Literature In English Practice Tests (Literary Appreciation) Questions with Answers and Explanations

The form of poetry that celebrates with nostalgia the ideal world of the countryside is referred to as _____

A. a ballad    B. an ode    C. a pastoral    D. an elegy

Allegory is used to describe a work in which ____

A. both animals and humans swap roles
B. humans are transposed into animals
C. abstract ideas are personified
D. animals are given human characters

Mr. Becky exploded: I did not come here to
ask for a school report on my son. Did you
or did you not savagely attack the child,
knowing fully well that his health is most
delicate at best of times?

- Wole Soyinka: Isara: A Voyage Around Essay

In the excerpt above, Mr. Beckley is trying to ____

A. put the addressee on the defensive
B. show off to the listener
C. provoke a fight
D. find out the truth from the addressee

‘What eyes will watch our large
mouths
Shaped by the laughter of big children
What eyes will watch our large
mouths?

Birago Diop: Vanity

The tone of the lines above is one of ______

A. sarcasm    B. sacrilege    C. chiasmus    D. eulogy.

‘Lift not the painted veil which those who live
call life: through unreal shapes be pictured
there, And it but mimic all we would believe
With colours idly spread,-behind, lurk fear.' -

P.B sheliey: Sonnet

The stanza above is an example of a ______

A. couplet.    B. seslet.    C. quatrain.    D. sonnet.