27 questions. Try each one, then open the answer to check yourself and read the explanation.
Midsummer Night's Dream is what type of play?
Answer: C (comedy)
A Midsummer Night's Dream is a romantic comedy: the lovers' confusions are sorted out and it ends in weddings.
Why did Nii in Unexpected Joy at Dawn decide to come back to Nigeria?
Answer: D (he came to rejig his life)
Nii returns to Nigeria to rebuild (rejig) his life and to find his sister.
The dominant feeling in Leopold Sedar Senghor's 'Black Woman' is
Answer: A (joy and satisfaction)
Senghor celebrates the beauty of the black woman with delight and pride, so the feeling is joy and satisfaction.
In D.H. Lawrence's 'BAT', the line 'hang themselves up like an old rag' indicates the poet's ______ for bats.
Answer: B (hatred)
Comparing the bats to dirty old rags hanging up shows the speaker's disgust and hatred for them.
Questions 8 and 9 are based on Buchi Emecheta's Second Class Citizen. In Adah's view, the white society in the novel is one in which
Answer: D (members are unfriendly)
In London Adah finds the white people around her cold and hostile to black people like her family.
Questions 10 to 12 are based on Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights. Why did Catherine refuse to marry Heathcliff?
Answer: A (Heathcliff is of a low class)
Catherine tells Nelly it would degrade her to marry Heathcliff because Hindley has brought him so low; she chooses the wealthy, well-born Edgar instead.
Who said this?
Answer: D (Nelly)
Nelly Dean, the narrator, says this about how Heathcliff treated his sick son Linton.
One of the universal themes of Wuthering Heights is
Answer: A (vengeance)
Heathcliff's long revenge on the Earnshaws and Lintons makes vengeance a central, universal theme.
In Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, the use of first person singular in the book indicates
Answer: D (participant point of view)
The narrator says 'I' and takes part in the events, so the story is told from a participant's point of view.
In Invisible Man, what do the gold coins the boys must scramble for at the battle royal turnout to be?
Answer: C (brass pocket token)
The 'gold' coins on the electrified rug turn out to be worthless brass tokens advertising cars.
In Invisible Man, where is the narrator asked to give his high school graduation speech?
Answer: D (Ballroom of the leading hotel)
He is invited to repeat his speech at a gathering of the town's leading white citizens held in the main ballroom of the leading hotel.
In Invisible Man, who must the narrator fight one on one at the battle royal?
Answer: A (Tatlock)
After the group fight, the narrator is left to fight Tatlock, the biggest of the boys.
In Invisible Man, whose words 'keep the Nigger boy running'?
Answer: C (his grandfather)
In the narrator's dream his grandfather shows him a note saying 'Keep This Nigger-Boy Running'.
In Invisible Man, what is the name of the brothel/gambling joint to which the narrator brings Mr. Norton?
Answer: A (Golden Day)
The narrator takes the fainting Mr Norton to the Golden Day, a bar and brothel run by Halley.
In Invisible Man, the author's thematic concern is
Answer: A (overcoming deception to reach the truth)
The narrator is deceived repeatedly until he sees through the illusions others impose on him and discovers the truth about himself.
The image in the quotation above depicts the speaker's
Answer: B (desperation)
Lysander, forbidden to marry Hermia, sighs that true love never runs smoothly: he is in a desperate situation.
In the line above, the character is
Answer: C (expressing the exaggerated silliness of the lovers behaviour)
Puck laughs at the confused lovers chasing each other in the wood: he is mocking how foolish their behaviour is.
The traditional verse form of speech as dialogue in Midsummer Night's Dream is used to symbolize the
Answer: B (intense feelings of the characters)
The lovers and nobles speak in verse, which heightens their speech and shows the strength of their feelings.
Duke Theseus: Duke's statement above the Hippolyta means that he
Answer: D (will win the love of Hippolyta)
Theseus won Hippolyta by war but promises to marry her with joy and celebration, i.e. to win her love in a gentler way.
A Midsummer Night's Dream is preoccupied with the juxtaposition of
Answer: B (love and hate)
The play keeps setting love beside its opposite: lovers suddenly scorn those they loved, and Oberon and Titania quarrel.
Questions 27 to 33 are based on selected poems from the list of approved African and Non African poems. In Augustino Neto's 'The Grieved Lands' dramatic and emotive intensity is derived from the employment of
Answer: A (repetition)
Neto repeats the phrase 'the grieved lands of Africa' and other words, building up emotion with each return.
What is the central theme in Niyi Osadare's 'The Leader and the Led'?
Answer: A (power tussle)
The animals compete with one another to be chosen as leader, so the poem centres on the struggle for power.
The rhyming pattern in the last stanza of Lade Wosornu's 'Raider of the Treasure Trove' makes the stanza
Answer: C (a couplet)
The poem ends with two rhyming lines, which form a couplet.
The theme of beauty and strength in 'Black Woman' by Leopold Sedar Senghor's is a
Answer: D (negritude poem)
Celebrating the beauty and strength of the black woman, and of Africa, is the heart of the Negritude movement Senghor led.
Oumar Farouk Sesay's 'The Song of the Women of my Land' portrays a society that is
Answer: A (tough with women in olden days African society)
The poem shows how hard life was for women in traditional African society, with endless work and suffering.
In 'Raider of the Treasure Trove' by Lade Wosornu, 'the gems of your dreams in line 2, the poet is describing the
Answer: D (a man's purpose being the reason for his life)
The 'gems of your dreams' are the precious goals a person lives for, which anger can steal.
From the tone of Onu Kingsley Chibuike's 'A Government Driver on his Retirement', words such as 'booze', 'boomed' make it
Answer: B (sorrowful)
The retired driver's drinking ('booze') leads to the fatal crash ('boomed'), so the poem ends sadly: the tone is sorrowful.