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

'Everywheres now, freedom is on the
loose
And in its name, men and women
slaughter
One another with terrible abandon
Carnage has become the means of
Settling simple scores with our friends'

- Okinba Launko: Pain Remembers, Love Rekindles

The dominant rhetorical device in the poem above is _____

A. innuendo    B. assonance    C. oxymoron    D. limerick

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

"She wanted to split herself. But she
checked herself.
'Get dressed,' she said earnestly. 'Get
dressed and let's go. You know I have a lot
of things to do. And if we are going to meet
again like this... 'She slapped the bed, 'then
it won’t be here. It will be at the Samson
and Delilah.'"

- Festus Iyayi: Violence

In the passage above, the speaker can be described as _____

A. domineering     B. treacherous    C. friendly     D. hungry

'My brother you flash your teeth in
response to every hypocrisy
My brother with gold-rimmed glasses
You give your master a blue-eyed faithful look
My poor brother in immaculate evening dress
Screaming and whispering and pleading in
the parlours of condescension'

- D. Diop: The Renegade

The poet's attitude here is _______

A. paradoxical    B. envious    C. ironical    D. sarcastic

'Jose Palacios, his oldest servant, found him
floating naked with his eyes open in the
purifying waters of his bath and thought he
had drowned.
He knew this was ,one of the many ways
the General medicated, but the ecstasy in
which he lay drifting seemed that of a man
no longer of this world.'

- Gabriel Garcia Marquez, The General in His Labyrinth

The master in the passage above is obviously in a state of _____

A. labyrinth    B. drowning    C. forgetfulness    D. trance

'But there was stillness about Ralph as
he sat that marked him out: there was
his size and attractive appearance; and
most obscurely, yet powerfully, there was
the conch. The being that had blown that,
had sat waiting for them on the
Platform with the delicate thing balanced
on his knees, was set apart.'

- Golding, Lord of the Flies

In the passage above, the conch symbolises _____

A. bestiality   B. authority    C. dictatorship     D. civilization

'They came on like a whirlwind, and dashed
over the line snorting, kicking, squealing in a
compact, pie bald tossing mob of bay,
brown grey backs, eyes staring, necks
extended, nostrils red long tails, streaming.
As soon as they had leaped upon the road
the thick dust flew from under their hoofs,
and within six yards of Giorgio only a brown
cloud with vague forms of necks and
cruppers rolled by, making the soil
tremble….’

- Joseph Conrald: Nostromo

The passage above describes a troop of ______

A. cows     B. elephants    C. camels     D. horses

'For seven days it rained that June;
A storm half out to sea kept turning around
like a dog trying to settle himself on a rug;
We were the fleas that complained in his
hair.'
- John Updike, Wash

The image set in the lines above are of _____

A. the days of Noah
B. rain and flood in June
C. discomfort and likely destruction
D. an animal insects and fun.

‘I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees, all times I have
enjoyed
Greatly, have suffered greatly.’

(A. L. Tennyson: Ulysses)

The lines above inform the reader that the poet ______

A. is determined to suffer
B. has his poetic imagination kindled
C. will cure his sour mood
D. will not drink much

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

Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed….

The lines above show that the speaker ______

A. detest discrimination
B. is desirous of adventure
C. hates his old wife
D. knows much of his city men.

He is a faithful liar. The line above is an example of ____

A. euphemism.    B. antithesis.    Q. epigram.     D. oxymoron.

In its classic form, the short story is distinguished by its _____

A. prosaic conception   B. narrative form    C. resolution   D. compact plot

'Those years of my travels. Years of
innocence and experience ... months of
twidding my thumbs with insecurity. In
search of my true people. Yes, in search of
my true people. But wherever I went I did
not find people but caricatures of people
who insisted on being taken seriously as
people Perhaps I was on the wrong planet.
In the wrong skin.'

- Dambudzo-Marechera, Black Sunlight.

The passage above expresses the state of mind of _____

A. an alienated man    B. an adventurer    C. a renegade soldier     D. a prisoner

In literary convention, 'aside' is used to _____

A. distinguished between events
B. emphasize scenes as different from acts
C. gossip about other characters
D. make a pointed remark

He put himself in uniform, made one for his
five-year-old son, and marched with the
infant from dawn till noon every market day,
on the main road singing 'Kayiwawa beturi..

The persona in the excerpt above is portrayed
as _____

A. a soldier.    B. abnormal.    C. energetic.    D. a policeman.

You. Your head is like a drum that is beaten
for spirits.
You. Your ears are like the fans used for
blowing fire.

The lines above are good example of _____

A. satire.    B. lampoon.    C. caricature.    D. ridicule.

This thing you are doing is too heavy for you,
he said.' l went to school only a little, but I
have killed many many more years in this
world than you have.'

G. Okara: Voice

It can be inferred from the passage above that the _____

A. listener is more experienced.
B. speaker is more experienced.
C. listener is wise.
D. speaker is a porter.

‘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.

He was an odd-looking duck, Inman was. He
was in his mid-fifties but still had a head of
thick black hair, which began low on his
forehead and was slicked back over his
small round skull. Everything about Inman
was round. He seemed to be made of a
series of balls piled one on top the other

- Tom Wolfe: A Man in Full

The author's attitude to human in the passage above is one of _______

A. praise    B. hatred    C. ridicule     D. admiration

'l wonder how long, you awful parasites,
Shall share with me this little bed, And
awake me, from my sweet dreams be
lost, By sucking blood from my poor
head...' .

- Mbure: To a Bed-Bug

The poet persona expresses dismay about ______

A. grasshoppers.    B. bed-bugs.     C. bat.     D. cockroaches.

'I am alone
And the murmur of my lips
Carry song and tears homewards
From a plain away from home'

- Okogbule Wonodi: Lament for Shola

The poet - persona here expresses a feeling of ______

A. elation    B. anger   C. nostalgia    D. sorrow

The tragic character is the person hose experiences arouse pity and _____

A. sympathy    B. terror    C. horror     D. frustration

And when you trudge on one horny Pads
Gullied like the solos of modern shoes Pads
that even jiggers cannot conquer

Horny pads in the lines above is a reference to a _____

A. sole of a pauper.    B. sole of a soldier.    C. policeman.    D. madman.

‘Serrated shadows, through dark
leavers
Till, bathed in warm suffusion of your
dapped cells
Sensation pained me, faceless, silent as
night thieves.’

(Wole Soyinka: Night)

The dominant mood in the lines above is one of ______

A. apprehension     B. Defiance    C. joy     D. Indifference.

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

‘This thing you are doing is too heavy for
you,’ he said. ‘I went to school only a little,
but I have killed many many more years
in this world than you have,'

- Gabriel Okara: The Voice

It can be inferred from the passage above that the ______

A. listener is a porter
B. listener is wise
C. speaker is a murderer
D. speaker is more experienced

When he gave me the bottle, and I opened
it, I was shocked by the odour that hit my
nose:
I immediately corked it again, and spat on
the floor.'.

- Isidore Okpewho, The Last Duty.

The reaction in the passage above is that of _____

A. rejection    B. anger    C. protest    D. nausea

'Careened,
These oily tears
Dripping down the tears on your depressed
face,
Will one day be staunched, I swear!'

- Ibiwari Ikiriko, Oily Tears.

The tone of the poet is ______

A. optimistic    B. supplicatory   C. sympathetic    D. piteous

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

- P. B. Shelly, Sonnet

The stanza above is an example of a _____

A. quatrain    B. couplet    C. free verse    D. limerick

…How can I look at Oyo and say I hate
long shiny cars? How can I come to the
children and despise international
schools?
And koomson comes, and the family
sees Jesus Christ in Him…

The feeling conveyed by the speaker above is one of ______

A. anger     B. alienation    C. hope     D. Despair.

'My heart is a quiet drum,
something it flares like a parched thunder
cracking through a damask sky
it lifts me in its fired spectacle.'

- Cynthia James: Drumology

The imagery in the excerpt above is largely ______

A. olfactory and visual    B. olfactory and tactile    C. tactile and auditory    D. auditory and visual

'Senhor Jose got cold during the night. After
having uttered those redundant useless
words, here she is, he wasn't sure what else
he should do. It was true that, after long
and arduous labours, he had managed, at
last, to find the unknown woman, or rather,
the place where she lay, a good six feet
beneath an earth that still sustained him'

- Jose Saramago: All the Names

What happens to the unknown woman in the passage above?

A. She runs away     B. She is awake    C. She falls asleep     D. She is dead

'If I can fasten but one cup upon him with
that which he had drunk tonight already
He'll be as full of quarrel and offence As
my young mistress' dog...'

- Shakespeare, Othello

From the statement above it can be inferred that the speaker is _____

A. disobedient    B. quarrelsome   C. servile    D. scheming

‘Hide me now, when night children
haunt the earth,’ (Wole Soyinka: Night)

Night Children in the stanza above reflects the consciousness of _____

A. Birds     B. armed robbers    C. animals     D. spirit beings.

Farce thrives on _______

A. big events    B. incidents   C. premonition    D. absurdity

'l wonder how long, you awful parasites,
Shall share with me this little bed, And
awake me, from my sweet dreams be
lost, By sucking blood from my poor
head...' .

- Mbure: To a Bed-Bug

The lines are an example of a _____

A. light verse.    B. light opera.    C. limerick.    D. lampoon.

'The guilty are too well-fed to pass
through the needle's eye of our scorn the
noose of public contempt hangs idle at
the market place'

- Odia Ofeimun: The Poet Lied and Other Poems

The allusion in the excerpt above is ______

A. mythical     B. biblical    C. historical     D. classical

‘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.

'Thomas Gradgrind, sir. A man of realities.
A man of facts and calculations. A man who
proceeds upon the principle that two and
two are four, and nothing over, and who is
not to be talked into allowing for anything over.'

- Charles Dickens, Hard Times.

From the passage above, Thoms Gradgrind is ____

A. dogmatic    B. hostile    C. theoretical    D. eloquent

The old man slept in his favourite chair
The wind ran its fingers through his
hair
He looked like a tree gone dry of sap
And his hands were dry upon his lap

The rhyme scheme of the poem above is _____

A. bbaa     B. aabb     C. abab     D. baba

The expression 'The ripest is the saddest encounter" is an example of ______

A. euphemism     B. hyperbole    C. paradox     D. metaphor

'It was January and Monday. I began to
understand. After every weekend, my
father had to gather his nerve to go back to
teaching. During the Christmas vacation he
became slack and in a fury of screw-turning
had to retighten himself. The long haul he
called the stretch between Christmas and
Easter.'

- John Updike, The Centaur.

The long haul in the narrative above describes _____

A. a long strike
B. Christmas and Easter holidays
C. a long period of hard work
D. a long vacation

Where has my love blown his horn?
The tune of his horn is well-known
Young men of my clan
Have you heard the horn of my love?

- Okot P'Bitek: Horn of My Love

The overriding feeling of the persona in this extract is _____

A. anxiety     B. certainty    C. frustration     D. joy

'We have been asleep, Mr. Speaker, my
fellow citizens; asleep in our dream of
security! Asleep in our well-meaning,
sportsmanlike way of wishing the other
fellow well. Asleep in the false security of
accepting all men of goodwill who would be
free as men of honor.'

- Ralph Ellison, Juneteenth

The force of the speech above is sustained on _____

A. delivery    B. musically   C. repetition    D. oratory

'I'm not going to be drawn into that old trap
of an argument and be picked up by the tail
like some wet rat out of a sewer.’

The speaker in the statement above is being _____

A. symbolical    B. analogical   C. metaphorical    D. parabolical

'Oshor"... Winds howl forth-howl forth,
hold back hold back-is it the time
on endless time-slung in oblivion,
make minced meat of your prey.'

Charity Angya, The Cycle of the Moon.

The mood captured in the lines above is one of ______

A. fear    B. happiness    C. indifference    D. joy

'Oshor"... Winds howl forth-howl forth,
hold back hold back-is it the time10
on endless time-slung in oblivion,
make minced meat of your prey.'
Charity Angya, The Cycle of the Moon.

The literary device used is _____

A. parallelism    B. irony    C. onomatopoeia    D. repetition

‘The drums overwhelmed the guns…’

(J.P Clark Casualties)

The poet in the excerpt above uses _____

A. litotes     B. symbolism    C. onomatopoeia     D. alliteration

'l wonder how long, you awful parasites,
Shall share with me this little bed, And
awake me, from my sweet dreams be
lost, By sucking blood from my poor
head...' .

- Mbure: To a Bed-Bug

The most dominant figure of speech in the excerpt is _____

A. personification.    B. hyperbole.    C. metaphor.    D. simile.

'Theatre-in-the-round' is employed to achieve a _____

A. quick resolution of conflicts
B. contest between the hero and the villain
C. close rapport between players and spectators
D. hilarious ending

'It is a beauteous evening, calm and free
The holy time is quiet as a Nun
Breathless with adoration; the broad sun
Is sinking down in its tranquility;
The gentleness of heaven broods O'er the
sea:
Listen! The mighty Being is awake
And doth with his eternal motion make
A sound like thunder-everlasting.'

- W. Wordsworth: It is a Beauteous Evening

The rhyme scheme of the stanza above is _____

A. cbbcdda     B. bbac ddac    C. ddca bbca     D. abbc addc

Fights by the book of arithmetic.

The figure of speech in the line above is _____

A. Iitotes.    B. Innuendo.    C. hyperbole.    D. euphemism.

The writing convention in which the
events in narrative are scrambled as they
come to the writer' mind without any
attempt to arrange them in orderly
sequence is called _____

A. psycho-consciousness styles
B. narrator's mind style
C. stream of consciousness
D. shifting style

Be him English
Be him African
Be him Nigerian

The lines above are an example of ______

A. epitaph     B. anaphora    C. tautology     D. epigram

‘… They do not see the funeral piles
At home eating up the forests …’

(J.P Clark: Casualties)

The imagery created in the above excerpt is achieved through ______

A. metaphor     B. personification    C. synecdoche     D. metonymy

One rhyme scheme typical of the English sonnet is _______

A. abab cded efef gg
B. abab cded cde dee
C. abba abba cde dee
D. abba abba cde cde.

The author of a novel sustains readers' interest through the use of _____

A. suspense    B. ambiguity   C. prologue    D. ancedotes