Paper 3- December 2014

1. This work was a satire in Ottava rima, attacking George III and Robert Southey.

Identify the poem :

(A) Dunciad

(B) The Vision of Judgment

(D) Alastor

Answer: B

2. Here’s a famous exchange from Arthur Conan Doyle’s Silver Blaze :
‘Is there any point to which you would wish to draw my attention ?’
‘To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.’
‘The dog did nothing in the night-time.’

What was Sherlock Holmes’ response ?

(A) ‘Nothing ? Nothing at all ? Rather unbelievable.’

(B) ‘That was the curious incident.’

(D) ‘That sounds rather curious, don’t you think ?’

Answer: B

3. “The shrill, demented choirs of waiting shells, And bugles calling for them from sad shires.” These lines are from Wilfred Owen’s :

(A) “Strange Meeting”

(B) “Futility”

(D) “Duke et Decorum Est”

Answer: C

4. In Aphra Behn’s Oronooko, how does the titular character die ?

(A) He disembowels himself.

(B) He is whipped to death.

(D) He is cut to pieces slowly by the executioner.

Answer: D

5. The narrative of this novel is a meticulous, present-tense account of a woman with a death-wish who plots the circumstances of her own violent murder. Identify the novel.

(A) Iris Murdoch’s A Fairly Honourable Defeat

(B) Muriel Spark’s The Driver’s Seat

(D) Angela Carter’s The Passion of the New Eve

Answer: B

6. The library where the “Battle of Books” takes place is _______.

(A) St. James’ Library

(B) King’s Library

(D) Christ Church Library

Answer: B

7. In Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex the first scene finds Oedipus

(A) in conversation with a priest

(B) in consultation with a general

(D) in consultation with a minister

Answer: A

8. Who among Shakespeare’s contemporaries did not write tragedies ?

(A) Thomas Kyd

(B) John Lyly

(D) Ben Jonson

Answer: B

9. The Kite Runner, a novel by Khaled Hosseini tells the story of ________.

(A) Ahmed

(B) Nadira

(D) Amourrah

Answer: C

10. Thomas Babington Macaulay, the writer of the infamous Minute of 1835, finds a mention in Salman Rushdie’s

(A) Midnight’s Children

(B) Shame

(D) Fury

Answer: C

11. The issue of privileging speech over writing was taken up for discussion in Plato’s :

(A) Ion

(B) Republic Book III

(D) Phaedrus

Answer:D

12. ‘The Medium is the Message’ is a concept given by

(A) Ernest Hemingway

(B) Sylvia Plath

(D) Marshal McLuhan

Answer: D

13. Seamus Heaney’s famous poem “Digging” forms a part of his celebrated collection called

(A) North

(B) Death of a Naturalist

(D) Door into the Dark

Answer: B

14. The first major report on The Teaching of English in England was published in 1921. It is known as ________, named after the Chair, Board of Education, _______.

(A) the Newbolt Report; Sir Henry Newbolt

(B) the Wood’s Despatch; Charles Wood, Lord Halifax

(D) the Landow Document; Sir George Landow

Answer: A

15. Who first developed the notion of ‘competence’ in language studies ?

(A) Dell Hymes

(B) Noam Chomsky

(D) Henry Sweet

Answer: B

16. The fruit was eaten. The fruit is ripening. Which of the following statement(s) is/are correct ?

(1) English has two kinds of participle : the present and the past. (2) English has three kinds of participle : the present, the past and the future. (3) The first sentence here is an example of a verb in past participle. (4) The first sentence here is an example of a verb in the perfect tense. (5) The second sentence here is an example of a verb in present participle. (6) The second sentence here is an example of a verb in the continuous tense.

(A) 2, 4, 6 are correct.

(B) 1, 5, 6 are correct.

(D) 3, 4, 5 are correct.

Answer: C

17. In 1722 the Crown awarded a certain English merchant a patent to manufacture copper coins for Ireland. Jonathan Swift intervened by way of composing a series of letters in response, better known as The Drapier’s Letters. Who was the merchant ?

(A) Isaac Bickerstaff

(B) William Bickerstaff

(D) William Sacheverell

Answer: C

18. “While the world moves In appentency on its metalled way Of time past and time future” These lines are from :

(A) “Little Gidding”

(B) “Dry Salvages”

(D) “East Coker”

Answer: C

19. The following is the stage-description of an opening scene of a famous modern play : A basement room. Two beds, flat against the back wall. A serving hatch, closed, between the beds. A door to the kitchen and lavatory, left. A door to a passage, right. Identify the play :

(A) The Importance of Being Earnest

(B) Travesties

(D) Look Back in Anger

Answer: C

20. ‘Homonyms’ are words that _______

(A) are pronounced differently but have the same meaning.

(B) refer to both the male and female of the human species.

(D) refer to people who live in houses with similar structures.

Answer: C

21. Match the columns :

Shakespearean Actors Period

I. David Garrick 1. The 19th century

II. John Gielgud 2. The 18th century

III. Henry Irving 3. The Restoration

IV. Thomas Betterton 4. The 20th century

I II III IV

(A) 2 4 1 3

(B) 4 2 1 3

(D) 2 3 4 1

Answer: A

22. In his “Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences,” Derrida is all praise for the bricoleur whom Levi-Strauss sees as a supreme methodologist, “someone who uses ‘the means at hand’.” Who does Levi-Strauss contrast bricoleur with in terms of method and approach ?

(A) The Botanist

(B) The Anthropologist

(D) The Semiotician

Answer: C

23. Heinrich Böll has something to say, and not of course merely something about the Germans. He says it several times. A common weakness of writers with something to say is their inability to understand that saying it four times is not necessarily four times as effective as saying it once. But to have something to say – how rare this is ! – D. J. Enright, “Three New Germans”. From a reading of the above, the reader can deduce :

I. Enright mildly disapproves of Heinrich Böll’s saying not merely something about Germans.

II. Enright is disappointed that Heinrich Böll has practically nothing to say about people other than Germans.

III. Enright agrees that Heinrich Böll shares a weakness with writers who prefer saying something four times to saying it once.

IV. Enright does not believe that saying something four times will necessarily make the same effective.

The right combination, according to the code, is

(A) I and II

(B) II and III

(D) I and IV

Answer: C

24. Michel Foucault’s earlier “archaeological” study is found in

(A) Power/Knowledge

(B) Social Theory and Transgression

(D) Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics

Answer: C

25. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison is widely recognized as a masterpiece. It is also one of the finest examples of

(A) science fiction

(B) picaresque novel

(D) crime thriller

Answer: C

26. Match the following correctly :

1. Premashram

2. The Cat and Shakespeare

3. Coolie

4. Nagamandala

I. Mulk Raj Anand

II. Raja Rao

III. Prem Chand

IV. Girish Karnad

I II III IV

(A) 3 2 4 1

(B) 2 3 1 4

(D) 4 3 2 1

Answer: C

27. From which of Sheridan’s plays the following extract is taken ?

Lady Sneerwell : Why truly Mrs. Clackitt has a very pretty talent and a great deal of industry.

Snake : True, Madam, and has been tolerably successful in her day. To my knowledge she has been the cause of six matches being broken off and three sons disinherited, of four forced elopements ….

Lady Sneerwell : She certainly has talents but her manner is gross.

(A) The Rivals

(B) The School for Scandal

(D) The Critic

Answer: B

28. Who, from among the following, has NOT been discussed by Simon-de-Bevoir in “The Myth of Woman in Five Authors” in The Second Sex ?

(A) Montherlant

(B) Lawrence

(D) Kafka

Answer: D

29. In a collection of essays Orhan Pamuk shares how he writes his novels, tells about his friendship with his daughter, talks about his loneliness and happiness. Identify the text :

(A) Other Colors

(B) The Silent House

(D) The White Castle

Answer: A

30. Two of the following plays won the Sultan Padamsee Prize for Indian plays in English :

I. Princes

II. Where There’s a Will

III. Larins Sahib

IV. Doongaji House

The right combination according to the code is :

(A) III and IV

(B) I and III

(D) I and IV

Answer: A

31. Who among the following is NOT an Australian writer ?

(A) Morris West

(B) Patrick White

(D) Bill Pearson

Answer: D

32. After Independence, Mulk Raj Anand, wrote a number of semi-autobiographical works to narrate chunks of his own life through a fictional persona. The name he gave this persona is _______.

(A) Lal Singh

(B) Krishan Chander

(D) Rahul Singh

Answer: B

33. What a mockery this.
Of history, the past and that to come !
Now do I feel how all men are deceived,
Reading of nations and their, in faith,
Faith given to vanity and emptiness …
The prelude

The above extract is from

(A) Book 9 Residence in France

(B) Book 7 Residence in London

(D) Book 4 Summer Vacations

Answer: A

34. While foregrounding the marginal presence of women in history in A Room of One’s Own, Virginia Woolf refers to ______ History of England.

(A) Campbell’s

(B) Trevelyan’s

(D) Carter’s

Answer: B

35. Salonie is a play written by Oscar Wilde written in

(A) English

(B) Irish

(D) Italian

Answer: * (Marks given to all)

36. In More’s Utopia, the fictional traveller Raphael Hythloday’s second name in Greek means

(A) Dispenser of Justice

(B) Dispenser of Nonsense

(D) Dispenser of Mercy

Answer: B

37. “You do not dwell in me nor I in you however much I pander to your name” These lines from Geoffrey Hill’s “Lachrimae” address

(A) Christ

(B) The Devil

(D) The poet’s enemy

Answer: A

38. The author of Black Skin, White Masks is

(A) Ngugi wa Thiong’o

(B) Frantz Fanon

(D) Martin Luther King (Jr.)

Answer: B

39. Match the following :

Poet Bird

I. John Keats

II. P.B. Shelley

III. G.H. Hopkins

IV. Ted Hughes

1. Hawk

2. Falcon

3. Skylark

4. Nightingale

I II III IV

(A) 4 3 2 1

(B) 4 3 1 2

(D) 3 4 1 2

Answer: A

40. Who of the following has written the novel The Return ?

(A) Bapsi Sidhwa

(B) V.S. Naipaul

(D) Pankaj Mishra

Answer: C

41. Who among the following is a well-known Neo-Aristotelian critic ?

(A) R.P. Blackmur

(B) John Crowe Ranson

(D) Lionel Trilling

Answer: C

42. Assertion (A) : The act of reading a text is both determinate and indeterminate.

Reason (R) : Since our reading includes both a sense of the unity of the narrative held in

place at the end and the different wishes and guesses made along the way.

(A) Both (A) and (R) are true and (R) is the true explanation of (A).

(B) Both (A) and (R) are true, but (R) is not the true explanation of (A).

(D) (A) is false, but (R) is true.

Answer: A

43. Girish Karnad’s Hayavadana, originally in Kannada, has been translated into English by

(A) U.R. Ananthamurthy

(B) By the playwright himself

(D) A.K. Ramanujan

Answer: B

44. Edward Said’s well-known book Orientalism was published in

(A) 1978

(B) 1968

(D) 1988

Answer: A

45. “To the Memory of my Beloved, the Author Mr. William Shakespeare : And What He Hath Left Us” is an ode composed by

(A) John Milton

(B) Ben Jonson

(D) John Suckling

Answer: B

46. Call me Ishmail Tonight is written by

(A) A.K. Ramanujan

(B) Agha Shahid Ali

(D) Nissim Ezekiel

Answer: B

47. “All fiction for me is a kind of magic or trickery – a confidence trick.” The statement has been made by

(A) Angus Wilson

(B) Anthony Powell

(D) George Orwell

Answer: A

48. Here is a list of American words and word-makers. Match the following :

I. H.L. Mencken

II. Philip Wylie

III. Jack Conway

IV. Sinclair Lewis

1. Babbit

2. Yes man

3. Bible belt

4. Monism

I II III IV

(A) 4 3 2 1

(B) 3 4 1 2

(D) 4 3 1 2

Answer: * (Marks given to all)

49. Which of the following in Jacques Derrida’s epigraph to his “Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences” ?

(A) More body, hence more writing. ……. Helene Cixous.

(B) We need to interpret interpretations more than to interpret things. ……… Michel Eyquem de Montaigne.

(C) But unlike philosophical reflection, …. the reflections we are dealing with here concern rays whose only source is hypothetical … Claude Levi-Strauss

(D) If Cleopatra’s nose had been shorter the whole history of the world would have been different. ………Blaise Pascal.

Answer: B

50. In Mann’s Death in Venice, death of the protagonist occurs

(A) in a bar

(B) in a beach

(D) on the highway

Answer: B

51. Two among the following poets wrote the “Village” poems that address the perennial theme of rural poverty :

I. Oliver Goldsmith

II. William Collins

III. Samuel Johnson

IV. George Gabbe

The right combination according to the code is

(A) I and III

(B) II and III

(D) I and II

Answer: * (Marks given to all)

52. In which of the following works Yeats developed his theory of ‘gyres’ ?

(A) “A Vision”

(B) “The Secret Rose”

(D) “The Celtic Twilight”

Answer: A

53. Mystery and Miracle plays in English were based on ______.

(A) English folklore

(B) English legends

(D) Anglo-Saxon myths

Answer: C

54. When we rewrite a piece of discourse from one script into another, it is called ________.

(A) Translation

(B) Transliteration

(D) Transformation

Answer: B

55. “No wonder then.” Explain.

(A) No wonder that the words here begin to mean.

(B) No wonder that you now find the words menacing.

(D) No wonder the words still mean and are tame.

Answer: * (Marks given to all)

56. The term “womanism” was first used by

(A) Helene Cixous

(B) Gayatri Spivak

(D) Alice Walker

Answer: D

57. Two among the following critics have dealt with the reproduction of motherhood in feminist theory :

I. Nancy Chodorow

II. Judith Fetterley

III. Catherine R. Stimpson

IV. Carol Gilligan

The right combination according to the code is

(A) Iand II

(B) IIand IV

(D) III and IV

Answer: C

58. Flowers is a short play written by

(A) Mahesh Dattani

(B) Asif Currimbhoy

(D) Paoli Sengupta

Answer: C

59. Match the columns :

Character Novel

I. Lady Dedlock

II. Lady Bertram

III. Lady Harriet

IV. Lady Jane

1. Vanity Fair

2. Wives and Daughters

3. Mansfield Park

4. Bleak House

I II III IV

(A) 4 2 3 1

(B) 3 2 1 4

(D) 3 4 1 2

Answer: C

60. “The Books You Needn’t Read, the Books Made For Purposes Other Than Reading, Books Read Before You Open Them Since They Belong To The Category of Books Read Before Being Written …”

The above extract is taken from

(A) Jorge Luis Borges’s “The Library of Babel”

(B) Italo Colvino’s If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller

(D) Francis Bacon’s “Of Studies”

Answer: B

61. Listed below are the titles of novels and the sources to which they are aligned by readers.

Match them appropriately :

1. Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe

2. Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre

3. R.M. Ballantyne’s The Coral Island

4. Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations

I. Peter Carey’s Jack Maggs

II. J.M. Coetzee’s Foe

III. Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea

IV. William Golding’s Lord of the Flies

I II III IV

(A) 4 1 3 2

(B) 4 3 1 2

(D) 4 2 1 3

Answer: C

62. Identify the right chronological sequence :

(A) The Game of Chess – Volpone – The Duchess of Malfi – The City Madam

(B) The City Madam – The Duchess of Malfi – Volpone – A Game of Chess

(D) The Duchess of Malfi – Volpone – A Game of Chess – The City Madam

Answer: C

63. ‘Nasal tone’ in speech is a distinguishing feature of _______.

(A) British English

(B) Scottish English

(D) American English

Answer: D

64. Which of the following writers did NOT receive the Nobel Prize for Literature ?

(A) Wole Soyinka

(B) Chinua Achebe

(D) Nadine Gordimer

Answer: B

65. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon is a significant work in ______ volumes.

(A) 3

(B) 4

(D) 6

Answer: D

66. The first novel written by Graham Greene is

(A) Stamboul Train

(B) England Made Me

(D) The Man Within

Answer: D

67. From among the Canterbury pilgrims, which group would qualify as the ‘upper class’ ?

(A) The Pardoner, The Miller, The Nun’s Priest

(B) Franklin, Parson, Wife of Bath

(D) The Reeve, The Manciple, The Clerk

Answer: C

68. Plagiarism is a well-known word and concept in academic circles. The word plagiarius in Latin, however, meant

(A) a trickster, a cheat

(B) a quack, a swindler

(D) a torturer, a plunderer

Answer: * (Marks given to all)

69. What superstition around the Eve of St. Agnes is crucial to an understanding John Keat’s famous poem ?

(A) If a virgin performed the proper ritual on St. Agnes’ Eve, she would dream of her future husband.

(B) If a virgin performed the proper ritual on St. Agnes’ Eve, she would marry her lover.

(D) If a woman performed the proper ritual on St. Agnes’ Eve, she would dream of her future lover.

Answer: A

70. Identify the person who sets himself up as the ‘Knight’ with a pestle rather than a sword in

the play The Knight of the Burning Pestle :

(A) Ralph

(B) Tim

(D) Squire

Answer: A

71. Works like The Earthly Paradise, Dante and His Circle, Goblin Market and Other Poems and the journal, The Germ are associated with ________.

(A) the Pre-Raphaelites

(B) Higher Criticism

(D) the Pre-Romantics

Answer: A

Read the following poem and answer questions (72 to 75 ) :
A Bird came down the Walk –
He did not know I saw –
He bit an Angleworm in halves
And ate the fellow, raw,
And then he drank a Dew
From a convenient Grass –
And then hopped sidewise to the Wall
To let a Beetle pass –
He glanced with rapid eyes
That hurried all around –
They looked like frightened Beads, I thought –
He stirred his Velvet Head
Like one in danger, Cautious,
I offered him a Crumb
And he unrolled his feathers
And rowed him softer home –
Than Oars divide the Ocean,
Too silver for a seam –
Or Butterflies, off Banks of Noon
Leap, plashless as they swim.