American Literature CLEP Sample test questions

Which of the following is NOT a poem by Anne Bradstreet?

o "Before the Birth of One of Her Children"

o "Contemplations"

o "A Dialogue Between Old England and New"

o "Upon the Burning of our House, July 10, 1666"

o "A Funeral Poem on the Death of C.E"

"A Funeral Poem on the Death of C.E"

The biblical phrase "city upon a hill" is also found in which of the following works?

A. Cotton Mather's "Magnalia Christi Americana"

B. Samuel Sewall's "The Diary of Samuel Sewall"

C. John Winthrop's "A Model of Christian Charity"

D. Jonathan Edwards' "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God"

E. William Bradford's "History of Plymouth Plantation"

John Winthrop's "A Model of Christian Charity"

Which of the following authors was dubbed "The Poet of the American Revolution"?

A. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

B. William Cullen Bryant

C. Anne Bradstreet

D. Philip Freneau

E. Ebenezer Cooke

Philip Freneau

Which of the following is NOT an example of a prominent form of Colonial American literature?

A. Novels depicting regional dialect

B. Writings describing interactions and conflicts with the Indians

C. Pamphlets extolling the benefits of the colonies

D. Journals discussing religious foundations and disputes

E. Patriotic poems and songs

Novels depicting regional dialect

"About three o'clock afternoon, I begun my Journey from Boston to New-Haven; being about two Hundred Mile. My kinsman, Capt. Robert Luist, waited on me as farr as Dedham, where I was to meet y Western post."

The above passage is the first excerpt from which of the following works?

A. "The Narrative of the Captivity" by Mary Rowlandson

B. "The Journal of Madam Knight" by Sarah Kemble Knight

C. "Upon the Burning of our House" by Anne Bradstreet

D. "The Gleaner" by Judith Sargent Murray

E. "A Farewell to America to Mrs. S.W." by Phillis Wheatley

"The Journal of Madam Knight

If ever two were one, then surely we.

If ever man were loved by wife, then thee; If ever wife was happy in a man,

Line Compare with me, ye women, if you can.

(5) I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold Or all the riches that the East doth hold.

My love is such that rivers cannot quench,

Nor ought but love from thee, give recompense.

Thy love is such I can no way repay,

(10) The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray, The while we live, in love let's so persevere That when we live no more, we may live ever.

1. Which of the following best describes the poem's rhyme scheme?

A. abcabcdefdef

B. aabbccddeeff

C. abcdabcdabcd

D. aabbaaccabab

E. ababcdcdefef

aabbccddeeff

If ever two were one, then surely we.

If ever man were loved by wife, then thee; If ever wife was happy in a man,

Line Compare with me, ye women, if you can.

(5) I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold Or all the riches that the East doth hold.

My love is such that rivers cannot quench,

Nor ought but love from thee, give recompense.

Thy love is such I can no way repay,

(11) The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray, The while we live, in love let's so persevere That when we live no more, we may live ever.

Lines 7-8 ("My love ... recompense.") are best paraphrased by which of the following?

A. We love each other intensely, but will eventually have to pay the price for our love.

B. I ought to love you more than I do, but I am already consumed with love for someone else.

C. If you loved me as much as I love you, I would be happier than the richest person alive.

D. My love for you is strong, but its intensity changes according to how much I think you love me.

E. My love for you is all-consuming and can only be satisied by your loving me in return.

My love for you is all-consuming and can only be satisied by your loving me in return

If ever two were one, then surely we.

If ever man were loved by wife, then thee; If ever wife was happy in a man,

Line Compare with me, ye women, if you can.

(5) I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold Or all the riches that the East doth hold.

My love is such that rivers cannot quench,

Nor ought but love from thee, give recompense.

Thy love is such I can no way repay,

(10) The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray, The while we live, in love let's so persevere That when we live no more, we may live ever. The poem was written by

A. Phillis Wheatley

B. Amy Lowell

C. Adrienne Rich

D. Anne Bradstreet

E. Emily Dickinson

Anne Bradstreet

Which of the following writers was known for his novels about Americans confronting European society?

A. Frank Norris

B. Jack London

C. Henry James

D. Theodore Dreiser

E. William Dean Howells

Henry James

Nathaniel Hawthorne's Blithedale Romance satirizes which literary and cultural movement?

A. Transcendentalism

B. The Great Awakening

C. Progressivism

D. Regionalism

E. Imagism

Transcendentalism

Which of the following writers is often credited with inventing the genre of the "detective story"?

A. Dashiell Hammett

B. Lydia Maria Child

C. Kate Chopin

D. Edgar Allan Poe

E. O. Henry

Edgar Allan Poe

The title of Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man refers to the fact that the narrator

A. has become invisible as the result of a lab experiment gone awry

B. has the sense that no one really sees him as an individual

C. is a hermit who never has contact with other people

D. is a ghost who observes the living as they go through their lives

E. rebels against the mass society that treats all people exactly the same, regardless of race or class

has the sense that no one really sees him as an individual

Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, and William Burroughs are best known as

A. naturalists

B. Romantics

C. symbolists

D. science iction writers

E. Beat writers

Beat writers

In what Poe work was the detective story popularized?

A) The Raven

B) The Purloined Letter

C) The Murders in the Rue Morgue

D) The Cask of Amontillado

The Murders in the Rue Morgue

In the Purloined letter where does the thief hide the letter?

Plain sight

Make me, O Lord, thy Spinning Wheele compleate.

Thy holy Worde my Distaff make for mee. Make mine Affections thy Swift Flyers neate

And make my Soule thy holy Spoole to bee.

My Conversation make to be thy Reele

And rellee the yarn theron spun of thy Wheele.

The passage above is notable chiefly for:

(A) irony of statement

(B) pathetic fallacy

(C) a literary conceit

(D) a paradox

(E) a simile

a literary conceit

In the "The Federalist, No. X, James Madison proposed that the dangers of factions be controlled by a:

(A) republican form of government

(B) pure democracy

(C) curtailment of individual liberty

(D) reappointment of property

(E) clause for emergency rule by a minority

curtailment of individual liberty

Thou ill-formed offspring of my feeble brain,

Who after birth didst by my side remain,

Till snatched from thence by friends, less

wise than true,

Who thee abroad, exposed to public view,

Made thee in rags, halting to th' press

to trudge,

Where errors were not lessened (all

may judge).

At thy return my blushing was not small,

My rambling brat (in print) should

mother call,

I cast thee by as one unfit for light,

Thy visage was so irksome in my sight.

"My rambling brat" (line 11) is an example of

(A) epigram

(B) alliteration

(C) onomatopoeia

(D) personification

(E) hyperbole

personification

Your wickedness makes you as it were heavy as lead, and to tend downwards with great weight and pressure towards hell; and if God should let you go, you would immediately sink and swiftly descend and plunge into the bottomless gulf, and your healthy constitution and your own care and prudence, and best contrivance, and all your righteousness, would have no more influence to uphold you and keep you out of hell, than a spider's web would have to stop a falling rock.

The passage above is an example of

(A) Puritanism

(B) Transcendentalism

(C) Naturalism

(D) Realism

(E) Deism

Puritanism

Besides, what could they see but a hideous and desolate wilderness, full of wild beasts and wild men- and what multitudes of them they knew not. Neither could they as it were, go up to the top of Pisgah to view from this wilderness a more goodly country to feed their hopes; for which way soever they turned their eyes (save upward to the heavens) they could have little solace or content in respect of any outward objects. For summer being done, all things stand upon them with a weather-beaten face, and the whole country, full of woods and thickets, represented a wild and savage hue.

The passage above is from:

(A) William Bradford's "The History of Plimouth

(B) Jonathan Edwards's "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God"

(C) James Fenimore Cooper's "The Pioneers"

(D) Washington Irving's "Rip Van Winkle"

(E) Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter"

William Bradford's "The History of Plimouth

Which of the following colonial American writers was NOT the author of an autobiographical narrative?

(A) Samson Occom

(B) Benjamin Franklin

(C) Mary Rowlandson

(D) Elizabeth Ashbridge

(E) Edward Taylor

Edward Taylor

That minds are not alike, full well I know,

This truth each day's experience will show;

To heights surprising some great spirits soar,

With inborn strength mysterious depths explore;

Their eager gaze surveys the path of light,

Confest it stood to Newton's piercing sight,

Deep science, like a bashful maid retires,

And but the ardent breast her worth inspires;

By perseverance the coy fair is won.

And Genius, led by Study, wears the crown.

Line 3 is distinctive for its use of:

(A) alliteration

(B) assonance

(C) oxymoron

(D) enjambment

(E) iambic tetrameter

Alliteration

That minds are not alike, full well I know,

This truth each day's experience will show;

To heights surprising some great spirits soar,

With inborn strength mysterious depths explore;

Their eager gaze surveys the path of light,

Confest it stood to Newton's piercing sight,

Deep science, like a bashful maid retires,

And but the ardent breast her worth inspires;

By perseverance the coy fair is won.

And Genius, led by Study, wears the crown.

The "ardent breast" (line 8) serves to

(A) foster love

(B) promote greed

(C) further discovery

(D) instill wisdom

(E) invoke confidence

further discovery

BEHOLD her stretched upon the mournful bier!- Behold her silently descend to the grave!- Soon the wild weeds spring afresh round the little hillock, as if to shelter the remains of betrayed innocence- and the friends of her youth shun even the spot which conceals her relicks.

SUCH is the consequence of SEDUCTION, but it is not the only consequence.

The first paragraph of the passage provides an example of which of the following figures of speech?

(A) Satire

(B) Simile

(C) Apostrophe

(D) Synecdoche

(E) Personification

Apostrophe

Which of the following best describes a theme of Whitman's poem "Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking"?

(A) The desire of the poet to retreat to the protected life of the child.

(B) The grief that overwhelmed America at Lincoln's death

(C) The celebration of America as the hope of the world

(D) The anguish of a man confronted by war

(E) The awakening of the poet to his vocation

The awakening of the poet to his vocation

Which of the following did NOT write a slave narrative?

(A) Olaudah Equiano

(B) William Wells Brown

(C) Frederick Douglas

(D) Charles Brockden Brown

(E) Harriet Jacobs

Charles Brockden Brown

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.

To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust.

I had three pieces of limestone on my desk, but I was terrified to find that they required to be dusted daily, when the furniture of my mind was all undusted still, and I threw out the window in disgust.

The sentences are taken from the opening pages of

(A) Nathaniel Hawthorne's "House of the Seven Gables"

(B) Ralph Waldo Emerson's "Nature"

(C) Edgar Allen Poe's "The Philosophy of Composition"

(D) Walt Whitman's "Democratic Vistas"

(E) Henry David Thoreau's "Walden"

Henry David Thoreau's "Walden"

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.

To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust.

I had three pieces of limestone on my desk, but I was terrified to find that they required to be dusted daily, when the furniture of my mind was all undusted still, and I threw out the window in disgust.

The phrase "the furniture of my mind was all undusted still" can best be paraphrased by which of the following?

(A) I had become morose and antisocial

(B) I had not examined my ideas and beliefs.

(C) I needed change of scene.

(D) I was intellectually and emotionally exhausted.

(E) I had become so lazy that I could not work.

I had not examined my ideas and beliefs

Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members. Society is a joint-stock company, in which the members agree, for the better securing of his bread to each shareholder, to surrender the liberty and culture of the eater. The virtue in most request is conformity... It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs.

Whoso would be a man, must be a non-conformist. He who would gather immortal palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness, but must explore if it be goodness. Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. Absolve you to yourself, and you shall have the suffrage of the world.

The passage is an excerpt from

(A) Henry Thoreau's "Civil Disobedience"

(B) Ralph Waldo Emerson's "Self-Reliance"

(C) James Russell Lowell's "Democracy"

(D) Henry James's "The American"

(E) Oliver Wendell Holmes's "The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table"

Ralph Waldo Emerson's "Self-Reliance"

Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members. Society is a joint-stock company, in which the members agree, for the better securing of his bread to each shareholder, to surrender the liberty and culture of the eater. The virtue in most request is conformity... It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs.

Whoso would be a man, must be a non-conformist. He who would gather immortal palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness, but must explore if it be goodness. Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. Absolve you to yourself, and you shall have the suffrage of the world.

The sentence beginning "He who would gather immortal palms..." is best interpreted to mean which of the following?

(A) Anyone who wishes to achieve greatness must examine society's fundamental values.

(B) A person worthy of emulation need not be good.

(C) A love of goodness usually stands in the way of great achievements.

(D) Immortality is denied to the individual who opposes conventional values.

(E) The means an individual uses to achieve a worthy goal are not important.

Anyone who wishes to achieve greatness must examine society's fundamental values

Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members. Society is a joint-stock company, in which the members agree, for the better securing of his bread to each shareholder, to surrender the liberty and culture of the eater. The virtue in most request is conformity... It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs.Whoso would be a man, must be a non-conformist. He who would gather immortal palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness, but must explore if it be goodness. Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. Absolve you to yourself, and you shall have the suffrage of the world.

The philosophy expressed in the passage is best paraphrased by which of the following statements?

(A) Doing deliberate evil is preferable to surrendering freedom.

(B) The ideal relationship between the individual and society strikes a balance between total conformity and excessive nonconformity.

(C) Society and individuality are at odds, so those seeking to be individuals must define their own terms for living.

(D) Each individual is threatened by society but finally must comprise for the greater good.

(E) Some people surrender their integrity to society, but they must choose to set themselves against it.

Society and individuality are at odds, so those seeking to be individuals must define their own terms for living

The founders of a new colony, whatever Utopia of human virtue and happiness they might originally project, have invariably recognized it among their earliest practical necessities to allot a portion of the virgin soil as a cemetery, and another portion as the site of a prison ... But, on one side of the portal, and rooted almost at the threshold, was a wild rose-bush.

In the passage above, the image of the cemetery, prison, and rose-bush set the tone for which of the following works?

(A) Jonathan Edwards's "Freedom of Will"

(B) Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter"

(C) Herman Melville's "Typee"

(D) Washington Irving's "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow"

(E) Edgar Allen Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher"

Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter"

The history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward woman, having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over her. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

The statement above represents a deliberate rewriting of which important political text?

(A) The Gettysburg Address

(B) The Declaration of Independence

(C) The Preamble to the United States Constitution

(D) The Bill of Rights

(E) "Common Sense"

The Declaration of Independence

The "unpardonable sin" committed by Ethan Brand is

(A) Allowing one's intellectual curiosity to violate the privacy of others

(B) Any mortal transgression not followed by repentance

(C) The attempt to improve upon God's handiwork

(D) loss of faith in God

(E) ambition deteriorating into a lust for power

The attempt to improve upon God's handiwork

Which of the following writers, born into a family of New England ministers, achieved popular success with an abolitionist novel?

(A) Mary Wilkins Freeman

(B) Sarah Orne Jewett

(C) Harriet Beecher Stowe

(D) Rebecca Harding Davis

(E) Louisa May Alcott

Harriet Beecher Stowe

So it came to pass that as he trudged from the place of blood and wrath his soul changed. He came from hot plowshares to prospects of clover tranquilly, and it was as if hot plowshares were not. Scars faded as flowers.

It rained. The procession of weary soldiers became a bedraggled train, despondent and muttering, marching with churning effort in a trough of liquid brown mud under a low, wretched sky. Yet the youth smiled, for he saw that the world was a world for him, though many discovered it to be made of oaths and walking sticks. He had rid himself of the red sickness of battle. The sultry nightmare was in the past.

The name of the central character in the work from which the passage above is taken is

(A) Thomas Sutpen

(B) Henry Fleming

(C) Clyde Griffiths

(D) Frederic Henry

(E) Nick Carraway

Henry Fleming

"I would prefer not to" is a statement often made by a character in which of the following?

(A) "My Kinsman, Major Molineux"

(B) "The Minister's Black Veil"

(C) "Rappaccini's Daughter"

(D) "Bartleby the Scivener"

(E) "Benito Cereno"

"Bartleby the Scivener"

Which of the following authors wrote "Ragged Dick", a best-selling novel that chronicles a young man's rise from poverty and obscurity to wealth and social prominence and that led to a popular series of similar rags-to-riches stories?

(A) Herman Melville

(B) Louisa May Alcott

(C) Mark Twain

(D) Horatio Alger

(E) Rebecca Harding Davis

Horatio Alger

The title character of Henry James's "Daisy Miller" finally

(A) Adjusts to the mores of international society in Europe

(B) Chooses life of an artist rather than marriage

(C) Enters a convent in France

(D) Dies as the result of a night visit to the Colosseum

(E) Marries an Italian nobleman

Dies as the result of a night visit to the Colosseum

The King and the Duke in Mark Twain's "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn are

(A) Aristocrats

(B) Confidence men

(C) Slaves

(D) Tradesmen

(E) Slave traders

Confidence men

The morning was one peculiar to that coast. Everything was mute and calm; everything gray. The sea, though undulated into long roods of swells, seemed fixed, and was sleeked at the surface like waved lead that has cooled and set in the smelter's mould. The sky seemed a gray surtout. Flights of troubled gray fowl, kith and kin with flights of troubled gray vapors among which they were mixed, skimmed low and fitfully over the waters, as swallows over meadows before storms. Shadows present, foreshadowing deeper shadows to come.

In the passage, the word "gray" is an example of

(A) A metaphor

(B) A motif

(C) An allusion

(D) Understatement

(E) Onomatopoeia

A motif

Which of the following does NOT appear in a poem by Emily Dickinson?

(A) A fly in a still room making an "uncertain stumbling buzz"

(B) A slanted ray of late-afternoon winter sunlight

(C) A rain-filled red wheelbarrow "besides the white chickens"

(D) A train metaphorically described in terms of a horse

(E) A saddened person who "never lost as much but twice"

A rain-filled red wheelbarrow "besides the white chickens"

Mark Twain, William Dean Howells, and Henry James are commonly described by literary historians as

(A) Transcendentalists

(B) Symbolists

(C) Realists

(D) Romantics

(E) Naturalists

Realists

Which of the following writers was particularly important in the development of the short story as a literary form?

(A) James Fenimore Cooper

(B) Harriet Beecher Stowe

(C) Frederick Douglass

(D) Edgar Allan Poe

(E) Edith Wharton

Edgar Allan Poe

Which of the following authors wrote extensively about her experiences attending a government-run boarding school?

(A) Sui Sin Far

(B) Joy Harjo

(C) Willa Cather

(D) Diane Glancy

(E) Zitkala-Sa

Zitkala-Sa

Emma Lazarus' poem "The New Colossus" refers to

(A) The Statue of Liberty

(B) The Lincoln Memorial

(C) Mount Rushmore

(D) The Brooklyn Bridge

(E) The Washington Monument

The Statue of Liberty

Which of the following best describes people as they are portrayed in the fiction of Stephen Crane, Theodore Dreiser and Frank Norris?

(A) Victims of original sin

(B) Self-determining entities

(C) Creatures shaped by biological, social, and economic factors

(D) Beings whose biological natures are fixed, but who are able to manipulate their environments

(E) Individuals who must be awakened to the fact that their wills are free

Creatures shaped by biological, social, and economic factors

John Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wreath" depicts

(A) The plight of dispossessed farmers who migrate to California

(B) Prison conditions in turn-of-the-century America

(C) A wounded soldier who tries in vain to escape the effects of war

(D) Racial problems in a small farming town in Oklahoma

(E) A drifter and his friend who dream hopelessly of better lives.

The plight of dispossessed farmers who migrate to California

Which of the following statements summarizes Booker T. Washington's message in a well known speech delivered in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1895 and later include in his autobiography, "Up From Slavery"?

(A) Educational opportunities in the liberal arts are the key to social and economic advancement for African Americans.

(B) Progress for both the African American and the White communities requires cooperation in developing commercial and industrial opportunities.

(C) African Americans need to better understand their African cultural roots.

(D) The economic interests of the African American and White communities will inevitably develop separately.

(E) African American demand immediate and full equality in all aspects of life that are purely social.

Progress for both the African American and the White communities requires cooperation in developing commercial and industrial opportunities

Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me. They possess and enjoy early, and it does something to them, makes them soft where we are hard, and cynical where we are trustful, in a way that, unless you were born rich, it is very difficult to understand. They think, deep in their hearts, that they are better than we are because we had to discover the compensations and refuges of life for ourselves. Even when they enter deep into our world or sink below us, they still think that they are better than we are. They are different.

In the passage, which of the following best describes the speaker's attitude toward the very rich?

(A) He finds their cynicism alarming and unwarranted.

(B) He believes that, because of their advantages and experiences, the rich know more than others do.

(C) He is envious of their moral superiority.

(D) He thinks that he understands their psychology even though he has not shared their advantages.

(E) He finds them so different from the rest of society as to be practically unknowable.

He thinks that he understands their psychology even though he has not shared their advantages

Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me. They possess and enjoy early, and it does something to them, makes them soft where we are hard, and cynical where we are trustful, in a way that, unless you were born rich, it is very difficult to understand. They think, deep in their hearts, that they are better than we are because we had to discover the compensations and refuges of life for ourselves. Even when they enter deep into our world or sink below us, they still think that they are better than we are. They are different.

The passage was written by

(A) F. Scott Fitzgerald

(B) John B. Marquand

(C) John Steinbeck

(D) Sinclair Lewis

(E) Theodore Dreiser

F. Scott Fitzgerald

A demand for political, civic, and educational equality is voiced in "The Souls of Black Folk" by

(A) W.E.B. Du Bois

(B) Richard Wright

(C) Harriet Tubman

(D) Langston Hughes

(E) Jean Toomer

W.E.B. Du Bois

Ezra Pound's short poem "In a station of the Metro" is considered a classic example of

(A) Romanticism

(B) Surrealism

(C) Futurism

(D) Imagism

(E) Postmodernism

Imagism

Which of the following writers was a part of the Harlem Renaissance?

(A) Frederick Douglass

(B) Zora Neale Hurston

(C) Philis Wheatley

(D) Alice Walker

(E) James Baldwin

Zora Neale Hurston

Characters with the last names of Snopes, Compson, and Sartoris figure prominently in the fiction of

(A) Eudora Welty

(B) Flannery O'Connor

(C) Thomas Wolfe

(D) William Faulkner

(E) Robert Penn Warren

William Faulkner

Which of the following poets is best known for sonnets that combine a traditional verse form with a concern for women's issues?

(A) Edna St. Vincent Millay

(B) Gertrude Stein

(C) Marianne Moore

(D) H.D.

(E) Amy Lowell

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Which of the following poets derived the title, the plan, and much of the symbolism of one of his or her major poems from Jessie Weston's "From Ritual to Romance"?

(A) Wallace Stevens

(B) T.S. Eliot

(C) Robert Frost

(D) Marianne Moore

(E) Langston Hughes

T.S. Eliot

As part of a series of dramas chronicling the lives of African Americans in each decade of the twentieth century, Pulitzer Prize winner August Wilson has written which of the following pairs of plays?

(A) "The Crucible...A View from the Bridge"

(B) "The Piano Lesson... Fences"

(C) "The Iceman Cometh... Desire Under the Elms

(D) "Dutchman... The Slave"

(E) "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof... Sweet Bird of Youth"

" The Piano Lesson... Fences"

"You've just seen a prince walk by. A fine, troubled prince. A hard-working, unappreciated prince. A pal, you understand? Always for his boys."

In which of the following modern American plays is the principal character described above?

(A) "The Glass Menagerie"

(B) "The Hairy Ape"

(C) "Trifles

(D) " A Raisin in the Sun"

(E) "Death of a Salesman"

"Death of a Salesman"

Which of the following cities is Carl Sandburg noted for celebrating?

(A) New York

(B) Chicago

(C) Los Angeles

(D) New Orleans

(E) Pittsburgh

Chicago

Bigger Thomas is the central character in

(A) Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle"

(B) Carson McCullers' "The Ballad of the Sad Cafe"

(C) Richard Wright's "Native Son"

(D) Nella Larsen's "Passing"

(E) Thomas Wolfe's "Look Homeward, Angel"

Richard Wright's "Native Son"

"I wish that you were my sister, I'd teach you to have some confidence in yourself. The different people are not like other people, but being different is nothing to be ashamed of... Other people are... one hundred times one thousand. You're one times one! They walk all over the earth. You just stay here. They're common as- weeds, but- you- well, you're Blue Roses."

In the passage above from Tennessee Williams' "The Glass Menagerie", the term "Blue Roses" is a metaphor for the young woman's

(A) Favorite flowers

(B) Profession as a dancer

(C) Vivacious personality

(D) Shyness and sensitivity

(E) Unusual taste in fashion

Shyness and sensitivity

The extraordinary patience of things!

This beautiful place defaced with a crop of suburban houses-

How beautiful when we first beheld it,

Unbroken field of poppy and lupin walled with clean cliffs;

No intrusion but two or three horses pasturing,

Or a few milch cows rubbing their flanks on the

outcrop rockheads-

Now the spoiler has come: does it care?

Not faintly. It has all time. It knows the people

are a tide.

That swells and in time will ebb, and all

Their works dissolve. Meanwhile the image of

the pristine beauty

Lives in the very grain of the granite,

Safe as the endless ocean that climbs our

cliff.- As for us:

We must uncenter our minds from ourselves;

We must unhumanize our views a little, and

become confident

As the rock and ocean that we were made from.

In line 10, the word "it" refers to

(A) "The extraordinary patience of things" (line 1)

(B) "This beautiful place" (line 2)

(C) "A crop of suburban houses" (line 2-3)

(D) "The spoiler" (line 10)

(E) " A tide/That swells" (line 12-13)

"This beautiful place"

The extraordinary patience of things!

This beautiful place defaced with a crop of suburban houses-

How beautiful when we first beheld it,

Unbroken field of poppy and lupin walled with clean cliffs;

No intrusion but two or three horses pasturing,

Or a few milch cows rubbing their flanks on the

outcrop rockheads-

Now the spoiler has come: does it care?

Not faintly. It has all time. It knows the people

are a tide.

That swells and in time will ebb, and all

Their works dissolve. Meanwhile the image of

the pristine beauty

Lives in the very grain of the granite,

Safe as the endless ocean that climbs our

cliff.- As for us:

We must uncenter our minds from ourselves;

We must unhumanize our views a little, and

become confident

As the rock and ocean that we were made from.

The primary contrast in the poem is between

(A) The land and the sea

(B) Urban and suburban landscapes

(C) Animals and people

(D) Past and future

(E) Nature and humankind

Nature and humankind

The extraordinary patience of things!

This beautiful place defaced with a crop of suburban houses-

How beautiful when we first beheld it,

Unbroken field of poppy and lupin walled with clean cliffs;

No intrusion but two or three horses pasturing,

Or a few milch cows rubbing their flanks on the

outcrop rockheads-

Now the spoiler has come: does it care?

Not faintly. It has all time. It knows the people

are a tide.

That swells and in time will ebb, and all

Their works dissolve. Meanwhile the image of

the pristine beauty

Lives in the very grain of the granite,

Safe as the endless ocean that climbs our

cliff.- As for us:

We must uncenter our minds from ourselves;

We must unhumanize our views a little, and

become confident

As the rock and ocean that we were made from.

The poem is written in which verse form?

(A) Ballad

(B) Blank verse

(C) Free verse

(D) Italian sonnet

(E) Shakespearean sonnet

Free verse

Which of the following is the first-person narrator of Harper Lee's 1960 novel "To Kill a Mockingbird"?

(A) Jem

(B) Dill

(C) Scout

(D) Calpurnia

(E) Mayella

Scout

Which of the following novels chronicles the experiences of an African American protagonist?

(A) All the King's Men

(B) The Age of Innocence

(C) Henderson the Rain King

(D) Invisible Man

(E) The Catcher in the Rye

Invisible Man

At the end of Flannery O'Connor's "A Good Man Is Hard to Find," the grandmother does which of the following?

(A) She ponders the truth of Red Sammy's words, "a good man is hard to find."

(B) She collapses in the street after being hit by a woman she has insulted.

(C) She dies after being shot by an escaped convict, the Misfit.

(D) She marries a Bible salesman who is also a con artist

(E) She sits in a roadside diner, abandoned by the drifter she has befriended.

She dies after being shot by an escaped convict, the Misfit

When we Chinese girls listened to the adults talk-story, we learned that we failed if we grew up to be but wives or slaves. We could be heroines, swordswomen. Even if she had to rage across all China, a swordswoman got even with anybody who hurt her family. Perhaps women were once so dangerous that they had to have their feet bound...

My mother told (stories) that followed swordswomen through woods and palaces for years. Night after night my mother would talk-story until we fell asleep. I couldn't tell where the stories left off and dreams began, her voice the voice of the heroines in my sleep...

At last I saw that I too had been in the presence of great power, my mother talking-story.

In the passage above, the discussion of "talk-story" helps to express the speaker's

(A) Acceptance of having outgrown the stories of childhood

(B) Development of her own capacity for writing through practice in storytelling.

(C) Sense that storytelling was a way that her mother transmitted strength.

Sense that storytelling was a way that her mother transmitted strength

my mamma moved among the days

like a dreamwalker in a field;

seemed like what she touched was hers

seemed like what touched her couldn't hold,

she got us almost through the high grass

then seemed like she turned around and ran

right back in

right back on in

Lines 1-4 suggest that the speaker viewed the mother as

(A) Reverent

(B) Indomitable

(C) Absentminded

(D) Ineffectual

(E) Unrealistic

Indomitable

All of the following were written by Toni Morrison EXCEPT

(A) Song of Soloman

(B) Beloved

(C) The Bluest Eye

(D) Sula

(E) Tell Me a Riddle

Tell Me a Riddle

The Native American author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel "House Made of Dawn" is

(A) N. Scott Momaday

(B) Louise Erdrich

(C)Leslie Marmon Silko

(D) Toni Cade Bambara

(E) Jack Kerouac

N. Scott Momaday

Then higher on the glistering Sun I gaz'd,

Whose beams was shaded by the leafy tree;

The more I look'd, the more I grew amaz'd,

And softly said, what glory's like to thee?

Soul of this world, this Universe's eye,

No wonder some made thee a Deity:

Had I not better known (alas) the same had I.

Which of the following pairs of poems and authors correctly identifies the origin of the stanza?

A. "Because I Could Not Stop for Death" ... Emily Dickinson

B. "Contemplations" ... Anne Bradstreet

C. "Spirit" ... Anne Bradstreet

D. "An Hymn to the Morning" ... Phillis Wheatley

E. "A Noiseless Patient Spider" ... Walt Whitman

"Contemplations" ... Anne Bradstreet

Which of the following authors would NOT be described as a Romantic author?

A. Nathaniel Hawthorne

B. F. Scott Fitzgerald

C. Emily Dickinson

D. Herman Melville

E. Edith Wharton

F. Scott Fitzgerald

For which of the following literary devices is Hawthorne most known?

A. Allegory

B. Foreshadowing

C. Personification

D. Simile

E. Spondee

Allegory

What religious community is Dimmesdale the minister of in The Scarlet Letter?

A. Catholic

B. Quaker

C. Puritan

D. Methodist

E. Presbyterian

Puritan

Which of the following is NOT a value portrayed in Romantic literature?

A. Solitude

B. Reason

C. Liberation

D. Nature

E. The fanciful

Reason

And what I assume you shall assume,

For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

I loafe and invite my soul,

I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.

My tongue, every atom of my blood, form'd from this soil,

this air,

Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and

their parents the same,

I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,

Hoping to cease not till death.

Note the repetitive the use of "l" words in lines 4 and 5. What poetic device is this an example of?

A. Onomatopoeia

B. Alliteration

C. Assonance

D. Slant rhyme

E. Spondee

Alliteration

Who is the protagonist in "The Cask of Amontillado"?

A. Fortunato

B. Montresor

C. Lady Fortunato

D. Luchesi

E. The Amontillado

Montresor

Naturalist and realist writers typically wrote in which literary form?

A. Poem

B. Novel

C. Essay

D. Article

E. Short story

Novel

The theories of which of the following had a major influence on naturalist and realist writers?

A. Carl Jung

B. Sigmund Freud

C. Charles Darwin

D. S. Weir Mitchell

E. Sinclair Lewis

Charles Darwin

Which of the following statements would most likely be reflected in a naturalist or realist novel?

A. Humans control their own destiny; all they need to do is work hard.

B. Humans can find solace and freedom in nature.

C. Immigration is a human's best chance for finding a better and improved life.

D. Humans become who they are because of their environment, family ancestry, and social conditions.

E. Humans need to exercise their imaginations and be more creative.

Humans become who they are because of their environment, family ancestry, and social conditions.

What was Stephen Crane's profession?

A. Copyeditor

B. Journalist

C. Coal miner

D. Critic

E. Professor

Professor

What does Stephen Crane's novel Maggie: A Girl of the Streets reveal?

A. Single parents must resort to prostitution.

B. When a child is left an orphan, there is no hope, only poverty and homelessness.

C. Immigration leads to a rough life of poverty and sometimes prostitution.

D. There is no middle class in America.

E. Working hard will lead to a better life.

Immigration leads to a rough life of poverty and sometimes prostitution.

Which of the following authors would NOT be considered a naturalist or realist author?

A. Ernest Hemingway

B. Frank Norris

C. Stephen Crane

D. Edith Wharton

E. Henry James

Ernest Hemingway

A Farewell to Arms is set during which of the following wars?

A. World War II

B. Spanish-American War

C. Korean War

D. World War I

E. Spanish Civil War

World War I

Which of the following correctly pairs the central character in T.S. Eliot's poem "The Waste Land" with who or what this character symbolizes?

A. The Fisher King ... Christ

B. The Fisher King ... St. Peter

C. Madame Sosostris ... wisdom

D. Stetson ... camaraderie in war

E. There is no central character; this is symbolic of the world being a wasteland.

The Fisher King ... Christ

Anything approaching the change that came over his features I have never seen before, and hope never to see again. Oh, I wasn't touched. I was fascinated. It was as though a veil had been rent. I saw on that ivory face the expression of sombre pride, of ruthless power, of craven terror—of an intense and hopeless despair. Did he live his life again in every detail of desire, temptation, and surrender during that supreme moment of complete knowledge? He cried in a whisper at some image, at some vision—he cried out twice, a cry that was no more than a breath.

Identify the title and author of the work from which the above excerpt was taken.

A. "The Minister's Black Veil" ... Nathaniel Hawthorne

B. "The Tell-Tale Heart" ... Edgar Allan Poe

C. Heart of Darkness ... Joseph Conrad

D. Of Mice and Men ... John Steinbeck

E. Moby-Dick ... Herman Melville

"The Minister's Black Veil" ... Nathaniel Hawthorne

Anything approaching the change that came over his features I have never seen before, and hope never to see again. Oh, I wasn't touched. I was fascinated. It was as though a veil had been rent. I saw on that ivory face the expression of sombre pride, of ruthless power, of craven terror—of an intense and hopeless despair. Did he live his life again in every detail of desire, temptation, and surrender during that supreme moment of complete knowledge? He cried in a whisper at some image, at some vision—he cried out twice, a cry that was no more than a breath.

What theme is apparent in the passage?

A. The narrator's description of the man crying out "in a whisper at some image, at some vision"

B. The narrator's inclusion of his observations of noting "intense and hopeless despair" in the man reflects the theme of mental anguish and depression.

C. The narrator's question of "Did he live his life again...?" reflects the theme of reincarnation.

D. The narrator's noting of the man's "change of features" paired with the description "as though a veil had been rent" reflects the theme of hidden motives and evil in mankind.

E. The narrator's focus on "terror" reflects the theme of fear.

The narrator's noting of the man's "change of features" paired with the description "as though a veil had been rent" reflects the theme of hidden motives and evil in mankind.

What do the eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg symbolize in The Great Gatsby?

A. God's judgment of America as a moral wasteland

B. That Tom would get caught for having an affair with Myrtle

C. That there was mental illness in West Egg

D. That Nick was suffering from mental illness

E. They had no significance.

God's judgment of America as a moral wasteland

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,

That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it

And spills the upper boulders in the sun,

and makes gaps even two can pass abreast.

Literally, ground swells cause walls to crumble. Notice, however, that the poet in a traditional iambic line, stresses the syllables "ground-swell" to accentuate the feeling of moving ground. In poetics, we refer to this as a spondaic interruption. The spondee is a poetic foot defined as

A. a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable

B. an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable

C. two stressed syllables

D. two unstressed syllables followed by a stressed syllable

E. a stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables

two stressed syllables

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,

That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it

And spills the upper boulders in the sun,

and makes gaps even two can pass abreast.

Who wrote "Mending Wall"?

A. Robert Service

B. T.S. Eliot

C. Henry David Thoreau

D. Jack London

E. Robert Frost

Robert Frost

Washington Irving's "Rip Van Winkle" is set before and after which period in United States history?

A. The Civil War

B. The War of 1812

C. The Revolutionary War

D. World War I

E. World War II

The Revolutionary War

What is the name of the literary journal that was founded by Harriet Monroe in 1912 and aided in the careers of many poets like Robert Frost, Carl Sandburg, Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot, and William Carlos Williams?

A. The Atlantic Monthly

B. Harper's Magazine

C. The New Yorker

D. Poetry: A Magazine of Verse

E. The Dial

Poetry: A Magazine of Verse

Many scholars appropriately link William Cullen Bryant, John Greenleaf Whittier, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow to a group of famous poets known as the

A. Fireside Poets

B. Metaphysical Poets

C. Romantics

D. Beats

E. Transcendentalists

Fireside Poets

Carl Sandburg is most noted for his poetry about Chicago. However, he is also famous for writing a biography of what American president?

A. George Washington

B. Ulysses S. Grant

C. Andrew Jackson

D. Abraham Lincoln

E. William Taft

Abraham Lincoln

Which essay was NOT written by Ralph Waldo Emerson?

A. "The Great Lawsuit: Man versus Men, Woman versus Women"

B. "Experience"

C. "Self-Reliance"

D. The Divinity School Address

E. Man the Reformer

"The Great Lawsuit: Man versus Men, Woman versus Women"

William Carlos Williams was not only a poet, but also a(n)

A. insurance agent

B. lawyer

C. teacher

D. Patent officer

E. physician

physician

For wee must Consider that wee shall be as a Citty upon a hill. The eies of all people are upon Us, soe that if wee shall deale falsely with our god in this worke wee have undertaken, and soe cause him to withdrawe his present help from us, wee shall be made a story and a by-word through the world. We shall open the mouthes of enemies to speake evill of the ways of god, and all professours for God's sake.

The "wee" in line 1 refers to

A. preachers

B. New Englanders

C. Pilgrims

D. Quakers

E. Puritans

Puritans

Which author is NOT commonly considered a regional writer?

A. Mark Twain

B. Willa Cather

C. Jack London

D. Stephen Crane

E. Kate Chopin

Stephen Crane