absurd play
(C) Periodical essay, gothic novel, absurd play, sonnet
(D) Sonnet, gothic novel, periodical essay, absurd play
Answer: A
(A) Stephen Spender, T.S. Eliot, Philip Larkin, Ted Hughes
(B) T.S. Eliot, Stephen Spender, Philip Larkin, Ted Hughes
(C) Philip Larkin, T.S. Eliot, Ted Hughes, Stephen Spender
(D) T.S. Eliot, Philip Larkin, Ted Hughes, Stephen Spender
Answer: B
(A) Negative capability, sublime, dissociation of sensibility, heteroglossia
(B) Sublime, negative capability, heteroglossia, dissociation of sensibility
(C) Sublime, negative capability, dissociation of sensibility, heteroglossia
(D) Heteroglossia, dissociation of sensibility, sublime, negative capability
Answer: C
(A) Thyrsis, Adonais, Lycidas, In Memory of W.B. Yeats
(B) Lycidas, Thyrsis, Adonais, In Memory of W.B. Yeats
(C) Lycidas, Adonais, Thyrsis, In Memory of W.B. Yeats
(D) Adonais, In Memory of W.B. Yeats, Lycidas, Thyrsis
Answer: C
(A) “Sign, Structure and Play”, “Signs Taken for Wonder”, “The Death of the Author”, “Two Uses of Language”
(B) “Two Uses of Language”, “The Death of the Author”, “Sign, Structure and Play”, “Signs Taken for Wonder”
(C) “The Death of the Author”, “Two Uses of Language”, “Signs Taken for Wonder”, “Sign, Structure and Play”
(D) “Two Uses of Language”, “The Death of the Author”, “Sign, Structure and Play”, “Signs Taken for Wonder”
Answer: B
(A) “The Burial of the Dead”, “A Game of Chess”, “Fire Sermon”, “Death by Water”
(B) “A Game of Chess”, “The Burial of the Dead”, “Fire Sermon”, “Death by Water”
(C) “Fire Sermon”, “The Burial of the Dead”, “Death by Water”, “A Game of Chess”
(D) “The Burial of the Dead”, “Fire Sermon”, “Death by Water”, “A Game of Chess”
Answer: A
(A) Midnight’s Children, Nectar in a Sie’ve, Kanthapura, Calcutta Chromosome
(B) Kanthapura, Midnight’s Children, Nectar in a Sieve, Calcutta Chromosome
(C) Kanthapura, Midnight’s Children, Calcutta Chromosome, Nectar in a Sie’ve
(D) Kanthapura, Nectar in a Sie’ve, Midnight’s Children, Calcutta Chromosome
Answer: D
(A) The English Novel : Form and Function, The Craft of Fiction, Aspects of the Novel, The Sense of an Ending
(B) Craft of Fiction, Aspects of the Novel, The English Novel : Form and Function, The Sense of an Ending
(C) The Sense of an Ending, The English Novel : Form and Function, Craft of Fiction, Aspects of the novel
(D) Aspects of the Novel, Craft of Fiction, The Sense of an Ending, The English Novel : Form and Function
Answer: B
Select the matching pairs in question numbers 31 to 40 :
(A) Sohrab and Rustum – Arnold
(B) The Princess – Browning
(C) Hugh Selwyn Mauberly – Hopkins
(D) The Excursion – Shelley
Answer: A
(A) Middlemarch – Picaresque
(B) Women in Love – Historical
(C) Pamela – Epistolary novel
(D) Pride and Prejudice – Autobiographical
Answer: C
(A) Dickens – Manchester
(B) Faulkner – Yoknapatawfa
(C) Joyce – Belfast
(D) Lawrence – Birmingham
Answer: B
(A) Naturalism – Zola
(B) Symbolism – T.E. Hulme
(C) Expressionism – V. Woolf
(D) Magic realism – Graham Greene
Answer: A
(A) Audrey Thomas – The Stone Angel
(B) Robert Kroetsch – The Burning Water
(C) Margaret Lawrence – What the Crow Said
(D) Margaret Atwood – The Blind Assassin
Answer: D
(A) Marlowe – Faust
(B) Fletcher – The White Devil
(C) Congreve – The Old Bachelor
(D) Ben Jonson – The Maid’s Tragedy
Answer: C
(A) Nadine Gordimer – Nigeria
(B) Chinua Achebe – Kenya
(C) Judith Wright – Australia
(D) Peter Carey – Canada
Answer: C
(A) Campus novel – Margaret Drabble
(B) Travelogue – Macaulay
(C) Diary writing – Samuel Pepys
(D) Periodical essay – Lamb
Answer: C
(A) Girish Karnad – Kannada
(B) A.K. Ramanujan – Telugu
(C) Kamala Das – Tamil
(D) R. Parthasarathy – Malayalam
Answer: A
(A) Mrs. Malaprop – The School for Scandal
(B) Nora – The Seagull
(C) Lydia Languish – She Stoops to Conquer
(D) Eliza Doolittle – Pygmalion
Answer: D
41. In the assertion “Four out of five people suffer from dreaded pyorrhoea”, the writer wants to arouse the feeling of :
(A) Sympathy
(B) Fear
(C) Hatred
(D) Ill-will
Answer: B
42. “John is six feet tall and 240 lb” is an assertion of :
(A) a fact
(B) a judgement
(C) an opinion
(D) an inference
Answer: D
43. X : “He’s mean and stingy.
Y : “Oh, I wouldn’t say that. He is just thrifty”. The above dialogue asserts that he :
(A) is too careful with his money
(B) never spends money
(C) is so careful with his money that everyone admires him for good management
(D) is careful with his money
Answer: A
44. “I wandered lonely as a cloud” makes an assertion that :
(A) The poet travelled with the cloud
(B) The poet moved aimlessly with the cloud
(C) Both the poet and the cloud were lonely
(D) The poet moved as aimlessly as the cloud
Answer: D
45. “Death is here, and death is there Death is busy everywhere All around, within, beneath, Above, is death – and we are death” The effect of rhythm, sound, word-order and stress in the above lines
(A) assist the communication of meaning
(B) hinder the communication of meaning
(C) reflect meaning and mood
(D) reflect a mechanical regularity
Answer: C
Read the following passage and answer the questions that follow based on your understanding of the passage.
All of us live in a society, and are members of a nationality wtih its own language, tradition, historical situation. To what extent are intellectuals servants of these actualities, to what extent enemies ? The same is true of intellectuals’ relationship with institutions (academy, church, professional guild) and with wordly powers, which in our times have co-opted the intelligentsia to an extraordinary degree. Thus in my view the principal intellectual duty is the search for relative independence from such pressures. Hence my characterization of the intellectual as an exile and marginal, as amateur, and as the author of a language that tries to speak the truth to power.
46. Name four important sources to which an intellectual is related basically :
(A) Society, institutions, wordly powers, and government
(B) Institutions, language, truth, and power
(C) Nationality, language, tradition, and historical situation
(D) Nationality, truth, language, and tradition
Answer: C
47. What is the meaning of intellectuals being ‘servants’ ?
(A) The intellectual may be appropriated by his tradition, historical and other actualities of his nation and society
(B) The intellectual may be inappropriately Co-opted by agencies of the government
(C) The intellectual may be sent into exile and made marginal
(D) The intellectual may be forced into accepting the unacceptable propositions
Answer: A
48. What are the four important institutions that Co-opt an intellectual ?
(A) society, institutions, wordly powers, and truth
(B) academy, church, professional guild, and wordly power
(C) society, professional guild, wordly power, truth
(D) academy, wordly power, truth, government
Answer: B
49. What is the meaning of ‘relative independence’ ?
(A) liberating oneself from the pressures of government and institutions
(B) liberating oneself from the pressures of religion and state
(C) liberating oneself from the pressures of institutions and wordly powers
(D) liberating oneself from all religious and secular pressures
Answer: C
50. What is the duty of an intellectual and how many identities does he acquire to perform his role ?
(A) to achieve complete independence and be characterised as an exile, marginal, and amateur
(B) to achieve partial independence and be characterised as the author of a language
(C) to manoeuvre independence and be characterised as a keeper of his own conscience
(D) to search for relative independence and be characterised as exile and marginal, as amateur, and author
Answer: D