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Passage 1: Read the following passage and answer the questions that follow.
Such is the matter of imaginative or artistic literature – this transcript, not of mere fact, but of fact in its infinite variety, as modified by human preference in all its infinitely varied forms. It will be good literary art not because it is brilliant or sober, or rich, or impulsive, or severe, but just in proportion as its representation of that sense, that soul fact is true, verse being only one department of such literature, and imaginative prose, it may be thought, being the special art of the modern world, that imaginative prose should be the special and opportune art of the modern world results from two important facts about the latter: first the chaotic variety and complexity of its interests, making the intellectual issue. The really master currents of the present time incalculable- a condition of mind little susceptible of the restraint proper to verse form, so that the most characteristic verse of the nineteenth century has been lawless verse, and secondly, an all pervading naturalism, a curiosity about everything whatever, as it really is involving a certain humility of attitude, cognate to what must, after all, be the less ambitious form of literature. And prose thus asserting itself as the special and privileged artistic faculty of the present day, will be however critics may try to narrow its scope, as varied in its excellence as humanity itself reflecting on the facts of its latest experience – an instrument of many stops, meditative, observant descriptive, eloquent, analytic, plaintive. Fervid.
1. Which of the following is closest to what the author means by ‘less ambitious form of literature’?
[1] Literature responsive to heightened state of human perception [2] Imaginative literature [3] Artistic literature [4] Poetry without form and dictionAnswer: [1] Literature responsive to heightened state of human perception
2. Artistic literature is the representation of:
[1] Facts enhanced by creative illusions [2] Facts transformed by human predilection in an array of forms [3] Facts arranged by political reflection [4] Complex and natural instincts of a poetAnswer: [2] Facts transformed by human predilection in an array of forms
3. In the above passage, Walter horalio pater’s statement, ‘imaginative prose should be special’ implies.
[1] Abstract language [2] Environmental crisis [3] Intellectual complexities [4] Metaphorical functionsAnswer: [3] Intellectual complexities
4. According to the author, prose should be:
[1] Socio-political [2] Subjective [3] As varied as human experience [4] As visual as other art formsAnswer: [3] As varied as human experience
5. Which of these expressions closely represent the meaning of ‘fervid’?
[1] Feeling nostalgic [2] Portraying feelings that are too strong [3] Riding strong feelings [4] Expressing humility of attitudeAnswer: [2] Portraying feelings that are too strong
Passage 2: Read the following poem and answer the questions that follow:
SMOKE
Light – winged smoke! Icarian bird,
Melting thy pinions in thy upward flight:
Lark without song, and the messenger of dawn,
Circling above the hamlets as thy nest:
Or else, departing dream, and shadowy form
Of midnight, vision gathering up thy skirts:
By night star-veiling, and by day
Darkening the light and blotting out the sun:
Go thou, my incence, upward from this hearth,
And ask the gods to pardon this clear flame,
Henry David Thoreau
1. Why does the poet seek pardon from the gods?
[1] The singing birds disrupt the peace of the forest [2] The earth is full of peace and tranquility [3] The speaker admits sin of setting the fire [4] The narrator is over enthusiasticAnswer: [3] The speaker admits sin of setting the fire
2. The poem deals with ____
[1] Fire in the forest [2] Fire in the city [3] Fire on the ship [4] Fire in the villageAnswer: [4] Fire in the village
3. In the first line of the poem, ‘Icarian bird’ connotes______
[1] Short of ambition [2] Pride [3] Destruction [4] Waxen wingAnswer: Short of ambition
Passage 3: Read the following poem, and answer the question that follow:
‘This was Mr bleaney’s room he stayed
The whole time he was at the bodies, till
They moved him, ‘flowered curtains, thin and frayed,
Fall to within five inches of the sill.
Whose window shows a strip of building land,
Tussocky littered. ‘Mr bleaney’s took
My bit of garden properly in hand.’
Bed, upright chair, sixty-watt bulb, no book
Behind the door, no room for books or bags—
‘I’ll take it. ‘So it happens that I lie
Where Mr bleaney lay, and stub my fags
On the same saucer-souvenir, and try
Stuffing my ears with cotton, wool, to drown
The jabbering set he egged her on yo buy,
I know his habits——what time he came down’
His preference for sauce to gravy, why
He kept on plugging at the four aways__
Likewise their yearly frame: the Frinton folk
Who put him up for summer holidays
And Christmas at his sister’s house in stoke
But if he stood and watched the frigid wind
Tousling the clouds, lay on the fusty bed
Telling himself that this was home, and grinned,
And shivered, without shaking off the dread
That how we live measures our own nature,
And at his age having no more to show
Than one hired box should make him pretty sure
He warranted no better, I don’t know.
Philip Larkin
1. The poem, ‘Mr bleaney’, is written in a ______form.
[1] Satirical [2] Lyrical [3] Dramatic [4] PhilosophicalAnswer: [3] Dramatic
2. In the third line ‘They refers to’
[1] Employers [2] Owners [3] Master [4] ManufacturersAnswer: [1] Employers
3. Mr. bleaney was the _________ of the house.
[1] Owner [2] Tenant [3] Master [4] PossessorAnswer: [2] Tenant
4. According to the speaker Mr. bleany was
[1] A humorous person [2] A social and fun-loving person [3] A hard working person [4] A sad and dull personAnswer: [4] A sad and dull person
5. The poem ‘Mr. Bleaney’ deals with the portrayal of his_________
[1] Richness [2] Extravagance [3] Luxuriousness [4] OrdinarinessAnswer: [4] Ordinariness
Passage 4: Read the following poem and answer the questions that follows:
Are You There?
My father and I shove back the furniture
to the four walls of the sitting room
then lie on the carpet wearing blindfolds,
his left hand holding my left hand
Are you there, Moriarty? he enquires, before tightening (I imagine) the grip on his rolled-up copy of yesterday’s Times. There is only one possible answer to that.
I give it while rolling away to the side but still clasping his hand, still in range, and sure enough he manages a direct hit. Now it is my turn, but the moment I lift my weapon I realise there is no reason to continue I can tell from his stillness, and the chill and stiffness of his fingers, he has been dead for a good while already.
Andrew Motion
1. The poet and his father shove back the furniture to
1) Sleep Well.
2) To Play A Game
3) To Create Space For More Furniture
4) To Lie Down To Contemplate
Answer: 2) To Play A Game
2. Moriarty is the name of
1) The Poet.
2) The Poet’s Dog.
3) A Game Played By Two Or More Blindfolded Persons.
4) The Poet’s Mother.
Answer: 3) A Game Played By Two Or More Blindfolded Persons.
3. Which one of the following statements is true?
1) The poet imagines that his father tightens his grip on the rolled-up copy of Times.
2) The poet’s father tightens his grip on the rolled-up copy of Times.
3) The poet is sure that his father tightens his grip on the rolled-up copy of Times.
4) The poet sees his father tightening his grip on the rolled-up copy of Times.
Answer: 1) The poet imagines that his father tightens his grip on the rolled-up copy of Times.
4. The ‘weapon’ mentioned in the first line of the fourth stanza of the poem is
1) A Knife
2) A Rolled-Up Newspaper.
3) A Scissor.
4) A Stick.
Answer: 2) A Rolled-Up Newspaper.
5. In the last stanza of the poem,
1) The Poet Is Sure Of His Father’s Death.
2) The Poet Imagines His Father To Be Dead
3) The Poet Does Not Know Whether His Father Is Alive
4) The Poet Wildly Guesses That His Father Is Dead
Answer: 1) The Poet Is Sure Of His Father’s Death.
Passage 5: Read the following poem and answer the question:
Talking in Bed
Talking in bed ought to be easiest,
Lying together there goes back so far, An emblem of two people being honest.
Yet more and more time passes silently. Outside, the wind’s incomplete unrest Builds and disperses clouds about the sky,
And dark towns heap up on the horizon. None of this cares for us. Nothing shows why At this unique distance from isolation
It becomes still more difficult to find
Words at once true and kind,
Or not untrue and not unkinD)
Philip Larkin
1. Which of the following statements is true?
1) The poet says that talking in bed is very easy.
2) The poet says that talking in bed is not very easy.
3) The poet says that talking in bed should be easy but it is not.
4) The poet says that talking in bed can never be easy.
Answer: 3) The poet says that talking in bed should be easy but it is not.
2. The poet says that when two people are lying together, they look like
1) Two Pure Human Beings.
2) Two Hypocrites.
3) Two Innocent Fellows.
4) None Of These
Answer: 1) Two Pure Human Beings.
3. The poet says that while lying in bed he and his companion pass time
1) By Talking Between Themselves.
2) By Observing The Trees Outside The Window.
3) Silently.
4) By Playing Cards.
Answer: 3) Silently.
4. The poet and his companion are
1) In A Hotel In The Middle Of A Town.
2) In A Room Of A Hotel On The Margin Of The Town.
3) In The Corridor Of A Hotel Far Away From The Towns.
4) In A Place Away From The Towns.
Answer: 4) In A Place Away From The Towns.
5. The poet says that while lying in bed with one’s companion it is difficult to find words which are
1) At Once Honest And Caring
2) At Once True And Unkind
3) At Once Pure And Impure
4) At Once Honest And Touching
Answer: 1) At Once Honest And Caring
Passage 6: Read the following passage and answer the questions that follows:
Poetry in its use of language continually distorts and denies the structure of reality to exalt the structure of the selF) By means of rhyme, assonance or alliteration it couples together words which have no rational connection, that is, no nexus through the world of external reality. It breaks the word up into lines of arbitrary length, cutting across their logical construction. It breaks down their associations, derived from the world of external reality, by means of inversion and every variety of artificial stressing and counterpoint. Thus the world of external reality recedes and the world of instinct, the affective emotional linkage behind the words, becomes the world of reality… In the novel, too, the subjective elements are valued for themselves, and rise to view, but in a different way. The novel blots out external reality by substituting a more or less consistent mock reality which has sufficient ‘stuff’ to stand between the reader and reality. This means that in the novel the emotional associations attach not to words but to the moving current of mock reality symbolised by the words. This is why rhythm, ‘preciousness’, and style are alien to the novel; why the novel translates so well; why novels are not composed of words. They are composed of scenes, actions, stuff, people, just as plays arE)
1. In the above passage, Christopher Caudwell’s statement, “Poetry in its use of language continually distorts and denies the structure of reality to exalt the structure of the self” implies:
1) The pragmatic function of poetry that reflects the social reality through expressive language
2) The capacity of poetry to draw attention to itself as an aesthetic object or artefact
3) Poetry exalts the “structure of the self” by privileging the notion of the ‘egotistical sublime’
4) The mimetic function of poetry that alludes to the world of external reality in simple, clear language
Answer: 2) The capacity of poetry to draw attention to itself as an aesthetic object or artefact
2. What does the word “assonance” mean?
1) Repetition Of Identical Or Similar Consonants
2) Repetition Of Identical Or Similar Vowels
3) Repetition Of Identical Or Similar Phrases
4) Repetition Of Identical Or Similar Clauses
Answer: 2) Repetition Of Identical Or Similar Vowels
3. What does Caudwell imply by the statement: “The novel blots out external reality by substituting a more or less consistent mock reality which has sufficient ‘stuff’ to stand between the reader and reality”?
1) The implication is that the reality of fiction has no existence independent of the words, and our emotional responses are directed by the words
2) The implication is that the reality of fiction is not dependent on the words, and our affective states are not triggered by the words
3) The mock reality subverts the external reality so obtrusively that readers become conscious of the writer’s strategy
4) The novel is different from poetry in the sense that it is metonymic in its mode of linear progression, while poetry is metaphoric relying on subject-privileging
Answer: 1) The implication is that the reality of fiction has no existence independent of the words, and our emotional responses are directed by the words
4. What do you understand by “mock reality” in context of the usage in the above passage?
1) The reality contrived into existence by novelists through strategic use of words
2) The reality evoked through figurative devices
3) The quasi reality effected through the use of poetic devices
4) The reality which is approximate to the external reality
Answer: 1) The reality contrived into existence by novelists through strategic use of words
5. If rhythm, ‘preciousness’, and style are alien to the novel, in which genre are they distinctive features?
1) Drama
2) Poetry
3) Prose
4) Non-fiction
Answer: 2) Poetry
Passage 7: Read the following passage and answer the questions that follow.
Most near, most dear, most loved and most far. Under the window where I often found her Sitting as huge as Asia, seismic with laughter Gin and chicken helpless in her Irish hand. Irresistible as Rabelais, but most tender for The lame dogs and hurt birds that surround her,- She is a procession no one can follow after But be like a little dog following a brass band. She will not glance up at the bomber, or condescend To drop her gin and scuttle to a cellar, But lean on the mahogany table like a mountain Whom only faith can move, and so I send O all my faith, and all my love to tell her That she will move from mourning into mourning.
1. The person described in the poem is sympathetic to
1) Wounded human beings only.
2) Wounded birds only.
3) Disabled dogs and wounded birds.
4) Animals and birds in general.
Answer: 3) Disabled dogs and wounded birds.
2. The person described in the poem is
1) A non-believer.
2) A Christian.
3) A believer.
4) A Marxist
Answer: 3) A believer.
3. The poem uses
1) Cartographic and nature images.
2) Nature images only.
3) Medical images.
4) Astronomical images.
Answer: 1) Cartographic and nature images.
4. The person described in the poem
1) Is alive.
2) Is dead.
3) Is deaf.
4) Will be dead soon.
Answer: 1) Is alive.
5. The third line of the poem suggests something about
1) The complexion of the person.
2) The physique of the person.
3) The nationality of the person.
4) The continent to which she belongs.
Answer: 2) The physique of the person.
Passage 8: Read the following poem and answer the questions that follow:
Apostrophe to Man Detestable race, continue to expunge yourself, die out. Breed faster, crowd, encroach, sing hymns, build bombing airplanes; Make speeches, unveil statues, issue bonds, parade: Convert again into explosives the bewildered ammonia and the distracted cellulose; Convert again into putrescent matter drawing flies The hopeful bodies of the young: exhort, Pray, pull long faces, be earnest, be all but overcome, be photographed: Confer, perfect your formulae, commercialize Bacteria harmful to human tissue, Put death on the market: Breed, crowd, encroach, expand, expunge yourself, die out, Homo called sapiens.
1. What is the meaning of the word “putrescent”?
1) Decomposed
2) Essential
3) Vitalistic
4) Efflorescent
Answer: 1) Decomposed
2. What one of the following statements is true?
1) The poem is concerned about unmasking racial discrimination.
2) The poem is concerned about humans’ propensity to go to war despite all the catastrophes it creates in its wake.
3) The poem is pro-war, eulogizing human’s heroic capacity to attain martrydom for the sake of their nation
4) The poem is affirmative in its overall tenor.
Answer:2) The poem is concerned about humans’ propensity to go to war despite all the catastrophes it creates in its wake.
3. The title of the poem “Apostrophe to Man” is ______________ in the context of the overall content.
1)Befitting and relevant
2)Ironic and satirical
3)Personal and affective
4)A eulogy and ode to homo sapiens
Answer:2)Ironic and satirical
4. The last line – “Breed, crowd, encroach, expand, expunge yourself, die out” has the figurative device termed:
1) Synecdoche
2) Spoonerism
3) Alliteration
4) Palindrome
Answer:3) Alliteration
5. What is the meaning of the word “detestable” in the context of the poem?
1) Ebullient
2) Contemptible
3) Magnanimous
4) Redoubtable
Answer:2) Contemptible
Passage 9. Read the following passage and answer the questions that follow:
Emergent in the wake of industrialization, studies of everyday life endeavor to bring into visibility and somehow make sense of our humble, taken-for-granted, seemingly unremarkable experience of the quotidian. The project has meant subjecting modern Western individuals to the kind of anthropological scrutiny more often reserved for non-Western peoples. The goal has been to explore patterns of behavior not because they are foreign but because they are so familiar as to fall beneath our notice. Artists as well as social theorists in this tradition set out to register and evaluate the neglected minutiae of our daily lives: the ways we sleep and ambulate, ingest and eliminate, work and recreate, care for ourselves and others, slip in and out of self- awareness, and interact with people, objects, and our surroundings. Generally speaking, everyday life studies is a science of the “small.” Though usually framed in relation to larger social structures, the objects of attention are micro-moments and micro-actions – turning a street corner, stirring a pot, feeding an infant. They are actions that take place without rising to the status of “event.” They are moments in time that leave no historical mark (at least as “history” has traditionally been understood). As these examples suggest, such practices are “everyday” not only because they are “ordinary” but also because they typically occur every day, perhaps even every few hours. Whether tied to bodily rhythms or the rigors of wage work, the non-events of everyday life are almost always characterized by patterns of repetition. Theorists of the everyday, focusing on the effects of modernity, have taken various stances on the political implications of our daily routines. Some have tied their repetitive nature to the mechanization and alienation of labor in a capitalist society. For Michel Foucault, domination is not restricted to the factory floor; the workings of power are more diffuse and insidious than this, operating in the very interstices of our seemingly private lives. For Michel de Certeau, the quotidian is a site not of forcible conformity but of micro-opportunities to defy the dominant order.
1. What is the meaning of the word “quotidian”?
1) Extraordinary situation
2) Quotation-worthy phrase
3) Daily practices
4) Post-millennial epoch
Answer: 3) Daily practices
2. What is not related to the meaning of “interstice”?
1) Monolithic
2) In-betweeness
3) Ambivalence
4) Slippage
Answer:1) Monolithic
3. “Everyday life” as a theory deals with –
1) Events of gargantuan magnitude
2) Events that are mundane and steeped in banality
3) Events that are part of history’s grand narratives
4) Events that are epochal to the life of a community or nation
Answer:2) Events that are mundane and steeped in banality
4. Why is everyday life studies regarded as a science of the “small” in the passage?
1) Because it deals only and exclusively with the lives of disenfranchised subjects.
2) Because it is anthropological in methodology, and therefore a “small” science.
3) Because it does not accommodate social sciences within its epistemological framework.
4) Because it deals with events which are a part of our mundane processes and practices.
Answer:4) Because it deals with events which are a part of our mundane processes and practices.
5. In the context of the passage, Michel deCerteau’s theory of “everyday life” offers a site of _____________ the dominant.
1) Acquiescing
2) Resisting
3) Theorizing
4) Imagining
Answer: 2) Resisting
Passage 10: Read the following stanza and answer the questions that follow:
Shall I compare thee to a Summer’s Day
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May’ And summer’s lease hath all too short a date. Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm’d.
1. Which of the following statements rightly shows the relationship of upameya with upamana in the poem:
(1) Upameya is superior to upamana
(2) Upamana is superior to upameya
(3) Both upamana and upameya are equal
(4) Both are governed by position and superimposition
Answer: (1) Upameya is superior to upamana
2. The poem is an example of:
(1) Parampariterupaka (consequential metaphor) because here the superimposition, undermined by a resemblance, is the cause of another superimposition.
(2) Nirangarupaka (entire metaphor) because here upameya is superimposed by upamana together with its subordinate parts.
(3) Malarupaka (deficient metaphorserial) because here upameya is superimposed by serial of upamanas.
(4) Mishritarupaka (mixed metaphor) because here the common attribute, the words implying comparison, upamana and upameya, all are expressed.
Answer: (1) Parampariterupaka (consequential metaphor) because here the superimposition, undermined by a resemblance, is the cause of another superimposition.
3. What is the addressee in the poem?
(1) Feminine gender
(2) Masculine gender
(3) Common gender
(4) Neutral gender
Answer: (2) Masculine gender
4. What is upmana (object compared to) in the poem?
(1) Addressee
(2) Rough winds
(3) Buds of May
(4) Summer’s Day
Answer: (4) Summer’s Day
5. What is upmeya (object compared) in the poem?
(1) Addressee
(2) Rough winds
(3) Buds of May
(4) Summer’s day
Answer: (1) Addressee
Passage 11: Read the following passage and answer the questions that follow:
Some sort of parallel may be found in the way logical connectives are usually unnecessary and often misleading, because too simple. Omitting an adjective one would need ‘therefore’ stressing the adjective ‘although’; both logical connections are implied if the sentences are just put after another. In the same way, people are accustomed to judge automatically the forces that hold together a variety of ideas; they feel they know about the forces, if they have analysed the ideas; many forces, indeed, are covertly included within ideas; and so of the two elements, each of which defines the other, it is much easier to find words for the ideas than for the forces. Most of the ambiguities I have considered here seem to me beautiful; I consider, then, that I have shown by example, in showing the nature of the ambiguity, the nature of the forces which are adequate to hold it together. It would seem very artificial to do it the other way round, and very tedious to do it both ways at once. I wish only, then, to say here that such vaguely imagined ‘forces’ are essential to the totality of a poem and they cannot be discussed in terms of ambiguity, because they are complementary to it. But by discussing ‘ambiguity’, a great deal may be made clear about them. In particular, if there is contradiction, the greater the tension; in some way other than by the contradiction, the tension must be conveyed, and must be sustained.
1. What does the term “logical connectives” mean?
(1) The nature of ambiguity
(2) The logical content
(3) The statement of logical form in addition to logical context
(4) The statement of logical form
Answer: (3) The statement of logical form in addition to logical context
2. Why does the author say that “the tension must be conveyed and must be sustained”?
(1) Because it is unnecessary and often misleading
(2) Because it is too simple
(3) Because it is impregnated with adjectives
(4) Because tension is often an important clue to the meaning of a poem
Answer: (3) Because it is impregnated with adjectives
3. It is easy to find words for ideas than for forces because:
(1) Ideas are embedded in forces
(2) Forces are embedded in ideas
(3) Two elements are synonymously defined
(4) Forces are abstract
Answer: (2) Forces are embedded in ideas
4. Which of the following is not correct in relation to a poem?
(1) Forces are indispensable for the totality of a poem
(2) Forces can be discussed in terms of ambiguity
(3) Forces and ambiguity are complementary to it
(4) Many forces are included within the ideas
Answer: (2) Forces can be discussed in terms of ambiguity
5. What is the possibility in the analysis of a poem, if the forces are included in the ideas?
(1) The ideas can be defined easily.
(2) The forces can be defined easily.
(3) Both the ideas and the forces can be defined easily.
(4) It is difficult to define both the ideas and the forces.
Answer: (1) The ideas can be defined easily.
