English American Literature
English American Literature
English American Literature
My Heart Leaps Up
William Wordsworth
Directions: Answer the questions by writing the letter of the best answer.
1. What is the tone of the following lines from Shakespeare’s Hamlet?
What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason!
How infinite in faculties! In form and moving, how express and admirable!
A. amazement C. veneration
B. mockery D. sadness
2. The following lines from Robert Browning’s My Last Duchess exemplify what poetic strategy?
"I could picture it. I have a rotten habit of picturing the bedroom scenes of my friends. We went out to
the Cafe Napolitain to have an aperitif and watch the evening crowd on the Boulevard." from The Sun
Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway.
When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept: A. dramatic irony
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff: C. causal irony
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious; B. irony of situation
And Brutus is an honourable man. D. verbal irony
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5. What do the following lines from William Blake exhort?
8. Which two sound devices did Alexander Pope use in the following lines?
“The wind stood up and gave a shout. He whistled on his two fingers.”
A. Allusion C. Onomatopoeia
B. Metaphor D. Personification
11. Which statement best summarizes the Holy Sonnet X by John Donne?
A. Death shall cease in the after life. And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well
B. Death comes through poppy or charms. And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?
C. Death takes so many forms and ways. One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
D. Death should not be proud since it is not mighty. And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.
12. What does the word “swell’st” in the Holy Sonnet X mean?
A. boast C. grow
B. shrink D. swear
13. Which statement about love is true based on Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116?
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks A. Love dissipates when lovers live apart.
Within his bending sickle's compass come: B. Love adapts to changing circumstances.
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, C. Love never wanes even in old age.
But bears it out even to the edge of doom. D. Love grows even to the edge of doom.
14. In “To the Virgins to Make Much of Time,” what is the persona’s main message?
A. Be wise in marriage to make life more worthwhile.
B. Marry now, or you may never have another chance.
C. Gather the rosebuds now, before the roses bloom.
D. Choose only lovers who, like roses, are of the highest order.
15. Which word best describes the speaker in “To Lucasta, on Going to the Wars”?
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16. To what sensory perception do the following lines from James Joyce’s Araby appeal?
“…we ran…to the dark dripping gardens to the back doors of the dark dripping gardens
where odors arose from the ashpits, to the dark odorous stables where a coachman
smoothed and combed the horse or shook music from the buckled harness.”
A. auditory C. gustatory
B. olfactory D. tactile
19. What 17th Century philosophy does Browning assert in the following lines from Rabbi Ben Ezra?
A. anagnorisis C. peripeteia
B. carpe diem D. romanticism
20. What lesson does the speaker learn in A.E. Housman’s When I Was One-and-Twenty?
Directions: Answer the questions by writing the letter of the best answer.
The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider; or some loathsome insect,
over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked: his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks
upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire; he is of purer eyes than to bear to
have you in his sight; you are ten thousand times more abominable in his eyes, than the most
hateful venomous serpent is in ours.
A. incensed C. assertive
B. abominable D. vengeful
3. Paradise Lost is considered among the greatest epics in English. Which of the following was the basis
for this epic poem?
A. treachery of Judas Iscariot C. fall from God’s grace
B. the passion of Christ D. sinning of Adam and Eve
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4. What does the speaker mean in the following lines?
6. According to the speaker in Sanburg’s "Chicago," how would most others describe the city?
They tell me you are wicked and I believe them, for I
have seen your painted women under the gas lamps
luring the farm boys.
A. Admirable C. Immoral
B. Amusing D. Vibrant
7. What does the speaker like about Chicago as shown in the following lines?
Come and show me another city with lifted head singing A. Its vitality
so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning. B. Its wickedness
Flinging magnetic curses amid the toil of piling job on C. Its indifference
job, here is a tall bold slugger set vivid against the D. Its progress
little soft cities;
8. Who are the summer soldier and the sunshine patriot Paine alluded to in The Crisis?
THESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this
crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and
thanks of man and woman.
A. The cowards who love their country less C. The happy optimistic people
B. The brave men and women in the country D. The former heroes of the revolution
9. What does that the speaker lament over in the following lines?
"What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would
smell as sweet". - (Romeo and Juliet Act II, Scene II)
11. What does the speaker celebrate in “The Soul Selects her own Society”?
A. Life is just like going to the theater. C. Life is but an empty, senseless dream.
B. People have different roles to play in life. D. People live and die at different times.
13. What truth about humans do the following lines from A Noiseless Patient Spider reveal?
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And you, O my Soul, where you stand,
Surrounded, surrounded, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing,--seeking
the spheres, to connect them;
Till the bridge you will need, be form'd--till the ductile anchor hold;
Till the gossamer thread you fling, catch somewhere, O my Soul.
14. Which of the following is the resounding theme of contemporary stories like Hemingway’s A Clean and
Well Lighted Place and Anderson’s Hands?
A. alienation from the society C. respect for the old
B. melancholia in solitude D. contentment in life
15. Who is alluded to as the Captain in the following lines from Whitman’s poem?
O captain! My Captain! Our fearful trip is done,
The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won.
A. Abraham Lincoln C. John F. Kennedy
B. George Washington D. Thomas Jefferson
16. In the passage, which of the following best describes the speaker's attitude toward the very rich?
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.