37 questions. Try each one, then open the answer to check yourself and read the explanation.
In William Shakespeare's Hamlet, the death of Polonius can be partly blamed on Hamlet's
Answer: A (anger)
In a fit of rage during his quarrel with Gertrude, Hamlet stabs blindly through the curtain, thinking Claudius is hiding there, and kills Polonius.
In the excerpt above, Laertes warns Ophelia to beware of Hamlet's attentions because
Answer: D (the sincerity of his love is in doubt.)
Laertes tells Ophelia that Hamlet's love may be only a passing fancy and that as a prince he cannot choose freely whom to marry, so she should not trust it.
Those effects which Claudius is still possessed of from the excerpt above are
Answer: C (the crown and the queen)
Claudius goes on to name them: 'My crown, mine own ambition, and my queen.' He cannot be forgiven while he keeps what the murder won him.
In William Shakespeare's Hamlet, the two revenge plots revolve around
Answer: B (Hamlet against Claudius and Laertes against Hamlet)
Hamlet seeks revenge on Claudius for murdering his father, and Laertes seeks revenge on Hamlet for killing Polonius.
In William Shakespeare's Hamlet, how does Queen Gertrude finally die?
Answer: C (From poisoned drink.)
During the duel Gertrude drinks from the poisoned cup Claudius had prepared for Hamlet, and she dies.
In Ahmed Yerima's Attahiru, the play is about
Answer: A (resistance to British administration)
The play shows Caliph Attahiru and Sokoto resisting the British conquest and rule led by Lugard.
In Ahmed Yerima's Attahiru, how does Lugard describe the battle between the white man and the Sokoto Caliphate?
Answer: A (One between superior and inferior powers.)
Lugard presents the British as the superior power which the Caliphate must accept.
In Thomas Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles, one thing that Angel Clare hates most is
Answer: A (the notion of old family)
Angel Clare despises the idea of old, decayed families and noble blood; the dairy folk say he cannot stand old families.
In Thomas Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles, at what time does Tess often look so transformed before Angel Clare?
Answer: A (At 3 am on their way to milking the cow.)
Hardy describes Tess and Angel meeting in the grey half-light before dawn on the way to milking, when she looks to him like a spirit or goddess.
In Thomas Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles, Mrs. Joan Durbeyfield is portrayed as
Answer: C (pretentious and calculating)
Joan sends Tess to the rich d'Urbervilles hoping for a profitable marriage and is proud of the family's 'noble' descent: she is pretentious and calculating.
In Ayi Kwei Armah's Fragments, it can be safely assumed that the novel is
Answer: B (structurally complex)
The story is not told in a straight line: it shifts between time periods and between Naana's voice and the narrator's account of Baako, which makes its structure complex.
In Ayi Kwei Armah's Fragments, the outdooring ceremony of Araba's child, fixed for the fifth day after his birth, is opposed to by Naana because the child
Answer: A (is still in the custody of the spirits)
By tradition a baby is outdoored on the eighth day; Naana believes that before then the child still belongs to the spirit world, so bringing it out early is dangerous.
The persona in Housman's To an Athlete Dying Young addresses the dead athlete using
Answer: B (apostrophe)
Apostrophe is addressing someone absent or dead as if they could hear; the speaker talks to the dead athlete throughout.
In Keats' On the Grasshopper and Cricket, the frost of winter evenings is said to cause
Answer: C (silence)
Keats says that on a winter evening the frost 'has wrought a silence', which the cricket's song then breaks.
In Milton's On His Blindness, the poet's attitude towards his blindness is one of
Answer: C (fortitude)
After a moment of complaint Milton accepts his blindness patiently, concluding that 'they also serve who only stand and wait': this is fortitude.
In Senghor's I will Pronounce Your Name, 'cinnamon' is significant for its
Answer: C (olfactory image)
Cinnamon is known for its fragrance, so the word appeals to the sense of smell, which is an olfactory image.
In Brutus' A Troubadour I Traverse, the poet juxtaposes
Answer: A (love with hatred)
The speaker's love for his land is set against the hostility of the authorities who try to stop him, placing love beside hatred.
The concern of the poet in Serenade is to
Answer: B (appeal to the lady in question)
A serenade is a song sung by a lover to win a lady, so the poet's concern is to appeal to her.
In Odia Ofeimun's We must Learn Again to Fly, the use of 'we' gives the poem a
Answer: A (universal appeal)
'We' includes the reader and everyone else in the poet's call, so the message applies to all people.
In Clark's Agbor Dancer, the poet watches the dancer with
Answer: C (nostalgia)
The dancer's harmony with her tradition makes the poet long for the cultural roots he has lost, a feeling of nostalgia.
A character that heavily relies on cultural types for his manner of speech, his personality and other distinguishing characteristics is
Answer: B (a stock character)
A stock character is a familiar, conventional type, such as the wicked stepmother or the boastful soldier, recognised by audiences from tradition.
Monometer is a
Answer: D (line of verse consisting of a metrical foot.)
'Mono' means one: a monometer is a line of verse with only one metrical foot.
Zeugma is a figurative device in which a
Answer: C (verb refers to two parts of an expression)
In zeugma one word, usually a verb, governs two others in different senses, e.g. 'She lost her keys and her temper.'
The part of a play when climax approaches is known as
Answer: A (epitasis)
In classical play structure the protasis introduces the action, the epitasis builds it up towards the climax, and the catastrophe resolves it.
Black theatre is drama concerned with
Answer: B (actors of black origin)
Black theatre is drama written, produced and performed by people of black African descent about their own experience.
A final stanza of a poem that is shorter than the preceding one is called
Answer: C (envoi)
An envoi (envoy) is a short stanza at the end of a poem, often addressing someone or summing up.
That quality in a literary work which evokes tenderness, pity or sorrow is
Answer: A (pathos)
Pathos is the quality in writing that moves the reader to pity or sadness.
The moment of recognition of truth when ignorance gives way to knowledge in a character is known as
Answer: B (anagnorisis)
Anagnorisis is the point where a character discovers the truth, e.g. when Oedipus learns who he really is.
The repetition in the lines above is a poetic device of
Answer: B (anaphora)
Anaphora is the repetition of the same word or phrase at the start of successive lines, here 'If I'.
The poem achieves its significant effect through the use of
Answer: A (quatrain and imagery)
The lines form a four-line stanza (a quatrain) and paint a vivid picture of a sack 'with bulging stomach', so the effect comes from the quatrain and its imagery.
The device used in the line above is
Answer: A (repetition)
'I will' and 'Obi' are repeated within the line for emphasis, which is repetition.
From the excerpt above, it can be said that the poet is being
Answer: A (paradoxical)
'A beginning that was the end of an era' seems self-contradictory but contains a truth (one age ends as another begins), which is a paradox.
In the excerpt above, it is clear that the speaker is
Answer: C (anxious)
Kate fears she will be shamed now that her bridegroom has not arrived, and she pours out her distress: she is anxious and upset, not indifferent.
From the excerpt above, the speaker is
Answer: A (bereaved)
She came home to nurse her sick mother and found 'a house of ruin': her mother had died, so she is bereaved.
The language of the speaker above is
Answer: A (submissive)
The Caliph says he is willing to accept Allah's will and asks for fortitude to accept His commands: the language of submission.
The speaker in the excerpt above is a
Answer: D (cobbler.)
He lives 'by the awl' and is 'a surgeon to old shoes': he mends shoes, so he is a cobbler.
In the excerpt above, 'his silver hairs' refers to
Answer: C (old age)
The conspirators want old Cicero to join them because his grey ('silver') hair, a sign of age and wisdom, will win them respect.