UGC-NET English Literature — 21st August 2024 (Evening Shift)
Interactive Quiz | Q.1–Q.100 | Limitless Literature
Q.1 Match the List-I with List-II
List I
A. Langue
B. Parole
C. Signifier
D. Signified
List II
I. Meaning conveyed
II. Socially shared language
III. Speech
IV. Word
💡 Explanation: In Ferdinand de Saussure’s structural linguistics, langue refers to the socially shared, abstract system of language rules common to a community, while parole is the actual individual act of speech. The signifier is the sound-image or word-form (e.g., the written/spoken word), and the signified is the concept or meaning conveyed by that sign. These distinctions form the foundational binary of Saussurean semiology as elaborated in Course in General Linguistics (1916).
Q.2 Which of the following assertions is not true with respect to cultural intermediaries?
💡 Explanation: Pierre Bourdieu introduced the concept of cultural intermediaries in Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste (1979) to describe workers who mediate between cultural producers and consumers. Promotional materials — such as advertisements, trailers, and press releases — are in fact classic examples of cultural intermediation because they shape and transmit cultural value to audiences. Fan clubs similarly function as intermediaries by sustaining and spreading cultural meaning. Option (3) is therefore false, making it the correct answer to this negative question.
Q.3 The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music by Friedrich Nietzsche:
A. Examines the origins and development of poetry, specifically Greek tragedy.
B. Argues the Socratic rationalism and optimism led to the death of Greek tragedy.
C. Examines the origin of music and dance in ancient Greece.
D. Argues that Greek tragedy arose out of the fusion of Apollonian and Dionysian elements.
E. Argues that the music is the spirit of tragedy.
B. Argues the Socratic rationalism and optimism led to the death of Greek tragedy.
C. Examines the origin of music and dance in ancient Greece.
D. Argues that Greek tragedy arose out of the fusion of Apollonian and Dionysian elements.
E. Argues that the music is the spirit of tragedy.
💡 Explanation: In The Birth of Tragedy (1872), Nietzsche argues that Greek tragedy arose from the creative tension between the Apollonian principle (order, rationality, visual art) and the Dionysian principle (chaos, passion, music), making D correct. He further argues that Socratic rationalism and the optimism of theoretical thought killed the tragic spirit, validating B. Music, for Nietzsche, is the very essence or spirit from which tragedy was born, confirming E. Option A is incorrect because the work focuses on tragedy’s origins rather than tracing the development of poetry broadly, and C misrepresents the text’s scope.
Q.4 Arrange the works of Toni Morrison in the order of chronology of their publication.
A. Jazz
B. Beloved
C. The Bluest Eye
D. Song of Solomon
E. Tar Baby
B. Beloved
C. The Bluest Eye
D. Song of Solomon
E. Tar Baby
💡 Explanation: Toni Morrison’s novels were published in the following order: The Bluest Eye (1970), Song of Solomon (1977), Tar Baby (1981), Beloved (1987), and Jazz (1992). The Bluest Eye was her debut novel exploring a young Black girl’s desire for blue eyes, while Beloved won the Pulitzer Prize in 1988. Placing them in the sequence C, D, E, B, A reflects this precise chronological order.
Q.5 Match the List-I with List-II — Concept/Theory and Developer
List I
A. Polysystem Theory
B. Relevance Theory
C. Skopos Theory
D. Covert Translation
List II
I. Ernest August Gutt
II. Hans J. Vermeer
III. Itamar Even-Zohar
IV. Juliane House
💡 Explanation: Itamar Even-Zohar developed Polysystem Theory, which treats translated literature as part of a larger literary polysystem. Ernest August Gutt applied Relevance Theory (originally by Sperber and Wilson) to translation studies. Hans J. Vermeer formulated Skopos Theory, arguing that translation is governed by the purpose (skopos) of the target text. Juliane House introduced the distinction between overt and covert translation in A Model for Translation Quality Assessment (1977).
Q.6 Chronologically arrange the Indian playwrights in order of their birth.
A. Asif Currimbhoy
B. Nissim Ezekiel
C. Cyrus Mistry
D. Mahesh Dattani
E. Gurcharan Das
B. Nissim Ezekiel
C. Cyrus Mistry
D. Mahesh Dattani
E. Gurcharan Das
💡 Explanation: Among these Indian playwrights, Nissim Ezekiel (b. 1924) is the oldest, followed by Asif Currimbhoy (b. 1928), Gurcharan Das (b. 1943), Cyrus Mistry (b. 1956), and Mahesh Dattani (b. 1958). Ezekiel, though better known as a poet, was also a playwright, while Dattani became the first Indian playwright in English to win the Sahitya Akademi Award. The correct birth order is thus B, A, E, C, D.
Q.7 Which text is considered to be the first book of poetry published by an Aboriginal author?
💡 Explanation: Oodgeroo Noonuccal (formerly Kath Walker) published We Are Going in 1964, making it the first book of poetry to be published by an Aboriginal Australian author. The collection is a landmark in Indigenous Australian literature, addressing themes of dispossession, cultural loss, and the survival of Aboriginal identity. Tracey Moffatt is a filmmaker, not a poet, and David Unaipon’s Native Legends (1929) is a prose work of folklore.
Q.8 Which of the following is not a Dalit narrative written by Perumal Murugan?
💡 Explanation: Tirukkural: The Book of Desire is a translation of the classical Tamil ethical text Tirukkural by the ancient poet Thiruvalluvar, not a Dalit narrative authored by Perumal Murugan. Murugan is best known for One Part Woman (Maadhorubaagan, 2010), Pyre (Pookkuzhi, 2013), and Poonachi (2016), all of which explore caste, gender, and marginality in Tamil rural society. One Part Woman caused significant controversy, leading Murugan to temporarily announce his retirement as a writer.
Q.9 Friendship’s Garland (1871) is a sequel to which one of the following works by Matthew Arnold?
💡 Explanation: Matthew Arnold’s Friendship’s Garland (1871) is a satirical epistolary work that continues the cultural critique begun in Culture and Anarchy (1869). Both texts attack British Philistinism — the middle-class complacency and materialism that Arnold believed impeded cultural progress. Friendship’s Garland uses the fictional German interlocutor Arminius to offer an outsider’s perspective on English society, extending Arnold’s arguments about culture as the pursuit of sweetness and light.
Q.10 Who among the following were not associated with Kit-Cat Club?
A. George Etherege
B. Richard Steele
C. Samuel Johnson
D. William Congreve
E. Joseph Addison
B. Richard Steele
C. Samuel Johnson
D. William Congreve
E. Joseph Addison
💡 Explanation: The Kit-Cat Club was a prominent early 18th-century Whig literary and political club whose members included Richard Steele, Joseph Addison, William Congreve, John Vanbrugh, and Jacob Tonson. George Etherege (d. c. 1692) was a Restoration playwright who died before the Club flourished, and Samuel Johnson (b. 1709) belonged to a later generation and was associated with his own “The Club” rather than Kit-Cat. Thus A (Etherege) and C (Johnson) were not members.
Q.11 Phonetics refers to:
A. Production of speech sounds
B. Reception of speech sounds
C. Transmission of speech sounds
D. Pattern of speech sounds
E. Word Formation
B. Reception of speech sounds
C. Transmission of speech sounds
D. Pattern of speech sounds
E. Word Formation
💡 Explanation: Phonetics is the scientific study of speech sounds, encompassing their production (articulatory phonetics), transmission through the air (acoustic phonetics), and reception by the ear (auditory phonetics). However, in standard definitions, the discipline most centrally focuses on the production (A) and acoustic transmission (C) of sounds. The patterning of sounds within a language’s system is the domain of phonology, not phonetics, making D incorrect. Word formation (E) belongs to morphology.
Q.12 Place the following works in ascending order of their publication year.
A. Diamond Dust by Anita Desai
B. Breast-Giver by Mahasweta Devi
C. Death and the King’s Horseman by Wole Soyinka
D. Dream on Monkey Mountain by Derek Walcott
E. Exile and the Kingdom by Albert Camus
B. Breast-Giver by Mahasweta Devi
C. Death and the King’s Horseman by Wole Soyinka
D. Dream on Monkey Mountain by Derek Walcott
E. Exile and the Kingdom by Albert Camus
💡 Explanation: In ascending chronological order: Albert Camus’s Exile and the Kingdom (1957), Derek Walcott’s Dream on Monkey Mountain (1970), Wole Soyinka’s Death and the King’s Horseman (1975), Mahasweta Devi’s Breast-Giver (Stanadayini, 1980), and Anita Desai’s Diamond Dust (2000). This sequence spans postwar French existentialism through postcolonial Caribbean, Nigerian, Bengali, and Indian literatures.
Q.13 Neo-Platonism was founded by:
A. Plato
B. Plotinus
C. Porphyry
D. Aristotle
E. Pythagoras
B. Plotinus
C. Porphyry
D. Aristotle
E. Pythagoras
💡 Explanation: Neo-Platonism is a philosophical school that emerged in the 3rd century CE, founded by Plotinus (c. 204–270 CE) whose teachings were systematised in the Enneads. Porphyry (c. 234–305 CE) was Plotinus’s most important disciple and editor, who organised and published the Enneads after the master’s death. Plato himself was the ancient source of inspiration but not a Neo-Platonist; Aristotle and Pythagoras belong to different philosophical traditions entirely.
Q.14 Who among the following wrote “Plan of a Novel”?
💡 Explanation: Jane Austen wrote “Plan of a Novel, According to Hints from Various Quarters” (c. 1816), a comic sketch satirising the unsolicited advice she received about what her next novel should contain. The piece parodies the conventions of sentimental fiction and reveals Austen’s self-aware, ironic stance toward the literary marketplace. It is an important autobiographical document preserved among her juvenilia and minor works.
Q.15 Who wrote the poem “Poem in Praise of Menstruation”?
💡 Explanation: Lucille Clifton (1936–2010) is the African American poet who wrote “Poem in Praise of Menstruation,” a celebration of female embodiment and the cyclical power of the female body. Clifton was known for her short, lyrical poems that explored Black womanhood, family, and the body with unflinching directness. Gloria Steinem is a feminist essayist and activist, not a poet, and neither Heaney nor Thompson is associated with this particular poem.
Q.16 Three satirical stories by W.M. Thackeray portraying unhappy marriage and exploitation of one partner by the other are titled as:
💡 Explanation: William Makepeace Thackeray published Men’s Wives (1843), a collection of three satirical tales that expose the misery and power imbalances within Victorian marriages. The stories — “Mr. and Mrs. Frank Berry,” “The Ravenswing,” and “Dennis Haggarty’s Wife” — all depict women and men trapped in exploitative matrimonial arrangements. Thackeray’s sharp social satire in this collection anticipates the domestic realism of his later masterwork Vanity Fair (1847–48).
Q.17 In The Postmodern Condition Lyotard announced the eclipse of all grand narratives. The one whose death he above all sought to declare was…
💡 Explanation: In The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge (1979), Jean-François Lyotard defined postmodernity as “incredulity towards metanarratives” — the grand legitimating stories of modernity. While he identified several such narratives (Hegelian dialectics, Enlightenment emancipation), his most pointed critique was directed at the Marxist/socialist grand narrative, which he saw as the dominant legitimating framework of 20th-century European intellectual and political life. The collapse of faith in socialist progress was, for Lyotard, the defining feature of the postmodern turn.
Q.18 Chronologically arrange the fictional writings of R.K. Narayan in order of their publication.
A. The Vendor of Sweets
B. The Bachelor of Arts
C. The English Teacher
D. The Guide
E. The Financial Expert
B. The Bachelor of Arts
C. The English Teacher
D. The Guide
E. The Financial Expert
💡 Explanation: R.K. Narayan’s Malgudi novels appeared in this order: The Bachelor of Arts (1937), The English Teacher (1945), The Financial Expert (1952), The Guide (1958), and The Vendor of Sweets (1967). The Guide is his most celebrated novel, winning the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1960. All are set in his fictional South Indian town of Malgudi and chart its social and moral landscape across several decades.
Q.19 Arrange the following plays in order of their publication.
A. Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
B. The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams
C. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? by Edward Albee
D. The Iceman Cometh by Eugene O’Neill
E. Twelve Angry Men by Reginald Rose
B. The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams
C. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? by Edward Albee
D. The Iceman Cometh by Eugene O’Neill
E. Twelve Angry Men by Reginald Rose
💡 Explanation: These American plays were published/first performed in the following sequence: The Iceman Cometh by Eugene O’Neill (1946), The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams (1944/pub. 1945), Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller (1949), Twelve Angry Men by Reginald Rose (1954, originally a teleplay), and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? by Edward Albee (1962). Together they map the trajectory of 20th-century American drama from O’Neill’s naturalism to Albee’s absurdist realism.
Q.20 Match the List-I with List-II — Australian Aboriginal Text and Author
List I
A. Wahngin Country
B. Plains of Promise
C. My Place
D. Not Meeting Mr. Right
List II
I. Alexis Wright
II. Jack Davis
III. Anita Heiss
IV. Sally Morgan
💡 Explanation: Wahngin Country is a poetry collection by Jack Davis (1917–2000), a prominent Aboriginal Western Australian poet and playwright. Plains of Promise (1997) is the debut novel by Alexis Wright, a Waanyi woman and later Booker-longlisted author. My Place (1987) is the landmark autobiography of Sally Morgan. Not Meeting Mr. Right (2007) is a romantic comedy novel by Anita Heiss, a Wiradjuri woman and prolific popular fiction writer.
Q.21 A manuscript having an overlap with earlier papers by the same authors or by some of the present authors is termed as:
💡 Explanation: Self-plagiarism (also called duplicate publication or text recycling) occurs when an author reuses substantial portions of their own previously published work without proper acknowledgement. It is distinct from plagiarism, which involves copying another person’s work without attribution. Research integrity guidelines from bodies such as the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) require authors to disclose prior publication and obtain permission to reuse their own content, as it can mislead readers about the novelty of research findings.
Q.22 Chronologically arrange the fictional writings of Margaret Atwood.
A. Edible Woman
B. The Handmaid’s Tale
C. The Blind Assassin
D. Lady Oracle
E. The Robber Bride
B. The Handmaid’s Tale
C. The Blind Assassin
D. Lady Oracle
E. The Robber Bride
💡 Explanation: Margaret Atwood’s novels in chronological order of publication are: The Edible Woman (1969), Lady Oracle (1976), The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), The Robber Bride (1993), and The Blind Assassin (2000). The Handmaid’s Tale is her most internationally recognised work, a dystopian feminist classic, while The Blind Assassin won the Booker Prize. All engage with questions of female identity, patriarchy, and storytelling.
Q.23 Match the List-I with List-II — Event and Year
List I
A. International Year of the World’s Indigenous People
B. Australian Parliament formally apologized to the stolen generation
C. Formal end of white Australian policy
D. The first National Sorry Day
List II
I. 1998
II. 1993
III. 1973
IV. 2008
💡 Explanation: Per the official answer key: A-III (1973 = formal end of White Australia Policy under Gough Whitlam), B-I (1998 = first National Sorry Day held on 26 May 1998), C-II (1993 = International Year of the World’s Indigenous People), D-IV (2008 = Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s formal parliamentary apology to the Stolen Generations).
Q.24 Wittgenstein’s statement “Limits of language defines limits of thought” means:
A. The structure of language defines its meaning.
B. Intended meaning defines structure of language.
C. That which can be defined meaningfully can be thought.
D. Structure and meaning are independent of each other.
E. Thought precedes language.
B. Intended meaning defines structure of language.
C. That which can be defined meaningfully can be thought.
D. Structure and meaning are independent of each other.
E. Thought precedes language.
💡 Explanation: Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1921) famously asserts that the limits of one’s language mean the limits of one’s world and thought. This implies that the structure of language determines what can be meaningfully expressed and hence conceived (A), and that only what can be articulated in language can properly be thought (C). Options D and E contradict Wittgenstein’s fundamental insight; the early Wittgenstein holds language and thought to be isomorphic, not independent or sequentially ordered.
Q.25 The Latin epic Aeneid by Virgil:
A. Incorporates various legends of Aeneas and makes him the founder of Roman greatness.
B. Relates the story of the legendary founding of Rome.
C. Relates the story of the legendary founding of Lavinium.
D. Recounts the story of Aeneas’s journey in the first 6 books of the epic, and these 6 books are patterned after Homer’s Odyssey.
E. Recounts the story of Aeneas’s journey in the last 6 books of the epic, and these 6 books are patterned after Homer’s Odyssey.
B. Relates the story of the legendary founding of Rome.
C. Relates the story of the legendary founding of Lavinium.
D. Recounts the story of Aeneas’s journey in the first 6 books of the epic, and these 6 books are patterned after Homer’s Odyssey.
E. Recounts the story of Aeneas’s journey in the last 6 books of the epic, and these 6 books are patterned after Homer’s Odyssey.
💡 Explanation: Virgil’s Aeneid (29–19 BCE) is structured in twelve books: the first six follow Aeneas’s wanderings after the fall of Troy, modelled on Homer’s Odyssey, while the last six depict wars in Italy, modelled on the Iliad. The epic traces Aeneas as the legendary founder of Rome’s greatness (A) and narrates the mythological founding of Rome itself (B). Option E is incorrect because it is the first six books, not the last, that parallel the Odyssey.
Q.26 Who among the following women writers wrote the first female Dalit autobiography?
💡 Explanation: Shantabai Krushnaji Kamble wrote Majya Jalmachi Chittarkatha (1986), considered the first autobiography by a Dalit woman, later translated into English as The Prisons We Broke in 2008 by Maya Pandit. Urmila Pawar’s The Weave of My Life (Aaydan, 2003) is another landmark Dalit women’s autobiography but appeared later. Sharmila Rege is a sociologist known for theorising Dalit feminism, and Meena Kandasamy is a Tamil activist-poet and novelist, not an autobiographer in this tradition.
Q.27 Which of the following assumptions is not true with regard to Lacan’s concept/theory of standpoint?
A. It assumes that social position can provide privileged perspective on some relation and knowledge.
B. It argues that those who are marginalised or oppressed may have access to insights and perceptions that dominant groups lack.
C. It refers to a situation in which the oppressed class is destined to lose class consciousness.
D. It suggests that the perspectives of those on the margins of society cannot help to understand social dynamics.
E. The theory is based on the idea that social contradictions and political struggle can shape counter-hegemonic norms.
B. It argues that those who are marginalised or oppressed may have access to insights and perceptions that dominant groups lack.
C. It refers to a situation in which the oppressed class is destined to lose class consciousness.
D. It suggests that the perspectives of those on the margins of society cannot help to understand social dynamics.
E. The theory is based on the idea that social contradictions and political struggle can shape counter-hegemonic norms.
💡 Explanation: Standpoint theory holds that knowledge is socially situated and that marginalised groups have privileged epistemic access to social structures. Options A, B, and E are all consistent with standpoint epistemology. Option C (oppressed class losing class consciousness) contradicts the theory, and Option D (marginal perspectives cannot illuminate social dynamics) directly inverts the theory’s central claim. Thus C and D are the false assumptions.
Q.28 The key principles of research design brought together in material on measurement principles, sampling and case study, survey and experimentation is termed as:
💡 Explanation: Research methods encompass the specific procedures and tools used to collect and analyse data, including sampling strategies, case studies, surveys, experiments, and measurement principles. Research methodology, by contrast, is the broader theoretical and philosophical framework that justifies the choice of methods. Research techniques are the practical micro-level tools, while research design refers to the overall structural plan of an investigation.
Q.29 The term post-modernism was used in 1917 by German philosopher Rudolf Pannwitz to describe:
💡 Explanation: Rudolf Pannwitz used the term “postmodern” in his 1917 work Die Krisis der europäischen Kultur to characterise a new type of nihilistic, militaristic European humanity that he saw emerging in the 20th century — a phenomenon he described as “postmodern man.” This is one of the earliest recorded uses of the term in any language, though its modern critical-theoretical meaning developed much later through thinkers like Lyotard, Jameson, and Baudrillard.
Q.30 Which one of the following statements about Booker Prize is not correct?
💡 Explanation: The Booker Prize was first awarded in 1969 (not 1968), though it was indeed founded by Booker McConnell (not “Booker McDonald”), a British food and agriculture conglomerate. The prize was explicitly conceived to create a British equivalent of France’s prestigious Prix Goncourt, and the eligibility criteria have historically centred on authors from the UK, Ireland, and Commonwealth nations. The error in option (3) lies in both the year and the company name.
Q.31 The term “abstract poem”:
A. Was coined by Edith Sitwell.
B. Refers to a poem in which words are chosen for their aural quality.
C. Refers to a poem in which words are chosen for imagery and symbolism.
D. Was coined by W.H. Auden.
E. Refers to a poem in which words are not specifically used for their sense/meaning.
B. Refers to a poem in which words are chosen for their aural quality.
C. Refers to a poem in which words are chosen for imagery and symbolism.
D. Was coined by W.H. Auden.
E. Refers to a poem in which words are not specifically used for their sense/meaning.
💡 Explanation: The term “abstract poem” was coined by the British poet Edith Sitwell (1887–1964), who used it to describe poems in which words are selected primarily for their sound and musical quality rather than for their referential or semantic content (hence E is correct and C is not). Her own experimental poems in Façade (1922) exemplify this technique, where phonetic texture and rhythm take precedence over conventional meaning. W.H. Auden did not coin this term.
Q.32 Women in Love is a sequel to which one of the following novels by D.H. Lawrence?
💡 Explanation: D.H. Lawrence’s Women in Love (1920) is the direct sequel to The Rainbow (1915), sharing the Brangwen family as its central subject. The Rainbow traces three generations of the Brangwen family up to Ursula Brangwen, while Women in Love follows Ursula and her sister Gudrun into adulthood. Lawrence originally conceived both novels as a single work titled The Sisters before dividing and reworking the material into two separate books.
Q.33 Chronologically arrange the Anglo-Indian writers in order of their birth.
A. Sarojini Naidu
B. Michael Madhusudan Dutta
C. Manmohan Ghose
D. Henry Derozio
E. Toru Dutt
B. Michael Madhusudan Dutta
C. Manmohan Ghose
D. Henry Derozio
E. Toru Dutt
💡 Explanation: The birth years of these pioneers of Indian writing in English are: Henry Derozio (1809), Michael Madhusudan Dutta (1824), Toru Dutt (1856), Manmohan Ghose (1869), and Sarojini Naidu (1879). Derozio, who died at only 22, was among the first Indian English poets; Toru Dutt’s A Sheaf Gleaned in French Fields (1876) remains a landmark; Sarojini Naidu, “The Nightingale of India,” came last in this group chronologically.
Q.34 Chronologically arrange the novels of Salman Rushdie in order of their publication.
A. Fury
B. Midnight’s Children
C. The Ground Beneath Her Feet
D. The Moor’s Last Sigh
E. Grimus
B. Midnight’s Children
C. The Ground Beneath Her Feet
D. The Moor’s Last Sigh
E. Grimus
💡 Explanation: Salman Rushdie’s novels were published in this sequence: Grimus (1975), Midnight’s Children (1981), The Moor’s Last Sigh (1995), The Ground Beneath Her Feet (1999), and Fury (2001). Midnight’s Children won the Booker Prize in 1981 and later the “Booker of Bookers.” Grimus remains his least-known and most experimental early novel, while The Moor’s Last Sigh revisits the Bombay of his imagination.
Q.35 M.H. Abrams’s The Mirror and the Lamp: Romantic Theory and the Critical Tradition:
A. Describes 18th century English Literature as mirror.
B. Describes 19th century English Literature as Lamp.
C. Describes 19th century English Literature as mirror.
D. The metaphor of mirror is used to describe literature as a cool intellectual reflection of outward realities.
E. The metaphor of mirror is used to describe literature as an illumination shed by artists upon their inner and outer worlds.
B. Describes 19th century English Literature as Lamp.
C. Describes 19th century English Literature as mirror.
D. The metaphor of mirror is used to describe literature as a cool intellectual reflection of outward realities.
E. The metaphor of mirror is used to describe literature as an illumination shed by artists upon their inner and outer worlds.
💡 Explanation: In The Mirror and the Lamp (1953), M.H. Abrams uses the mirror metaphor to characterise neoclassical/18th-century criticism (literature as imitation of external reality — A) and the lamp to characterise Romantic/19th-century criticism (literature as an expression of the poet’s inner mind — B). The mirror metaphor implies a cool, objective reflection of outward reality (D is correct). Option E incorrectly describes the mirror as shedding illumination — that is the function of the lamp metaphor.
Q.36 Match the List-I with List-II — Author and Nobel Prize Year
List I
A. Wole Soyinka
B. Nadine Gordimer
C. Derek Walcott
D. J.M. Coetzee
List II
I. 1991
II. 1993
III. 2003
IV. 1986
💡 Explanation: The Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to Wole Soyinka (Nigeria) in 1986, Nadine Gordimer (South Africa) in 1991, Derek Walcott (St. Lucia/Trinidad) in 1992, and J.M. Coetzee (South Africa) in 2003. The List II numbering maps I=1991, II=1993, III=2003, IV=1986 — so the correct matching is A-IV (1986), B-I (1991), C-II (1992, listed as 1993 in the paper), D-III (2003).
Q.37 Absalom, Absalom! is:
💡 Explanation: Absalom, Absalom! (1936) is William Faulkner’s landmark modernist novel set in the American South, narrating the rise and fall of Thomas Sutpen and his family across generations. The title alludes to King David’s lament for his son Absalom in the Bible (2 Samuel 18:33). The novel is celebrated for its multiple narrators, fragmented chronology, and dense stream-of-consciousness style, and is often considered one of the greatest American novels.
Q.38 Identify the name of the essayist who made the following assertion: “If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts, but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.”
💡 Explanation: This famous aphorism is from Francis Bacon’s The Advancement of Learning (1605), Book I. It encapsulates Bacon’s empiricist philosophy: intellectual humility and a willingness to question assumptions lead to genuine knowledge, whereas overconfidence in prior certainties leads only to confusion. Bacon, as the father of the inductive scientific method, advocated beginning with observation and doubt rather than inherited dogma — a revolutionary position in early modern thought.
Q.39 Match the List-I with List-II — Novel and Novelist
List I
A. Delinquent Chacha
B. Tales from Firozsha Baag
C. Beethoven Among the Cows
D. A Thousand Faces of Night
List II
I. Rohinton Mistry
II. Ved Prakash Mehta
III. Gita Hariharan
IV. Rukun Advani
💡 Explanation: Delinquent Chacha is a memoir/fiction by the Indian-American journalist and writer Ved Mehta (Ved Prakash Mehta). Tales from Firozsha Baag (1987) is Rohinton Mistry’s debut story collection set in a Parsi apartment block in Bombay. Beethoven Among the Cows (1994) is a novel by Rukun Advani, a Delhi-based writer and publisher. A Thousand Faces of Night (1992) is Gita Hariharan’s Sahitya Akademi Award-winning debut novel drawing on Indian myth.
Q.40 In his work The Dialogic Imagination, Mikhail Bakhtin:
A. Develops theory of polyphony.
B. Postulates that language is imaginary.
C. Postulates that language evolves dynamically.
D. Argues that languages get affected by the culture that produces it as it helps to shape that culture.
E. Develops theory of imaginative language.
B. Postulates that language is imaginary.
C. Postulates that language evolves dynamically.
D. Argues that languages get affected by the culture that produces it as it helps to shape that culture.
E. Develops theory of imaginative language.
💡 Explanation: The Dialogic Imagination (essays written in the 1930s, published 1975 in English) is Bakhtin’s key work on the novel. He develops the concept of heteroglossia (the diversity of voices and social languages in the novel) and explores how the novel contains multiple competing discourses. Bakhtin argues that language is inherently dynamic and historical (C), shaped by and shaping the cultural contexts in which it operates (D). While polyphony is central to Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics, The Dialogic Imagination also engages with it (A). Options B and E are not Bakhtinian arguments.
Q.41 Match the List-I with List-II — Disability Narrative and Writer
List I
A. A Room Called Earth
B. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow and Tomorrow
C. A Time to Dance
D. Almond: A Novel
List II
I. Won Pyung Sohn
II. Padma Venkaraman
III. Madeleine Ryan
IV. Gabrielle Zevin
💡 Explanation: A Room Called Earth (2020) is a novel by Australian author Madeleine Ryan, narrated by a young woman with an unnamed neurological difference. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow and Tomorrow (2022) by Gabrielle Zevin engages with disability among its themes. A Time to Dance (2014) by Padma Venkataraman features a young Indian dancer who loses her leg. Almond (2017) by South Korean author Won Pyung Sohn centres on a boy with alexithymia, an emotional processing condition.
Q.42 Match the List-I with List-II — Nursery Rhyme and Author
List I
A. Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star
B. Wee Willie Winkie
C. Mary Had a Little Lamb
D. Old Mother Hubbard
List II
I. William Miller
II. Jane and Ann Taylor
III. Sarah Catherine Martin
IV. Sarah Josepha Hale
💡 Explanation: “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” was written by Jane Taylor (with her sister Ann), published in Rhymes for the Nursery (1806). “Wee Willie Winkie” was written by William Miller (1810–1872), a Scottish poet. “Mary Had a Little Lamb” (1830) was penned by Sarah Josepha Hale, editor of Godey’s Lady’s Book. “Old Mother Hubbard” was written by Sarah Catherine Martin and published in 1805. These attributions are essential knowledge for children’s literature studies.
Q.43 John Dryden’s Of Dramatic Poesy: An Essay is written in the form of a dialogue between Eugenius, Crites, Lisideius and Neander, where Neander represents:
💡 Explanation: In Of Dramatic Poesy: An Essay (1668), Dryden uses the dramatic dialogue form to debate the merits of ancient vs. modern and French vs. English drama. Neander (Greek for “new man”) is widely identified as Dryden’s own persona or voice within the dialogue, advocating for English drama and rhymed heroic plays. Crites is thought to represent Sir Robert Howard (Dryden’s brother-in-law), Eugenius represents Charles Sackville, and Lisideius represents Sir Charles Sedley.
Q.44 In Long Revolution, Raymond Williams conducted a long-range study of 350 canonical writers drawn from the Oxford Introduction to English Literature for the period:
💡 Explanation: In The Long Revolution (1961), Raymond Williams analysed the changing social composition of the English literary canon by examining 350 writers from the Oxford Anthology covering the period 1470 to 1920. His study revealed the class backgrounds and educational institutions associated with canonical writers, demonstrating that the English literary tradition was not a natural organic growth but a socially constructed selection shaped by class interests — an early exercise in what would later be called cultural materialism.
Q.45 Which one of the following is not a screen adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors?
💡 Explanation: The Boys from Syracuse (1940) is an American musical film based on The Comedy of Errors. Angoor (1982), directed by Gulzar, is a celebrated Hindi adaptation of The Comedy of Errors. Do Dooni Char is another Indian screen adaptation. Love in a Wood (1955) is a BBC television adaptation of William Wycherley’s Restoration comedy of the same name, not of Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors, making it the correct answer.
Q.46 Which among the following is said to be the first fiction magazine (created by Hugo Gernsback)?
💡 Explanation: Hugo Gernsback founded Amazing Stories in April 1926, which is widely regarded as the first magazine dedicated entirely to science fiction (then called “scientifiction”). Gernsback is considered the “Father of Science Fiction,” and the Hugo Awards — the premier awards in the SF genre — are named in his honour. New Worlds was a British SF magazine launched later. Time and the Conways and Henceforward are plays, not magazines.
Q.47 Match the List-I with List-II — Literary/Linguistic Term and Meaning
List I
A. Heteroglossia
B. Homosociality
C. Mathnavi
D. Morology
List II
I. Deliberate foolishness/nonsense for effect
II. Diversity of languages used in epics
III. Same-sex relationships which are not necessarily sexual
IV. Long narrative epic or heroic poem in rhyming couplets
💡 Explanation: Bakhtin’s heteroglossia refers to the diversity of social speech-types and voices within a language, particularly in the novel — matched here with “diversity of languages in epics” (II). Homosociality (theorised by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick in Between Men, 1985) denotes same-sex social bonding not necessarily sexual (III). A mathnavi (or masnavi) is a long Persian/Urdu narrative poem in rhyming couplets (IV). Morology is the rhetorical term for deliberate foolish talk or nonsense used for effect (I).
Q.48 Who among the following wrote: “Poetry is not a branch of authorship it is the stuff of which one life is made. The rest is mere oblivion, a dead letter, for all that is worth remembering in life, is the poetry of it.”
💡 Explanation: This passage is from William Hazlitt (1778–1830), the great Romantic prose stylist and critic, known for his passionate advocacy of poetry and imagination. Hazlitt’s critical essays — collected in works like The Spirit of the Age (1825) and Table Talk (1821–22) — frequently explore the relationship between poetry, life, and memory with exactly this kind of lyrical intensity. Unlike Coleridge or Lamb, Hazlitt wrote in a more argumentative, personally engaged style.
Q.49 Who among the following is not associated with lesbian and gay studies?
A. Jane Rule
B. Jonathan Dollimore
C. John Wain
D. Elizabeth Jennings
E. Richard Dyer
B. Jonathan Dollimore
C. John Wain
D. Elizabeth Jennings
E. Richard Dyer
💡 Explanation: Jane Rule is a pioneering lesbian novelist (Desert of the Heart, 1964). Jonathan Dollimore’s Sexual Dissidence (1991) is a foundational text in queer and gay studies. Richard Dyer’s work on gay cinema and representation is central to the field. By contrast, John Wain (1925–1994) was an “Angry Young Man” novelist and poet with no significant connection to gay/lesbian studies, and Elizabeth Jennings (1926–2001) was a Movement poet whose Catholicism defined her work — she is not associated with lesbian and gay studies.
Q.50 Greek word polis refers to:
A. Social Structure
B. Political Structure
C. Legal Structure
D. City State
E. Barbarians
B. Political Structure
C. Legal Structure
D. City State
E. Barbarians
💡 Explanation: The Greek polis (πόλις) primarily denotes the city-state as the fundamental unit of ancient Greek political organisation (D). Because the city-state was inherently a political community governed by its citizens, polis also encompasses the concept of political structure and political life (B) — from which the English word “politics” is derived (via politikos). It does not specifically mean social structure, legal structure, or barbarians (the latter being barbaroi).
Q.51 Arrange the following Black American writers chronologically (in order of their birth).
A. Maya Angelou
B. Toni Morrison
C. Alice Walker
D. Langston Hughes
E. James Baldwin
B. Toni Morrison
C. Alice Walker
D. Langston Hughes
E. James Baldwin
💡 Explanation: The birth years are: Langston Hughes (1902), James Baldwin (1924), Maya Angelou (1928), Toni Morrison (1931), and Alice Walker (1944). Hughes was a central figure of the Harlem Renaissance; Baldwin became the foremost essayist of the Civil Rights era; Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969) was a landmark memoir; Morrison won the Nobel Prize in 1993; and Walker’s The Color Purple (1982) won the Pulitzer Prize.
Q.52 Akkarmashi (The Outcaste) is an autobiography of which one of the following Dalit writers?
💡 Explanation: Akkarmashi (1984, translated into English as The Outcaste in 2003 by Santosh Bhoomkar) is the autobiography of Sharankumar Limbale, a Marathi Dalit writer born of a liaison between a Dalit woman and an upper-caste landlord. The work candidly depicts caste discrimination, the anguish of illegitimacy, and the struggle for dignity. It is one of the most powerful texts in the Marathi dalit sahitya (Dalit literature) movement.
Q.53 Match the List-I with List-II — Language Text/Term and Author/Meaning
List I
A. The Language Instinct
B. Reflection of Language
C. Variety of language serving a specialized function in a multilingual community
D. Existence of a common variety of language for people from different cultures
List II
I. Steven Pinker
II. Noam Chomsky
III. Creole/Creolization
IV. Diglossia
💡 Explanation: The Language Instinct (1994) is Steven Pinker’s popular science book arguing that language is a biological instinct. Reflections on Language (1975) is by Noam Chomsky, exploring the innate grammar faculty. A specialised language variety in a multilingual community (such as a formal register used alongside a vernacular) is called diglossia (IV), a term introduced by Charles Ferguson (1959). Creolization refers to the emergence of a new contact language (C-III). The correct answer is A-I, B-II, C-IV, D-III.
Q.54 Plato viewed poetry as:
A. An imitation of reality.
B. A self-subsistent entity.
C. Distant from reality.
D. A manifestation of reality.
E. Life as experience in reality.
B. A self-subsistent entity.
C. Distant from reality.
D. A manifestation of reality.
E. Life as experience in reality.
💡 Explanation: In The Republic (Book X), Plato argues that poetry (and all mimetic art) is an imitation (mimesis) of the physical world, which is itself an imitation of the eternal Forms or Ideas. Poetry is therefore twice removed from ultimate reality — it is an imitation of an imitation. This makes it distant from true reality (C) rather than a manifestation or direct expression of it. Plato’s suspicion of poetry stems precisely from its imitativeness and its emotional appeal, which he believed distorted rational judgment.
Q.55 Match the List-I with List-II
List I
A. On a Muggy Night in Mumbai
B. The Golden Gate
C. The Boyfriend
D. Love and Longing in Bombay
List II
I. R. Raj Rao
II. Mahesh Dattani
III. Vikram Chandra
IV. Vikram Seth
💡 Explanation: On a Muggy Night in Mumbai (1998) is a pioneering play about gay identity in India by Mahesh Dattani. The Golden Gate (1986) is Vikram Seth’s novel-in-verse set in San Francisco. The Boyfriend (2003) is R. Raj Rao’s novel exploring gay desire in contemporary India. Love and Longing in Bombay (1997) is a celebrated story collection by Vikram Chandra. Together these works represent the diversity of late 20th-century Indian English writing.
Q.56 Which of the following assertions/assumptions are not true regarding cultures of space?
A. Space is about power to control access, representation and use.
B. Space is simply land or built-up area.
C. The Space influences social relations and communities.
D. Space is socially constructed through social relations.
E. Space has nothing to do with everyday activities of people.
B. Space is simply land or built-up area.
C. The Space influences social relations and communities.
D. Space is socially constructed through social relations.
E. Space has nothing to do with everyday activities of people.
💡 Explanation: In cultural geography and postcolonial theory (Henri Lefebvre’s The Production of Space, 1974; Edward Soja’s spatial theory), space is understood not as a neutral container but as socially produced and politically contested (A, C, D are all true claims). The assertion that space is “simply land or built-up area” (B) reduces it to a purely physical entity, ignoring its social and ideological dimensions. Similarly, E’s claim that space has nothing to do with everyday life directly contradicts Lefebvre’s central argument that lived space is constituted through everyday practice.
Q.57 Arrange the following plays by Shakespeare in order of their production/publication.
A. Twelfth Night
B. The Taming of the Shrew
C. Much Ado About Nothing
D. Romeo and Juliet
E. The Winter’s Tale
B. The Taming of the Shrew
C. Much Ado About Nothing
D. Romeo and Juliet
E. The Winter’s Tale
💡 Explanation: Shakespeare’s approximate dates of composition/performance are: The Taming of the Shrew (c. 1590–92), Romeo and Juliet (c. 1594–96), Much Ado About Nothing (c. 1598–99), Twelfth Night (c. 1601–02), and The Winter’s Tale (c. 1610–11). This sequence spans his early comedies and history plays through his mature comedies and late romances, reflecting his artistic development over two decades.
Q.58 Match the List-I with List-II — Postcolonial Term and Coined/Employed by
List I
A. Othering
B. Ecological Imperialism
C. Colonial Desire
D. Third Space
List II
I. Employed by Robert Young
II. Coined by Gayatri Spivak
III. Coined by Alfred W. Crosby
IV. Coined by Homi K. Bhabha
💡 Explanation: The term othering was developed by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak in her reading of Derrida and her postcolonial criticism. Ecological Imperialism (1986) is Alfred W. Crosby’s study of how European biological expansion accompanied colonialism. Colonial Desire (1995) is Robert Young’s analysis of the racial and sexual fantasies underlying colonial discourse. Third Space is Homi K. Bhabha’s concept from The Location of Culture (1994), describing the liminal space of cultural translation and hybridity.
Q.59 Arrange the following novels by Chinua Achebe in order of their publication.
A. A Man of the People
B. Things Fall Apart
C. Arrow of God
D. Anthills of the Savannah
E. No Longer at Ease
B. Things Fall Apart
C. Arrow of God
D. Anthills of the Savannah
E. No Longer at Ease
💡 Explanation: Achebe’s novels appeared in this order: Things Fall Apart (1958), No Longer at Ease (1960), Arrow of God (1964), A Man of the People (1966), and Anthills of the Savannah (1987). The first three form the “African Trilogy” tracing the Okonkwo family and Igbo history through colonialism and independence. A Man of the People is a political satire, and Anthills of the Savannah, his last novel, reflects on postcolonial military governance.
Q.60 Match the List-I with List-II — Text and Author
List I
A. Critique of Judgement
B. The Phenomenology of Spirit
C. Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego
D. The Role of the University in the New Reich
List II
I. Martin Heidegger
II. Sigmund Freud
III. Immanuel Kant
IV. G.W.F. Hegel
💡 Explanation: Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Judgement (Kritik der Urteilskraft, 1790) is his third Critique, dealing with aesthetics and teleology. Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit (Phänomenologie des Geistes, 1807) traces the dialectical development of consciousness toward Absolute Knowledge. Freud’s Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego (1921) applies psychoanalysis to social psychology. Martin Heidegger’s rectoral address (1933) marks his controversial involvement with National Socialism.
Q.61 Big Daddy is a fictional character in:
💡 Explanation: Big Daddy Pollitt is the patriarchal central figure of Tennessee Williams’s Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955), a Pulitzer Prize-winning play dealing with mendacity, sexuality, and family dysfunction in the American South. Big Daddy is a wealthy Mississippi plantation owner dying of cancer, whose family conceals the truth from him. “Big Brother” in Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four is sometimes confused with Big Daddy, but they are distinct characters from entirely different works.
Q.62 Which research treats physical and social world as objects based on standardized data?
💡 Explanation: Quantitative research treats the physical and social world as measurable objects and employs standardised, numerical data collection methods such as surveys, experiments, and statistical analysis. It aims for generalizable, objective findings and follows a positivist epistemological framework. Qualitative research, by contrast, explores meanings and experiences through non-numerical data. Action research involves researchers participating in and changing the system they study, rather than treating it as an external object.
Q.63 The terms “Social fact” and “collective consciousness” in the context of language were used by:
A. Franz Boas
B. Bloomfield
C. Emile Durkheim
D. Noam Chomsky
E. Saussure
B. Bloomfield
C. Emile Durkheim
D. Noam Chomsky
E. Saussure
💡 Explanation: Emile Durkheim (1858–1917) introduced social fact and collective consciousness as sociological concepts. Saussure explicitly borrowed Durkheim’s concept of the social fact to characterise langue — the shared, social dimension of language — as a collective phenomenon existing beyond any individual speaker. Both thinkers thus contribute to the conceptualisation of language as a collective social institution rather than a merely individual act, making C and E the correct pairing.
Q.64 Match the List-I with List-II — Dramatic Term and Meaning
List I
A. Catastrophe
B. Epitasis
C. Protasis
D. Catastasis
List II
I. The introductory part of a play or narrative poem
II. The final action that completes the unraveling of the plot in a play, especially a tragedy
III. The dramatic complication that immediately precedes the climax of the play
IV. The part of the play that develops the main action and that leads to the catastrophe
💡 Explanation: These terms come from classical dramatic theory. Catastrophe (A) is the final resolution of the tragic plot (II). Epitasis (B) is the main body of the play where the action develops and complications multiply (IV). Protasis (C) is the opening exposition, introducing characters and situation (I). Catastasis (D) is the dramatic intensification or complication immediately before the climax (III). These terms were formalised by scholars of Terence’s comedies in the Renaissance.
Q.65 Match the List-I with List-II — Poem and Indian Poet
List I
A. Night of the Scorpion
B. Unfinished Poem
C. The Looking Glass
D. To a Friend Far Away
List II
I. Kamala Das
II. A.K. Ramanujan
III. Eunice De Souza
IV. Nissim Ezekiel
💡 Explanation: “Night of the Scorpion” is Nissim Ezekiel’s most anthologised poem, depicting a village scene of religious ritual after a scorpion’s bite. “Unfinished Poem” is associated with Eunice De Souza, the Goan-Indian poet known for her ironic, feminist verse. “The Looking Glass” is Kamala Das’s poem about female identity and desire, drawn from her confessional poetry. “To a Friend Far Away” is a poem by A.K. Ramanujan, the bilingual poet and scholar who translated classical Tamil and Kannada poetry.
Q.66 Who said that an author has no claim to original thought but only to apt presentation of what was already being thought by others?
💡 Explanation: This idea reflects Alexander Pope’s neoclassical theory of wit and originality, articulated in An Essay on Criticism (1711), where he argues that the writer’s task is not to generate new ideas but to express common truths with perfect clarity and elegance: “True wit is Nature to advantage dressed, / What oft was thought, but ne’er so well expressed.” Pope’s couplet encapsulates the neoclassical valuation of decorum and expression over novelty, making him the author of this sentiment.
Q.67 Who among the following are writers of wordless graphic narratives?
A. Roy Fuller
B. Orijit Sen
C. Anthony Hecht
D. George Mathew Appupen
E. George Monbiot
B. Orijit Sen
C. Anthony Hecht
D. George Mathew Appupen
E. George Monbiot
💡 Explanation: Orijit Sen is the pioneering Indian graphic novelist, creator of River of Stories (1994), India’s first graphic novel. George Mathew Appupen is a Kerala-based graphic narrative artist known for his wordless or near-wordless dark fantasy works, including Moonward (2009) and Legends of the Halahala (2013). Roy Fuller and Anthony Hecht were mainstream anglophone poets with no connection to graphic narratives, and George Monbiot is a British environmental journalist.
Q.68 Chronologically arrange the following works in order of their publication.
A. Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso
B. Martin Luther’s 95 Theses at Wittenberg
C. The First Book of Common Prayer by Thomas Cranmer
D. Thomas More’s Utopia
E. Machiavelli’s The Prince
B. Martin Luther’s 95 Theses at Wittenberg
C. The First Book of Common Prayer by Thomas Cranmer
D. Thomas More’s Utopia
E. Machiavelli’s The Prince
💡 Explanation: The chronological order is: Machiavelli’s The Prince (written 1513, published 1532 — composed first), Thomas More’s Utopia (1516), Martin Luther’s 95 Theses (1517), Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso (final version 1532), and Cranmer’s Book of Common Prayer (1549). This sequence charts the Reformation and Renaissance in northern Europe.
Q.69 Chronologically arrange the following in order of their publication/occurrence.
A. Caxton printed Malory’s Morte D’Arthur
B. Establishment of Caxton’s printing press
C. Gutenberg printed Bible in Mainz, Germany
D. Caxton’s History of Troy, first book printed in English
E. First translation of the Christian Bible into English by John Wycliff
B. Establishment of Caxton’s printing press
C. Gutenberg printed Bible in Mainz, Germany
D. Caxton’s History of Troy, first book printed in English
E. First translation of the Christian Bible into English by John Wycliff
💡 Explanation: The chronological sequence is: Wycliff’s Bible translation (c. 1382–95), Gutenberg’s Bible (c. 1455), Caxton’s History of Troy printed in Bruges (1473–74, first book in English), Caxton established his press at Westminster (1476), and Caxton printed Malory’s Morte D’Arthur (1485). This timeline traces the history of the printed word in English from Wycliff’s manuscript translation through Gutenberg’s revolution to the establishment of English printing.
Q.70 Who wrote the book The History of European Languages?
💡 Explanation: The History of European Languages was published posthumously in 1823 by Alexander Murray (1775–1813), a Scottish philologist and linguist who was Professor of Oriental Languages at the University of Edinburgh. Murray’s work was a pioneering study in comparative philology, tracing the relationships among European languages. William Jones is celebrated for identifying the Indo-European language family in 1786; Bloomfield’s Language (1933) is the foundational text of American structural linguistics.
Q.71 From which book of John Milton’s poem Paradise Lost is the epigraph of Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein taken: “Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay / To mould me man? Did I solicit thee / From darkness to promote me?”
💡 Explanation: This epigraph to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) is taken from Book X of Paradise Lost (1667), where Adam cries out to God after the Fall, lamenting that he did not ask to be created. Shelley uses this passage to establish the novel’s central theme — the creature’s complaint against Frankenstein, his creator, paralleling Adam’s complaint against God. The creature, like Adam, was brought into existence without consent, yet suffers the consequences of his creator’s decisions.
Q.72 The term “Collective Unconscious”:
A. Was introduced by Sigmund Freud.
B. Was introduced by Carl Jung.
C. Contains archetypes or universal primordial images and ideas.
D. Contains stereotypes and individual experiences stored in unconscious.
E. Is used to describe the unconscious common to humanity as a whole that originates in the inherited structure of the brain.
B. Was introduced by Carl Jung.
C. Contains archetypes or universal primordial images and ideas.
D. Contains stereotypes and individual experiences stored in unconscious.
E. Is used to describe the unconscious common to humanity as a whole that originates in the inherited structure of the brain.
💡 Explanation: The collective unconscious is a concept introduced by Carl Gustav Jung (B), not Freud. Jung described it as the deepest layer of the unconscious, shared by all humanity and inherited through the structure of the brain (E), as opposed to the personal unconscious which contains individual repressed material. The collective unconscious is populated by archetypes — universal, primordial patterns and images such as the Shadow, Anima/Animus, and the Self (C). Option D (stereotypes and individual experiences) incorrectly describes the personal unconscious.
Q.73 Which one of the following plays by Henrik Ibsen was described as an “open sewer”?
💡 Explanation: Henrik Ibsen’s Ghosts (1881) provoked a storm of outrage across Europe upon publication, with critics using phrases like “an open sewer” and “a loathsome sore unbandaged” to describe its frank treatment of venereal disease (syphilis), hereditary illness, and the hypocrisy of bourgeois morality. The play was initially banned from most theatres. Bernard Shaw later defended Ibsen vigorously against such attacks in The Quintessence of Ibsenism (1891).
Q.74 The salient tendencies of Hellenistic philosophy are:
A. Cynicism
B. Epicureanism
C. Stoicism
D. Surrealism
E. Expressionism
B. Epicureanism
C. Stoicism
D. Surrealism
E. Expressionism
💡 Explanation: Hellenistic philosophy (c. 323–31 BCE) flourished in the period after Alexander the Great and is characterised by three major schools: Cynicism (founded by Antisthenes and Diogenes, emphasising virtue and rejection of social conventions), Epicureanism (founded by Epicurus, advocating pleasure and ataraxia/tranquillity), and Stoicism (founded by Zeno of Citium, emphasising reason, virtue, and living according to nature). Surrealism and Expressionism are 20th-century art movements with no connection to ancient Greek philosophy.
Q.75 Who said that “language is a system of signs whose parts must be considered in their synchronic solidarity”?
💡 Explanation: This statement encapsulates Ferdinand de Saussure’s foundational principle from his Course in General Linguistics (posthumously published 1916). Saussure insisted that linguistics must study language synchronically (as a system at a given moment in time) rather than only diachronically (across historical change). The idea that signs derive meaning from their relationships with other signs within the system — what he called the principle of the valeur (value) — is the cornerstone of structuralist linguistics and semiology.
Q.76 The property of research to replicate the same results using the same technique is termed as:
💡 Explanation: Reliability in research refers to the consistency and replicability of results — if the same study is conducted again under the same conditions using the same instruments, it should yield the same results. Validity, by contrast, refers to whether a study actually measures what it claims to measure. Reliability is a necessary but not sufficient condition for validity: a study can be reliable (consistent) without being valid (accurate). These distinctions are foundational in research methodology across the social sciences and humanities.
Q.77 Which one of the following novels by E.M. Forster is about homosexual love?
💡 Explanation: Maurice (written c. 1913–14, published posthumously in 1971) is E.M. Forster’s openly gay novel, which he chose not to publish during his lifetime because of social and legal restrictions on homosexuality in Britain. The novel traces the emotional and sexual awakening of Maurice Hall, an upper-middle-class Englishman, and his relationships with two men. Its publication after the 1967 Sexual Offences Act partially decriminalised homosexuality in England made it a landmark text in queer literary history.
Q.78 Hypothesis made during or after the research work is over, is known as:
💡 Explanation: A deductive (or post hoc) hypothesis is formulated after data collection or even after the completion of research, often to explain patterns discovered in the data. An inductive hypothesis, by contrast, is generated before research based on observation and is then tested empirically. A null hypothesis (H₀) is the default assumption of no effect or no relationship between variables. The paper’s answer identifies option (2) as correct per the official answer key.
Q.79 Sequence the following works of Dostoyevsky in the order of their publication.
A. Notes from Underground
B. Crime and Punishment
C. The Idiot
D. The Brothers Karamazov
E. Poor Folk
B. Crime and Punishment
C. The Idiot
D. The Brothers Karamazov
E. Poor Folk
💡 Explanation: Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s major works in chronological order are: Poor Folk (1846, his debut novel), Notes from Underground (1864), Crime and Punishment (1866), The Idiot (1869), and The Brothers Karamazov (1880, his final masterpiece). Poor Folk established his reputation in St. Petersburg literary circles; Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov are considered his two greatest psychological and philosophical achievements.
Q.80 Who among the following American writers was the first Black American to become the U.S. Poet Laureate and Consultant in Poetry at the Library of Congress?
💡 Explanation: Rita Dove (b. 1952) was appointed United States Poet Laureate in 1993, becoming the first African American and the youngest person to hold this position at the Library of Congress. Her collection Thomas and Beulah (1986) won the Pulitzer Prize. Lucille Clifton, though a celebrated Black American poet and National Book Award winner, did not serve as Poet Laureate. Kyra Davis and Meri Nana-Ama Danquah are fiction writers and memoirists, not poets.
Q.81 Which of the following is considered to be the first Indian novel in English?
💡 Explanation: Rajmohan’s Wife (1864) by Bankimchandra Chatterjee (Chattopadhyay) is widely regarded as the first novel written in English by an Indian author. It was serialised in the journal Indian Field and deals with domestic life, female suffering, and moral questions in Bengal. Bankimchandra subsequently wrote all his major fiction in Bengali (including Anandamath, 1882), but Rajmohan’s Wife holds the distinction of inaugurating the tradition of Indian writing in English.
Q.82 Arrange the following partition-based films in order of their release/production.
A. Garm Hawa
B. Tamas
C. Khamosh Pani
D. Chinnamul
E. Subarnarekha
B. Tamas
C. Khamosh Pani
D. Chinnamul
E. Subarnarekha
💡 Explanation: These Partition-themed films were released in this order: Chinnamul (1950, dir. Nemai Ghosh — Bengali), Subarnarekha (1965, dir. Ritwik Ghatak — Bengali), Garm Hawa (1973, dir. M.S. Sathyu — Hindi/Urdu), Tamas (1987, dir. Govind Nihalani — television film, Doordarshan), and Khamosh Pani (2003, dir. Sabiha Sumar — Pakistani Punjabi). Ritwik Ghatak’s films in particular are landmark cinematic meditations on the trauma of Partition.
Q.83 Who made the following statement in defence of Shantarasa: “The eight rasas are like eight gods, and the shanta is like their highest entre Shiva”?
💡 Explanation: Abhinavagupta (c. 950–1016 CE), the great Kashmiri philosopher, aesthetician, and commentator, championed shantarasa (the rasa of serenity or peace) as the supreme rasa in his Abhinavabhāratī, his commentary on Bharata’s Nātyaśāstra. He argued that shanta, like Shiva among the gods, transcends and encompasses all other rasas. Bharata’s original Nātyaśāstra lists eight rasas without including shanta; it was later theorists including Abhinavagupta who argued for its inclusion as a ninth, supreme rasa.
Q.84 Kai Po Che! is the screen adaptation of which one of the following novels by Chetan Bhagat?
💡 Explanation: Kai Po Che! (2013), directed by Abhishek Kapoor, is an adaptation of Chetan Bhagat’s novel The 3 Mistakes of My Life (2008). The film and novel are set in Ahmedabad around the 2001 Gujarat earthquake and the 2002 communal riots, following three friends whose ambitions and relationships are tested by history. Five Point Someone (2004) was adapted as 3 Idiots (2009, dir. Rajkumar Hirani), and Two States (2014) was also adapted as a Bollywood film.
Q.85 Which among the following texts are not written by Mary Wollstonecraft?
A. The Wrongs of Man
B. Vindication of the Rights of Man
C. Thoughts on the Education of Sons
D. Vindication of the Rights of Woman
E. The Wrongs of Woman
B. Vindication of the Rights of Man
C. Thoughts on the Education of Sons
D. Vindication of the Rights of Woman
E. The Wrongs of Woman
💡 Explanation: Mary Wollstonecraft did write A Vindication of the Rights of Men (1790), A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), and The Wrongs of Woman, or Maria (her unfinished novel published posthumously in 1798). She also wrote Thoughts on the Education of Daughters (1787) — note the correct title is “Daughters,” not “Sons” (C is therefore wrongly titled). The Wrongs of Man (A) does not exist as a Wollstonecraft title. Thus A and C (with its incorrect title) are the texts not by her.
Q.86 Things as They Are or The Adventures of Caleb Williams was written as a call to end:
💡 Explanation: William Godwin’s Caleb Williams (1794), subtitled Things as They Are, is a pioneering political novel written in the spirit of his anarchist treatise Political Justice (1793). The novel dramatises the arbitrary power of the ruling classes and the injustice of the English legal system through the persecution of the servant Caleb by his aristocratic master Falkland. Godwin explicitly intended the novel as a demonstration of how tyranny and oppression operate at every level of society, calling for political reform and the dismantling of unjust institutions.
Q.87 Which one of the following English novels received the Sahitya Akademi Award for the year 2023?
💡 Explanation: Neelum Saran Gaur’s Requiem in Raga Janki (2019) received the Sahitya Akademi Award for English literature for the year 2023. The novel is a biographical fiction centred on Janki Bai of Allahabad, a legendary thumri singer of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, exploring themes of music, memory, and the courtesan tradition. Gaur is a professor at Allahabad University and has written extensively about North Indian culture and history.
Q.88 Sherlock Holmes made his first appearance in which one of the following novels by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle?
💡 Explanation: Sherlock Holmes made his literary debut in A Study in Scarlet, first published in Beeton’s Christmas Annual in November 1887. The novella introduces Holmes and his companion Dr. John H. Watson in their first meeting at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital and their first collaboration on a murder case. The Strand Magazine (not a novel) serialised many later Holmes stories beginning in 1891. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1892) is the first short story collection.
Q.89 Who among the following were associated with the Metaphysical Society founded in 1869 by Sir James Knowles?
A. Robert Browning
B. T.H. Huxley
C. Alfred Tennyson
D. Matthew Arnold
E. William Gladstone
B. T.H. Huxley
C. Alfred Tennyson
D. Matthew Arnold
E. William Gladstone
💡 Explanation: The Metaphysical Society (1869–1880) was a remarkable Victorian debating club founded by Tennyson’s friend James Knowles, bringing together scientists, theologians, and philosophers to debate questions of faith and science. Its members included T.H. Huxley (the biologist who coined the term “agnostic”), Alfred Lord Tennyson, and William Gladstone (the Prime Minister). Robert Browning and Matthew Arnold, though prominent Victorian figures, were not among the documented members.
Q.90 Which one of the following plays mocks the Restoration drama of Dryden and Thomas Otway?
💡 Explanation: The Rehearsal (1671) by George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, is a satirical burlesque specifically targeting John Dryden’s heroic plays. Dryden is caricatured as “Bayes,” a pompous playwright. The play was enormously popular and effectively ridiculed the excesses of Restoration heroic drama. R.B. Sheridan’s The Critic (1779) is a later parody of sentimental drama, and Henry Fielding’s Tom Thumb (1730) burlesques heroic tragedy but is a later work.
📖 Reading Comprehension (Q.91–Q.95): Pablo Neruda — “Leaning into the Afternoons”
Leaning into the afternoons I cast my sad nets
towards your oceanic eyes.
There is the highest blaze my solitude lengthens and flames
its aims turning a drowning man’s.
I send out red signals across your absent eyes
that smell like the sea or the beach by a lighthouse.
You keep only darkness, my distant female
from your regard sometimes the coast of dread emerges.
Leaning into the afternoons I fling my sad nets
to that sea that thrashed by your oceanic eyes
The birds of night peck at the first stars
that flash like my soul when I love you
The night gallops on its shadowy mare
shedding blue tassels over the land
towards your oceanic eyes.
There is the highest blaze my solitude lengthens and flames
its aims turning a drowning man’s.
I send out red signals across your absent eyes
that smell like the sea or the beach by a lighthouse.
You keep only darkness, my distant female
from your regard sometimes the coast of dread emerges.
Leaning into the afternoons I fling my sad nets
to that sea that thrashed by your oceanic eyes
The birds of night peck at the first stars
that flash like my soul when I love you
The night gallops on its shadowy mare
shedding blue tassels over the land
Q.91 Identify the type of imagery used in the poem.
💡 Explanation: The poem — a Neruda lyric from Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair (1924) — is suffused with natural imagery drawn from the sea, sky, and night: oceanic eyes, nets cast into the sea, a lighthouse, birds pecking at stars, and a night that gallops on a shadowy mare shedding blue tassels. These natural images are used to externalise the speaker’s interior emotional state of longing and solitude. There is no urban, war, or metaphysical conceit in the conventional sense.
Q.92 What is the central theme of the poem?
💡 Explanation: The poem is one of Neruda’s Twenty Love Poems, and its central preoccupation is the speaker’s unfulfilled, aching desire for an absent beloved. The “sad nets” cast toward the beloved’s “oceanic eyes,” the “red signals” sent out across her “absent eyes,” and the metaphor of the “drowning man” all convey the intensity of longing without reciprocation. The beloved remains distant and unreachable — “my distant female” — intensifying the mood of romantic yearning.
Q.93 Identify the mood of the poem.
💡 Explanation: The overall mood of the poem is sombre — marked by sadness, solitude, and unfulfilled longing. Words and phrases like “sad nets,” “solitude,” “a drowning man’s,” “absent eyes,” “only darkness,” and “coast of dread” create a melancholic, heavy atmosphere. While the imagery is vivid and sensuous, it is tinged throughout with a sense of loss and emotional isolation rather than joy, irony, or nostalgia for the past.
Q.94 The phrases “oceanic eyes” and “absent eyes” are examples of:
💡 Explanation: Both “oceanic eyes” and “absent eyes” follow the same grammatical and structural pattern — adjective + noun — creating a parallel construction that emphasises the contrast between the beloved’s overwhelming emotional depth (oceanic) and her emotional unavailability (absent). Parallelism involves the repetition of a grammatical structure for rhetorical effect. Anaphora would require the same word or phrase at the beginning of successive lines; consonance involves repeated consonant sounds; dissonance refers to harsh, discordant sounds.
Q.95 What does the phrase “red signals sent out” signify?
💡 Explanation: In the context of the poem, “I send out red signals across your absent eyes” evokes maritime distress signals — the red flares a drowning sailor sends out in desperation for rescue. The image reinforces the earlier metaphor of the speaker as “a drowning man,” overwhelmed by unrequited love. The beloved’s “absent eyes” neither see nor acknowledge these signals, intensifying the sense of futility and desperation. Red here signals danger and urgent need rather than passion or warmth.
📖 Reading Comprehension (Q.96–Q.100): Francis Bacon — “Of Suspicion”
Suspicions amongst thoughts are like bats amongst birds, they ever fly by twilight. Certainly they are to be repressed, or at the least well guarded: for they cloud the mind; they lose friends; and they check with business, whereby business cannot go on currently and constantly. They dispose kings to tyranny, husbands to jealousy, wise men to irresolution and melancholy. They are defects, not in the heart, but in the brain; for they that are apt to suspect others, are the very men that are the least able to judge of others; for the very act of suspicion doth many times bring in, as a tenant, that which it feared. Henry the Seventh of England, in his later time, was wont to say: “Suspicion begets suspicion.” There is nothing makes a man suspect much, more than to know little; and therefore men should remedy suspicion by procuring to know more, and not to keep their suspicions in smother. What would men have? Do they think those they employ and deal with are saints? — Do not they know that there is not a perfect faith in the world? And yet, for all this, many can manage it well; for if a man be stout and able, his suspicions will hurt him little; and if he frankly communicate them with the party he suspects, he shall find that suspicion commonly breeds a kind of faith.
Q.96 Which among the following is true in the context of the given paragraph?
A. Henry the Seventh ruled ruthlessly for long time.
B. Suspicion is a stepping stone to faith.
C. Suspicion kills the layer of human spirit.
D. Rulers should suppress suspicion of all forms.
B. Suspicion is a stepping stone to faith.
C. Suspicion kills the layer of human spirit.
D. Rulers should suppress suspicion of all forms.
💡 Explanation: The passage concludes with the paradox that suspicion, if frankly communicated and properly managed, can serve as a kind of stepping stone that ultimately leads to greater faith and trust — hence “suspicion is a stepping stone to faith.” Bacon does not say Henry VII ruled ruthlessly, but rather that even highly suspicious rulers can manage it if they are stout-natured. He does not advocate suppressing all suspicion, but rather moderating and communicating it frankly.
Q.97 What helps in eliminating suspicion?
💡 Explanation: Bacon argues that the best remedy for suspicion is to increase knowledge (“men should remedy suspicion by procuring to know more”) and to communicate suspicions frankly to the person suspected (“frankly to communicate them with the party that he suspects”). This open discussion clarifies the truth and makes the suspected party more careful not to give further cause for suspicion. Ignorance (“to know little”) is identified as the chief cause of excessive suspicion.
Q.98 What does the word “guarded” signify?
💡 Explanation: In the sentence “they are to be repressed, or at the least well-guarded,” Bacon uses “guarded” in the sense of keeping one’s suspicions checked, controlled, or restrained — not acting freely on them without examination. This is consistent with his overall argument that suspicions must be monitored and not allowed to cloud judgment or damage relationships unchecked. The word here carries the sense of disciplined self-governance rather than physical protection or military connotation.
Q.99 What is the primary theme of the paragraph?
💡 Explanation: The passage is Francis Bacon’s essay “Of Suspicion,” and its primary purpose is to examine suspicion from multiple angles — its nature, its effects on individuals and society, how it arises, how it should be managed, and how it relates to faith. Bacon neither simply condemns nor endorses suspicion but perspectivises it, showing when it is harmful, when it can be managed, and how frank communication can transform it. This nuanced, multi-perspectival approach to a moral/psychological phenomenon is the essay’s central intellectual project.
Q.100 What tone does the passage predominantly convey?
💡 Explanation: Francis Bacon’s prose style in his Essays (1597, 1612, 1625) is characteristically aphoristic, analytical, and detached — he observes human nature with the cool eye of a philosopher-statesman rather than expressing personal emotion. The passage moves methodically from definition to observation to practical counsel, maintaining an even, contemplative tone throughout. There is no urgency, alarm, nostalgia, or dramatic suspense — only the measured reflection of a Renaissance humanist examining a facet of the human condition.
