LITERATURE-IN-ENGLISH 2010 PAST QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
1. Which literature in English Question Paper Type is given to you?
A. Type A
B. Type B
C. Type C
D. Type D
Questions 2 to 5 are based on J.C. De Graft's Sons and Daughters
2. „I simply don't understand what's the matter with everybody today. Everybody let me down, and the speaker above is referring to .
A. Fosuwa and Maidservant
B. Hannah and George
C. Aaron and Maanan
D. Lawyer B and Mrs. B
3. Maanan expresses dislike for Lawyer B because of .
A. his condemnation of her choice of career
B. his recent advances towards her
C. the betrayal of her father's trust
D. the betrayal of his wife's trust.
4. The traditional order in the play is represented by .
A. Mrs. B
B. Hannah
C. Maanan
D. Aunt
5. Where does the play take place?
A. On the street
B. In George's place
C. In Aunt's house
D. In Ofosu's place.
Questions 6 to 10 based on William Shakes ear's Romeo and Juliet
6. '0' deadly sin!O rude unthankfulness! Thy fault our law calls death, but the kind Prince, Taking thy part, hath rushed aside the law And turned that black word...' Deadly sin refers to the .
A. suicide of Juliet
B. suicide of Romeo
C. murder of Paris
D. murder of TybaIt
7. The play is mostly written in .
A. blank verse
B. free verse
C. metres
D. foot.
8. '0' serpent heart, hid with a flowering face!' The statement above refers to
A. Juliet
B. Romeo
C. Tybalt
D. Benvolio.
9. The spatial setting of the play is .
A. Athens
B. Verona
C. Padua
D. Venice
10.Romeo is banished to Mantua because he .
A. kills Tybalt in a street duel
B. marries Juliet without parental consent
C. attends Capulet's party uninvited
D. attempts to kill paris his rival.
Questions 11 to 13 are based on Buchi Emecheta's The Joys of Motherhood.
11. In the novel, the society puts high value on .
A. egalitarianism
B. male ascendancy
C. procreation
D. gender equity.
12 .The medicine man links the lump discovered on the head of Nnu Ego at birth, to the .
A. possession of physical admirable qualities that makes her an epitome of perfection.
B. wound inflicted on the slave woman buried with Agbadi‟s wife
C. coming back of the Agunwa to the society to live again
D. ill-luck and tragic events attributed to a predestined fate
13.The constant companions of Nnaife's family are .
A. togetherness and happiness
B. poverty and hunger
C. sickness and joblessness
D. disagreement and humiliation
Questions 14 to 16 are based on Ferdinand Oyano's The Old Man and the Medal.
14.The disagreement between Mvondo and Nti centres on the latter‟s claim to have .
A. assisted Meka in getting the medal
B. eaten the entire entrails of a sheep
C. eaten more than his share of the food
D. been in a white man‟soffice
15. Meka can be best be described as .
A. an egocentric old man
B. a simple-hearted old man
C. an impulsive old man
D. an old religious bigot
16. In the novel, the colonialists treat the Africans with .
A. Kids‟ gloves
B. disdain
C. indifference
D. honour
Questions 17 to 20 are based on George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-four
17.The Ministry of peace is concerned with making _.
A. instruments
B. weapons
C. wars
D. reconciliation
18.The subject matter of the novel is .
A. totalitarian dictatorship
B. exploitation and cruelty
C. retributive justice
D. class segregation.
19.How did Winston start his rebellion against the state .
A. By engaging in anti-party activities
B. By keeping a private diary
C. When he started a secret affair
D. When he spied on the party.
20.The party seeks power for .
A. the nation
B. its own sake
C. its members
D. peoples' sake
Questions 21 to 30 are based on selected poems from Ker, D. et al (eds.) New Poetry from African; Soyinka, (ed.) Poems of Black Africa; Senanu K.E. and Vincent T. (eds.): A selection of African Poetry; Umukoro, M et al (eds.) Exam Focus: literature in English; Eruvbetine, A.E. et al (eds.): Longman Examination Guides and Nwoga, D. I. (ed): West African Verse.
21. As the dancers move through paths strewn with glass chips, the images in Adeoti's Naked Soles change from .
A. joy to excitement
B. inaction to action
C. pain to grief
D. sorrow to joy.
22.Rubadiris's An African Thunderstorm, says that during thunderstorm in the village
A. women cook their food
B. children play in the rain
C. children are delighted while women move in and out
D. both women and children are delighted.
23. 'Yet in their finger upon Our navel The midwives of the spirit say They feel a foetal throb.
The dominant literary device used in the extract above from Acquahs' In the Navel of the Soul is
A. epigram
B. allegory
C. enjambment
D. rhythm.
24. In Kunene's A heritage of Liberation, the poet persona requests that the weapons of warfare be handed to their .
A. friends
B. relations
C. grand children
D. families
25. The predominant device in Launko's End of the War is .
A. onomatopoeia
B. antithesis
C. oxymoron
D. paradox
26. The theme of the poem Give Me The Minstrel's Seat centres on
A. divorce
B. fortune
C. marriage
D. companionship.
27. The poet persona in Marvell's To His Coy Mistress is willing to praise the lady's eyes for
A. thirty thousand years
B. six decades
C. two centuries
D. a century.
28. In Lawrence's Bat, the poet persona mistakes the bats for
A. owls
B. swallows
C. pipistrello
D. sparrows
29. In Eliot's Journey of the Magi, the magi are aided on their journey by
A. donkeys
B. horses
C. camels
D chariots.
30. According to Cope‟s Sonnet VII, poetry is basically .
A. boring
B. therapeutic
C. philosophical
D. inspiring
Questions 31 to 40 are based on General Literary Principles.
31.A play which mainly aims at provoking excessive laughter is called
A. tragi-comedy
B. comedy
C. a farce D.
D. satire.
32. Both comedy and tragedy have .
A. happy ending
B. climax
C. tragic hero
D. stanza
33.A formal dignified speech or writing praising a person or a thing for past or present deeds is
A. premiere
B. eulogy
C. anthology
D. lampoon
34. The narrative style in which the hero tells his own story directly is the .
A. objective
B. subjective
C. first- person
D. third-person.
35. The physical, historical or cultural background of a literary work is referred to as
A. episode
B. plot
C. time
D. setting
36.A plot structure that defies chronology can be described as
A. open-ended
B. circular
C. episodic
D. organic
37. Pun as a literary device deals with
A. placing two opposite phrases
B. placing words side by side 5
C. playing on words
D. arrangement of words
38. In a narrative poem, the poet attempts to
A. summarize a story
B. describe a place
C. preach a sermon
D. tell a story
39. The account of experiences of an individual during the course of a journey is known as
A. a travelogue
B. an autobiography
C. a catalogue
D. a memoir
40. Satirical writing employs _.
A. epigram
B. synecdoche
C. irony
D. onomatopoeia.
Questions 41 to 50 are based on Literary Appreciation. Use the quotation below to answer questions 41 and 42.
41.„Basha: You dumb skull of a bone head . . . you will face court martial for this. You look everywhere? You search inside toilet bowl? Wole Soyinka: King Baabu The person being addressed above is a
A. soldier
B. student
C. domestic servant
D. lawyer
42. From the tone of the speech above, the speaker is obviously
A. enraged
B. lackadaisical
C. elated
D. happy.
43.'That year the harvest was sad, like a funeral, and many farmers wept as they dug up the miserable yams. One man tied his cloth to a tree branch and hanged himself'. Chinua Achebe: Things Fall Apart The mood conveyed in the excerpt above is one of
A. sadness
B. frustration
C. sympathy
D. dilemma.
44.'That age is best which is the first, when youth and blood are warmer, But being spent, the worse, and worst Time still succeed the former. The rhyme scheme in the excerpt above is
A. bbaa
B. aabb
C. abab
D. abba.
45. But the towering earth was tired sitting in one position. She moved, suddenly, and the houses crumbled, the mountains heaved horribly, and the work of a million years was lost. The subject matter of the extract above is
A. storm
B. sea waves
C. house movement
D. earthquake.
46.And your laughter like a flame piercing the shadows Has revealed Africa to me beyond the snow of yesterday. From the poem above, shadow means
A. famine
B. bleak future
C. period of sufferings
D. abstract ideas.
47.Don't panic. Be calm, If you are some how upset ...try to regain your exposure. The speaker in the excerpt above is
A. hopeless
B. uncertain
C. afraid
D. confident.
Use the lines below to answer questions 48 and 49.
48. Move him into the sun Gently its touch awoke him once, At home, whispering of fields unsown Always it woke him even in France Until this morning and this snow If anything might rouse him now This kind old sun will know Think how it wakes the seeds Woke, once, the clays of a cold star Are limbs, so dear achieved, are sides Full nerved still swarm too hard to stir Was it, for this the clay grew tall? 0 what made fatuous sunbeams toil To break earth's sleep at all. The poem can be described as
A. a lyric
B. an epic
C. a sonnet
D. an elegy.
49.The theme of the poem is
A. futility of life
B. distortion of life
C. creation of life
D. vanity of life
50. A cursing rogue with a merry farce, A bundle of rags upon a crutch, Stumbled upon that windy place Called cruachan, and it was as much. The rhyme scheme of the stanza above is
A. aabb
B. abab
C. bbaa
D. abba.
