44 questions. Try each one, then open the answer to check yourself and read the explanation.
The speaker above is referring to
Answer: B (Aaron and Maanan)
James Ofosu complains that everybody has let him down; he means his children Aaron and Maanan, who will not follow the careers he chose for them.
In J.C. De Graft's Sons and Daughters, Maanan expresses dislike for Lawyer B because of
Answer: A (his recent advances towards her)
Lawyer B, her father's friend, makes sexual advances to Maanan, which disgusts her.
In J.C. De Graft's Sons and Daughters, where does the play take place?
Answer: C (in Ofosu's place)
The action happens in James Ofosu's house.
In William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, Deadly sin refers to the
Answer: C (murder of Tybalt)
Friar Lawrence scolds Romeo for being ungrateful: his 'fault' (killing Tybalt) deserves death, but the Prince has only banished him.
In William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, the play is mostly written in
Answer: D (blank verse.)
Most of the play is in blank verse, unrhymed iambic pentameter, with some rhymed lines and prose.
The statement above refers to
Answer: A (Romeo)
Juliet says this of Romeo when she hears he has killed her cousin Tybalt: he looked beautiful but hid a serpent's heart.
In William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, the spatial setting of the play is
Answer: A (Verona)
The play takes place mainly in Verona (with one part in Mantua).
In William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, Romeo is banished to Mantua because he
Answer: D (kills Tybalt in a street duel.)
After Romeo kills Tybalt in a street fight, the Prince banishes him from Verona.
In Buchi Emecheta's The Joys of Motherhood, the medicine man links the lump discovered on the head of Nnu Ego at birth, to the
Answer: A (wound inflicted on the slave woman buried with Agbadi's wife)
The slave woman killed at Agunwa's burial was struck on the head; Nnu Ego's lump marks her as that slave reborn, and the slave becomes her chi.
In Buchi Emecheta's The Joys of Motherhood, the constant companions of Nnaife's family are
Answer: A (poverty and hunger)
Nnaife's large family in Lagos is always short of money and food.
In Ferdinand Oyono's The Old Man and the Medal, the colonialists treat the Africans with
Answer: A (disdain)
The French officials look down on the Africans, as Meka learns when he is mocked and thrown into a cell.
In George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, the Ministry of Peace is concerned with making
Answer: B (wars)
In Oceania's doublespeak the Ministry of Peace (Minipax) runs the war.
In George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, the subject matter of the novel is
Answer: D (totalitarian dictatorship.)
The novel shows a state where the Party controls everything: a totalitarian dictatorship.
In George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, how did Winston start his rebellion against the state?
Answer: A (By keeping a private diary)
Winston's first act of rebellion is to buy a diary and write his private thoughts in it.
In George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, the party seeks power for
Answer: A (its own sake)
O'Brien tells Winston that the Party wants power entirely for its own sake.
As the dancers move through paths strewn with glass chips, the images in Adeoti's Naked Soles change from
Answer: B (pain to grief)
Dancing barefoot on glass chips brings physical pain that deepens into grief as the poem goes on.
Rubadiri's An African Thunderstorm, says that during thunderstorm in the village
Answer: B (children are delighted while women move in and out)
The poem shows children screaming with delight while women, babies on their backs, dart in and out of the huts.
The dominant literary device used in the extract above from Acquahs' In the Navel of the Soul is
Answer: B (enjambment)
Each line runs straight into the next without a pause ('upon / Our navel', 'say / They feel'): enjambment.
In Kunene's A heritage of Liberation, the poet persona requests that the weapons of warfare be handed to their
Answer: B (grand children)
The speaker asks that the weapons of struggle be passed on to the grandchildren, so that the fight continues.
The predominant device in Launko's End of the War is
Answer: C (paradox)
The end of the war, which should bring joy, brings anguish to the widows: a paradox.
The theme of the poem Give Me The Minstrel's Seat centres on
Answer: C (companionship)
The poem is about the need for companions and the support of others in life.
The poet persona in Marvell's To His Coy Mistress is willing to praise the lady's eyes for
Answer: C (a century)
The speaker says 'An hundred years should go to praise / Thine eyes', i.e. a century.
In Lawrence's Bat, the poet persona mistakes the bats for
Answer: A (swallows)
At first the speaker thinks the flying creatures are swallows, then realises they are bats.
In Eliot's Journey of the Magi, the magi are aided on their journey by
Answer: B (camels)
The Magi travel on camels, which become 'galled, sore-footed, refractory'.
According to Cope's Sonnet VII, poetry is basically
Answer: A (therapeutic)
The sonnet presents poetry as something that heals and soothes the troubled mind.
A play which mainly aims at provoking excessive laughter is called
Answer: B (a farce)
A farce aims mainly at loud laughter through exaggeration and absurd situations.
Both comedy and tragedy have
Answer: A (climax)
Every play, comic or tragic, rises to a climax.
A formal dignified speech or writing praising a person or a thing for past or present deeds is
Answer: A (eulogy)
A eulogy is a formal speech or piece of writing in praise of someone.
The narrative style in which the hero tells his own story directly is the
Answer: B (first-person)
When the hero tells his own story using 'I', it is first-person narration.
The physical, historical or cultural background of a literary work is referred to as
Answer: C (setting)
Setting is the place, time and social background of a story.
A plot structure that defies chronology can be described as
Answer: B (episodic)
An episodic plot is made of separate episodes that need not follow strict time order.
Pun as a literary device deals with
Answer: B (playing on words)
A pun plays on a word's double meaning or on words that sound alike.
In a narrative poem, the poet attempts to
Answer: C (tell a story)
A narrative poem tells a story.
The account of experiences of an individual during the course of a journey is known as
Answer: D (a travelogue.)
A travelogue describes the places and experiences of a journey.
Satirical writing employs
Answer: B (irony)
Satire mocks its targets mainly through irony: saying one thing while meaning another.
The person being addressed above is a
Answer: D (soldier.)
Basha threatens the man with a court martial, which only applies to soldiers.
From the tone of the speech above, the speaker is obviously
Answer: D (enraged.)
Insults like 'dumb skull of a bone head' and the threat of court martial show he is furious.
The mood conveyed in the excerpt above is one of
Answer: D (sadness.)
The harvest is 'sad, like a funeral', farmers weep and one man hangs himself: the mood is sadness.
The rhyme scheme in the excerpt above is
Answer: B (abab)
Read as four lines, 'first' rhymes with 'worst' and 'warmer' with 'former', alternating: abab.
The subject matter of the extract above is
Answer: C (earthquake)
The earth 'moved' suddenly, houses crumbled and mountains heaved: an earthquake.
The speaker in the excerpt above is
Answer: C (confident)
The speaker gives calm, firm instructions ('Don't panic. Be calm.'), showing self-assurance.
The poem can be described as
Answer: C (an elegy)
The poem mourns a dead soldier and questions why life was ever made: it is an elegy (Wilfred Owen's 'Futility').
The theme of the poem is
Answer: D (futility of life.)
The speaker asks why the sun bothered to create life at all if it ends like this: life seems futile.
The rhyme scheme of the stanza above is
Answer: A (abab)
The line endings alternate: face/place and crutch/much, giving abab.