KERALA SET ENGLISH JUL 2025 (HELD ON 24.08.2025)

KERALA SET ENGLISH  JUL 2025 (HELD ON 24.08.2025)

Q.1 John Steinbeck was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his work:

1. Tortilla Flat

2. The Grapes of Wrath

3. Of Mice and Men

4. The Pearl

Answer: 2

Explanation: Steinbeck won the Pulitzer Prize in 1940 for The Grapes of Wrath.

 

Q.2 The first name of the protagonist in Saul Bellow’s Herzog is:

1. Benjamin

2. Moses

3. Augie

4. Simon

Answer: 2

Explanation: The protagonist is Moses Herzog, an intellectual reflecting on modern life.

 

Q.3 The city which was a prominent centre of African American culture and artistic expression during the 1920s and came to be called as “the Negro capital of the world”:

1. Massachusetts

2. Mississippi

3. Harlem

4. Washington

Answer: 3

Explanation: Harlem was the centre of the Harlem Renaissance and African-American culture.

 

Q.4 This American author who coined the term “Womanist” to describe her philosophical stance on the issue of gender:

1. Alice Walker

2. Alice Munro

3. Toni Morrison

4. Maya Angelou

Answer: 1

Explanation: Alice Walker introduced “Womanist” in In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens.

 

Q.5 The novel by Toni Morrison set during the American Civil War:

1. The Bluest Eye

2. Beloved

3. Paradise

4. Sula

Answer: 2

Explanation: Beloved deals with slavery and its aftermath during and after the Civil War.

 

Q.6 The original title of Eugene O’Neill’s The Emperor Jones was:

1. The Silver Bullet

2. The Hairy Ape

3. The Pullman Porter

4. Brutus

Answer: 1

Explanation: O’Neill initially titled the play The Silver Bullet.

 

Q.7 The play of Tennessee Williams that was called the “master-drama of the generation” by Eric Bentley in his What Is Theatre? is:

1. The Glass Menagerie

2. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

3. A Streetcar Named Desire

4. The Night of the Iguana

Answer: 3

Explanation: Eric Bentley praised A Streetcar Named Desire in What Is Theatre?

 

Q.8 In his classic, The Crucible, Arthur Miller uses the historical Salem witch hunt to reflect the anti-communist hysteria inspired by the ---- of his contemporary society.

1. Watergate

2. Lavender Scare

3. Debate Gate

4. McCarthyism

Answer: 4

Explanation: Arthur Miller allegorised McCarthyism through the Salem witch trials.

 

Q.9 India's first-ever published woman poet, wrote in English and French, introduced the Ramayana and the Mahabharata to the West, wrote groundbreaking works, and often called the Indian Keats:

1. Krupabai Satthianadhan

2. Toru Dutt

3. Sarojini Naidu

4. Kamala Das

Answer: 2

Explanation: Toru Dutt introduced Indian epics to the West and is called the “Indian Keats”.

 

Q.10  The line “The best poets wait for words” is taken from the poem “Poet, Lover, Birdwatcher” by:

1. A. K. Ramanujan

2. M. M. Dutt

3. Nissim Ezekiel

4. Arun Kolatkar

Answer: 3

Explanation: The line reflects Ezekiel’s poetic philosophy.

 

Q.11 “All I can say is that it is imaginary, and not to be found on any map although the University of Chicago Press has published a literary atlas with a map of India indicating the location of -----” says this outstanding and world-famous Indian writer in English. Who is the author and which is the imaginary place?

1. R. K. Narayan, Malgudi

2. Aravind Adiga, Kittur

3. Salman Rushdie, Jahilia

4. V. S. Naipaul, Kanthapura

Answer: 1

Explanation: Malgudi is R. K. Narayan’s fictional town.

 

Q.12 How is Nayantara Sahgal related to the only woman Prime Minister of India?

1. Sister

2. Half-sister

3. First cousin

4. Aunt

Answer: 3

Explanation: Nayantara Sahgal is Jawaharlal Nehru’s niece.

 

Q.13 The novel by Salman Rushdie deals prominently with the Internal Emergency in India:

1. Shame

2. Midnight’s Children

3. The Satanic Verses

4. Fury

Answer: 2

Explanation: The Emergency (1975–77) is central to Midnight’s Children.

 

Q.14 The title of Shashi Deshpande’s autobiography is:

1. The Glass Castle

2. Educated

3. An Autobiography

4. Listen to Me

Answer: 4

Explanation: Listen to Me reflects her personal and literary journey.

 

Q.15 This writer was hailed as “the Colossus of Indian Theatre” by the BBC. He was a playwright, actor, film maker, translator, administrator and a prominent public intellectual. He was a recipient of Jnanpith, Padma Bhushan, Sangeet Nataka Academy Award and several National Film Awards and Film fare Awards. His plays were inspired by local mythologies as well as western myths and folktales. Who is this legend?

1. U. R. Ananthamoorthi

2. Girish Karnad

3. D. V. Gundappa

4. Niranjana

Answer: 2

Explanation: Girish Karnad was a playwright, actor, filmmaker, and Jnanpith awardee.

 

Q.16 The Nigerian novelist who took the title for his debut novel from Yeats’ “The Second Coming”:

1. Ben Okri

2. Wole Soyinka

3. Chinua Achebe

4. Chris Abani

Answer: 3

Explanation: Achebe’s Things Fall Apart comes from Yeats’ The Second Coming.

 

Q.17 Even though Ngugi wa Thiong’o is known for his works in English, he had early in his career opted to retain his traditional name and to write in:

1. Bantu

2. Swahili

3. Zulu

4. Afrikaans

Answer: 1

Explanation: Ngũgĩ shifted to indigenous African languages (Gikuyu/Bantu).

 

Q.18 Omeros is a grand epic poem by:

1. Homer

2. Milton

3. Walcott

4. Shelley

Answer: 3

Explanation: Derek Walcott reworked Homeric themes in Omeros.

 

Q.19 This Canadian writer’s depiction of the town of Manawaka is considered to be similar to that of William Faulkner’s Yoknaptawpha county. Who is the writer:

1. Margaret Laurence

2. Margaret Atwood

3. Alice Munro

4. Miriam Toews

Answer: 1

Explanation: Manawaka appears across Laurence’s novels.

 

Q.20 Bush Poetry is also known as:

1. Bush Rhymes

2. Bush Ballads

3. Bush Tunes

4. Bush Lines

Answer: 2

Explanation: Bush Ballads depict Australian rural life.

 

Q.21 Voss is a novel by the Australian writer:

1. A. D. Hope

2. Patrick White

3. David Malouf

4. David Williamson

Answer: 2

Explanation: Patrick White won the Nobel Prize in Literature.

 

Q.22 Taslima Nasrin, the Bangladeshi writer, who attracted several controversies, was a --- by profession:

1. Teacher

2. Model

3. Doctor

4. Civil Servant

Answer: 3

Explanation: She was trained and worked as a medical doctor.

 

Q.23 A triphthong occurs in the word:

1. Fire

2. Goat

3. Phone

4. Gunner

Answer: 1

Explanation: “Fire” contains a glide of three vowel sounds.

 

Q.24 In which of these is Intrusive ‘r’ likely to occur:

1. Shop and Go

2. Sip and Slip

3. Law and Order

4. Spin and Win

Answer: 3

Explanation: British English inserts ‘r’ between vowel sounds.

 

Q.25 How many affixes are there in the word “unknowingly”?

1. 2

2. 3

3. 1

4. 0

Answer: 2

Explanation: un- + -ly + -ing = three affixes.

 

Q.26 Which among the following has the same kind of word formation as “Smog”?

1. Sunflower

2. Pram

3. Brunch

4. Xerox

Answer: 3

Explanation: Both are blends.

 

Q.27 The First Germanic Sound Shift in the Proto-Germanic language is popularly known as:

1. Great Vowel Shift

2. Grimm’s Law

3. Verner’s Law

4. None of these

Answer: 2

Explanation: Grimm’s Law explains consonantal shifts.

 

Q.28 Which of the following were contributed to the language by Shakespeare:

1)            lacklustre

2)            in a pickle

3)            alligator

4)            liturgical

5)            padlock

6)            malaprop

Options:

1. 1, 3 & 5 only

2. 1, 2 & 3 only

3. 4, 5 & 6 only

4. 2, 4 & 6 only

Answer: 2

Explanation: Shakespeare popularised idioms and words like “in a pickle”.

 

Q.29 American equivalent of the British English word “football” is:

1. Baseball

2. Softball

3. Kickball

4. Soccer

Answer: 4

Explanation: Football in Britain refers to soccer.

 

Q.30 In Language Learning theories, Piaget and Vygotsky are names associated with:

1. Behaviourism

2. Cognitivism

3. Constructivism

4. Social Constructivism

Answer: 2

Explanation: Both emphasized cognitive development.

 

Q.31 Which among the following comes under ESP?

1. Medical English

2. Caribbean English

3. Cockney English

4. Butler English

Answer: 1

Explanation: ESP = English for Specific Purposes.

 

Q.32 This method of language teaching, which is also known as the Natural Method, emerged in the 1890s, emphasises teaching a language through immersion and direct communication, and asserts that language is learned inductively, without grammar being taught explicitly. What is its other name?

1. Audio-Lingual

2. Oral-Situational

3. Direct Method

4. Silent Method

Answer: 3

Explanation: It emphasizes immersion and inductive learning.

 

Q.33 When a teacher uses a projector in a classroom, the teaching aid is:

1. Audio-Visual aid

2. Print aid

3. Traditional aid

4. None

Answer: 1

Explanation: It combines visual display with instruction.

 

Q.34 Which among the following can be used for Summative Assessment:

1. Quiz

2. Standardised Test

3. Discussion

4. Feedback

Answer: 2

Explanation: Summative assessment evaluates final performance.

 

Q.35 Identify the true statement/s:

Statement 1 : Bilingualism is a specific type of Multilingualism

Statement 2 : Multilingualism is a type of monolingualism

1. 1 only

2. 2 only

3. Both 1 & 2

4. Neither 1 nor 2

Answer: 1

Explanation: Multilingualism includes bilingualism.

 

Q.36 Which one of these can be used as a synonym for “Catharsis”?

1. Fatal

2. Mythos

3. Recognition

4. Purgation

Answer: 4

Explanation: Aristotle used “catharsis” as emotional purification.

 

Q.37 “Nothing can please many, and please long, but just representations of general nature” declares Dr. Johnson in his famous critical work:

1. Preface to Fables

2. Preface to Lyrical Ballads

3. Preface to Shakespeare

4. Preface to Proletarian Nights

Answer: 3

Explanation: Johnson emphasised realism in literature.

 

Q.38 Which of the following was coined by John Keats:

1. Lambent Imagination

2. Negative Capability

3. Objective Correlative

4. Dissociation of Sensibility

Answer: 2

Explanation: Keats defined poetic uncertainty through this term.

 

Q.39 Northrop Frye was influential in extending the use of this term to specifically literary contexts, but it was initially adopted by literary critics from the writings of Carl Jung. In Greek it means “original pattern”. What is the term?

1. Formalism

2. Structuralism

3. Capital

4. Archetype

Answer: 4

Explanation: Adopted from Jungian psychology.

 

Q.40 The term “feminine mystique” was coined by:

1. Betty Friedan

2. Judith Butler

3. Elaine Showalter

4. Vandana Shiva

Answer: 1

Explanation: Friedan’s book launched second-wave feminism.

 

Q.41 Complete the title of this book by Dollimore and Sinfield, which marked a significant turn in Shakespearean interpretation –Political Shakespeare: Essays in ----.

1. Dialectical Materialism

2. Archetypal Shakespeare

3. Cultural Materialism

4. New Historicism

Answer: 3

Explanation: Dollimore and Sinfield pioneered Cultural Materialism.

 

Q.42 The official journal of the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment (ASLE) co-founded by Cheryll Glotfelty is:

1. Ecozon@

2. The Goose

3. Green Letters

4. ISLE

Answer: 4

Explanation: ISLE stands for Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment.

 

Q.43 Which among the following means “inference”?

1. Vakrokti

2. Anumana

3. Auchitya

4. Rasa

Answer: 2

Explanation: Anumana is logical inference in Indian aesthetics.

 

Q.44 Who is considered to be a contemporary of Chaucer?

1. Gower

2. Plautus

3. Shakespeare

4. Ovid

Answer: 1

Explanation: John Gower was Chaucer’s contemporary.

 

Q.45 Who among the following is not a character in General Prologue to The Canterbury Tales?

1. Knight

2. Wife of Bath

3. Falstaff

4. Harry Bailly

Answer: 3

Explanation: Falstaff is a Shakespearean character.

 

Q.46 Identify the true statement/s.

Statement 1: Chaucer wrote The Canterbury Tales.

Statement 2: Caxton published The Canterbury Tales.

1. 1 only

2. 2 only

3. Both 1 & 2

4. Neither 1 nor 2

Answer: 3

Explanation: Caxton printed Chaucer’s works.

 

Q.47 Match the names in List 1 with the names of genres in List 2.

LIST 1

a. Wyatt and Surrey

b. Seneca

c. Bacon

d. Donne

LIST 2

1) Revenge Tragedy

2) Essay

3) Metaphysical Poetry

4) English Sonnet

               1. a-1, b-2, c-3, d-4

               2. a-4, b-1, c-2, d-3

               3. a-4, b-2, c-1, d-3

               4. a-3, b-1, c-4, d-2

Answer: 2

Explanation: Correct matching:

Wyatt & Surrey – English Sonnet

Seneca – Revenge Tragedy

Bacon – Essay

Donne – Metaphysical Poetry

 

Q.48 Which of these works was first printed in Latin?

1. Utopia

2. Hamlet

3. Pilgrim’s Progress

4. Gorboduc

Answer: 1

Explanation: Thomas More wrote Utopia in Latin.

 

Q.49 The poet who defended poetry by declaring that “both Roman and Greek gave divine names unto it, the one of “prophesying,” the other of “making”:

1. Shelley

2. Sidney

3. Surrey

4. Shakespeare

Answer: 2

Explanation: Sidney’s Apology for Poetry defends poetry.

 

Q.50 The medieval plays which commonly had plays about Virgin Mary:

1. Mystery

2. Morality

3. Miracle

4. Interlude

Answer: 3

Explanation: Miracle plays depicted saints’ lives.

 

Q.51 “Was this the face that launched a thousand ships?” was used by Marlowe to describe:

1. Dido

2. Dark Lady

3. Helen of Troy

4. Lady Jane

Answer: 3

 

Q.52 Which among the following is not counted as the four important Humours?

1. Choler

2. Melancholy

3. Blood

4. Water

Answer: 4

 

Q.53 The theatrical performance that combined opera, theatre, ballet, and ball is:

1. Masque

2. Satire

3. Comedy of Humour

4. Farce

Answer: 1

 

Q.54 Identify the true statement/s:

Statement 1: Shakespearean Sonnet has the rhyme scheme ABBAABBA CDECDE.

Statement 2: Petrarchan Sonnet has the rhyme scheme ABBAABBA CDECDE.

1. 1 only

2. 2 only

3. Both 1 & 2

4. Neither 1 nor 2

Answer: 2

 

Q.55 What is the common source for the titles Brave New World and The Sound and The Fury?

1. Milton

2. Whitman

3. Tennyson

4. Shakespeare

Answer: 4

 

Q.56 The famous “skull scene” in Hamlet happens in :

1. Act I, Sc.5

2. Act V, Sc.1

3. Act I, Sc.1

4. Act V, Sc.5

Answer: 2

 

Q.57 Who accused Donne of “affecting the metaphysics and of perplexing the minds of the fair sex with nice speculations of philosophy”?

1. Dr Johnson

2. T. S. Eliot

3. John Dryden

4. Philip Sidney

Answer: 3

 

Q.58 “To-morrow to fresh woods, and pastures new” is the famous concluding line of:

1. Ulysses

2. Lycidas

3. Adonais

4. Thyrsis

Answer: 2

 

Q.59 Who is called “the Morning Star of Reformation”?

1. Wycliffe

2. Chaucer

3. Rousseau

4. Hudson

Answer: 1

 

Q.60 The key used by Christian to open the doors and escape the Doubting Castle”:

1. Hopeful

2. Faith

3. Promise

4. Mercy

Answer: 3

Explanation: The Key of Promise frees Christian from Doubting Castle.

 

Q.61 Sir Roger de Coverley belonged to the:

1. Tatler Club

2. Coffee Club

3. Sevens’ Club

4. Spectator Club

Answer: 4

Explanation: Sir Roger de Coverley is a central character in Addison and Steele’s The Spectator essays.

 

Q.62 A work regarded as a mock-heroic is:

1. Paradise Lost

2. Mac Flecknoe

3. Beowulf

4. Alastor

Answer: 2

Explanation: Dryden’s Mac Flecknoe satirically mocks epic conventions.

 

Q.63 War of the 18th C which is regarded as the last major conflict before the French Revolution, with France, Austria, Saxony, Sweden and Russia on one side, and Prussia, Hanover and Britain on the other side:

1. Seven Years’ War

2. Hundred Years’ War

3. Civil War

4. War of the Roses

Answer: 1

Explanation: The Seven Years’ War (1756–63) involved major European powers.

 

Q.64 Which of these terms has the meaning “of or relating to rogues or rascals”?

1. Burlesque

2. Synecdoche

3. Picaresque

4. Epistolary

Answer: 3

Explanation: Picaresque fiction features roguish protagonists.

 

Q.65 Author of the fragmentary work A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy, by Mr. Yorick:

1. Samuel Clemens

2. Laurence Sterne

3. Samuel Richardson

4. Daniel Defoe

Answer: 2

Explanation: Sterne wrote the novel using the persona of Mr. Yorick.

 

Q.66 Complete the following line: “O my Luv is like a …”

1. Newly sprung in June

2. Still unravished bride of quietness

3. Breath of Autumn’s being

4. Red, red rose

Answer: 4

Explanation: From Robert Burns’s lyric A Red, Red Rose.

 

Q.67 The infamous episode associated with the French Revolution is:

1. The Boston Tea Party

2. The Reign of Terror

3. The Gunpowder Plot

4. Normandy Landings

Answer: 2

Explanation: The Reign of Terror involved mass executions.

 

Q.68 Which poem has “Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary” as its opening line?

1. Kubla Khan

2. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

3. Ode on a Grecian Urn

4. The Raven

Answer: 4

Explanation: Edgar Allan Poe’s most famous poem.

 

Q.69 The creator whose name, over time, happened to be used synonymously with his creation is:

1. Frankenstein

2. Dracula

3. Dr. Jekyll

4. Walpole

Answer: 1

Explanation: Frankenstein is often used for the monster itself.

 

Q.70 Whose mother-in-law wrote the famous lines “Indeed the word masculine is only a bugbear”?

1. Mary Shelley

2. Percy Shelley

3. Lord Byron

4. J. S. Mill

Answer: 2

Explanation: Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin was Percy Shelley’s wife; her mother wrote feminist essays.

 

Q.71 “A Vision in a Dream. A Fragment” is the alternate title of:

1. Don Juan

2. The Solitary Reaper

3. Kubla Khan

4. Adonais

Answer: 3

Explanation: Coleridge subtitled Kubla Khan thus.

 

Q.72 The great scientist who coined the term “agnostic” and who was himself nicknamed as “Darwin’s bulldog”:

1. Aldous Huxley

2. T. H. Huxley

3. Leonard Huxley

4. Matthew Huxley

Answer: 2

Explanation: T. H. Huxley defended Darwin’s theories.

 

Q.73 The title of the ground-breaking work by Charles Darwin, in which he discusses the evolution of species:

1. Origin of Species

2. The Origin of the Species

3. Origin of the Species

4. On the Origin of Species

Answer: 4

Explanation: Full original title used in 1859.

 

Q.74 In which poem by Robert Browning is the painter Fra Pandolf mentioned?

1. Fra Lippo Lippi

2. My Last Duchess

3. Andrea del Sarto

4. Rabbi Ben Ezra

Answer: 2

Explanation: The Duke refers to Fra Pandolf painting the Duchess.

 

Q.75 The poet- dramatist, whom Ezra Pound considered to be his literary father:

1. Robert Browning

2. A. C. Swinburne

3. Alfred Tennyson

4. D. G. Rossetti

Answer: 1

Explanation: Pound admired Browning’s dramatic monologues.

 

Q.76 Which of the following is not based on the Arthurian Legends?

1. Idylls of the King

2. Le Morte d’Arthur

3. The Castle of Otranto

4. A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court

Answer: 3

Explanation: Walpole’s novel is Gothic, not Arthurian.

 

Q.77 Identify the correct chronological order of the following literary eras:

1. The Age of Sensibility, The Restoration Age, The Puritan Age, The Augustan Age

2. The Puritan Age, The Restoration Age, The Augustan Age, The Age of Sensibility

3. The Puritan Age, The Augustan Age, The Restoration Age, The Age of Sensibility

4. The Restoration Age, The Puritan Age, The Augustan Age, The Age of Sensibility

Answer: 2

Explanation: This follows English literary history.

 

 

Q.78. The two neighbouring estates mentioned in Wuthering Heights are:

1. Gateshead Hall and Thornfield Hall

2. Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange

3. Pemberley and Longburn

4. Wuthering Heights and Donwell Abbey

Answer: 2

Explanation: Emily Brontë’s novel is set mainly around the neighbouring estates of Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange.

 

Q.79. Complete the famous lines from A Tale of Two Cities:

“it was the season of …, it was the season of …., it was the spring of …, it was the winter of …”.

1. Light, Darkness, hope, despair

2. Hope, Despair, light, darkness

3. Darkness, despair, Light, hope

4. Light, hope, Darkness, despair

Answer: 1

Explanation: The opening paragraph of Dickens’s novel contrasts light/darkness and hope/despair.

 

Q.80. The fictional landscape of Wessex in the novels of Thomas Hardy is inspired by:

1. London

2. Canterbury

3. Cotswolds

4. Dorset

Answer: 4

Explanation: Hardy’s Wessex is based largely on Dorset, his native county.

 

Q.81. The statement, “Don’t forget to speak scornfully of the Victorian Age, there will be time for meekness when you try to better it” was borrowed from a work by:

1. Robert Browning

2. Charles Dickens

3. J. M. Barrie

4. George Eliot

Answer: 3

Explanation: The remark is attributed to J. M. Barrie, reflecting ironic criticism of Victorian values.

 

Q.82. The 19th Century novel which carries the subtitle “A Novel without a Hero”:

1. Jane Eyre

2. The Mill on the Floss

3. Emma

4. Vanity Fair

Answer: 4

Explanation: Thackeray subtitled Vanity Fair “A Novel without a Hero.”

 

Q.83. The author who was the base for the character Bunthorne, a “fleshly poet,” in the comic opera Patience by Gilbert and Sullivan:

1. Oscar Wilde

2. D. G. Rossetti

3. A. C. Swinburne

4. Matthew Arnold

Answer: 1

Explanation: Bunthorne satirises Oscar Wilde and aestheticism.

 

Q.84. Complete the following quote by George Bernard Shaw: “England and …. are two countries separated by the same …..”:

1. France, culture

2. Australia, language

3. America, culture

4. America, language

Answer: 4

Explanation: Shaw humorously remarked on differences between England and America despite sharing English.

 

Q.85. In 1600 Queen Elizabeth I granted a royal charter to ‘The Governor and Company of Merchants of London Trading into the East Indies’, commonly known as:

1. Dutch East India Company

2. Anglo-Saxon East India Company

3. British East India Company

4. Assada East India Company

Answer: 3

Explanation: It became popularly known as the British East India Company.

 

Q.86. The nickname for World War I as “the War to end all Wars” originated from the book The War that will End War by:

1. H. G. Wells

2. George Orwell

3. G. B. Shaw

4. E. M. Forster

Answer: 1

Explanation: H. G. Wells used the phrase in The War That Will End War.

 

Q.87. The poem which acts as a preface to 1914, the wartime sonnets of Rupert Brooke:

1. “The Soldier”

2. “The Dead”

3. “The Treasure”

4. “Peace”

Answer: 3

Explanation: “The Treasure” serves as the introductory poem.

 

Q.88. The group of “Pylon Poets” associated with W H Auden, Louis MacNeice and others in the 1930s was also known as:

1. Lake Poets

2. Pink Poets

3. Pre-Raphaelites

4. Fin-de-siècle

Answer: 2

Explanation: Auden and his contemporaries were labelled Pink Poets due to leftist leanings.

 

Q.89. “I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams” wrote a famous son of Ireland who worked relentlessly to uphold her identity. Who was it?

1. J. M. Synge

2. James Joyce

3. W. B. Yeats

4. Seamus Heaney

Answer: 3

Explanation: These lines appear in Yeats’s poem “He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven.”

 

Q.90. The term “Stream-of-Consciousness” was coined by:

1. Henry James

2. William James

3. James Joyce

4. T. S. Eliot

Answer: 2

Explanation: Psychologist William James coined the term.

 

Q.91. The alternate title of an Elizabethan revenge tragedy was used by a modern English writer in his magnum opus, The Waste Land. Which is the line?

1. April is the cruellest month

2. Let us go then, you and I

3. Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante

4. Hieronymo’s mad againe

Answer: 4

Explanation: Eliot alludes to Thomas Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy.

 

Q.92. Match the names of poets in List 1 with the names of movements in List 2:

List 1

a. Ezra Pound –

b. Philip Larkin –

c. Virginia Woolf –

d. W. B. Yeats –

List 2

1)            Celtic Revival

2)            Bloomsbury Group

3)            Imagism

4)            Movement Poetry

Options:

1. a-1, b-2, c-3, d-4

2. a-3, b-4, c-2, d-1

3. a-4, b-3, c-1, d-2

4. a-3, b-2, c-4, d-1

Answer: 2

Explanation: Pound–Imagism; Larkin–Movement Poetry; Woolf–Bloomsbury; Yeats–Celtic Revival.

 

Q.93. Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski was the full name of:

1. James Konrad

2. James Teodor Konrad

3. Joseph Konrad

4. Joseph M. Synge

Answer: 3

Explanation: This is the birth name of Joseph Conrad.

 

Q.94. The propagandist language characterized by euphemism and circumlocution, designed to limit free thought, in the novel 1984 is:

1. Newspeak

2. Oceania

3. Patois

4. Tok Pisin

Answer: 1

Explanation: Newspeak limits thought through controlled language.

 

Q.95. The author who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature “for his novels which, with the perspicuity of realistic narrative art and the diversity and universality of myth, illuminate the human condition in the world of today”:

1. Luigi Pirandello

2. Romain Rolland

3. William Golding

4. Wole Soyinka

Answer: 3

Explanation: The citation matches William Golding (1983).

 

Q.96. Considered as the world’s pre-eminent dramatist of the 19th C, this Norwegian playwright, theatre director and poet is regarded as the Father of modern realistic drama. Who is he?

1. Samuel Beckett

2. Eugene Ionesco

3. J. W. Goethe

4. Henrik Ibsen

Answer: 4

Explanation: Henrik Ibsen revolutionised realistic drama.

 

Q.97. Who among the following won both the Nobel Prize and the Oscar?

1. Eugene O’Neill

2. Charles Chaplin

3. G. B. Shaw

4. John Osborne

Answer: 3

Explanation: Shaw won the Nobel (1925) and Oscar (1938).

 

Q.98. Kitchen Sink Drama often featured:

1. Lots of kitchen utensils

2. Angry young men

3. Dreamy young maids

4. Happy wives

Answer: 2

Explanation: It focused on working-class anger and realism.

 

Q.99. The seminal essay that influenced the playwrights of the Theatre of the Absurd was:

1. “The Myth of Sisyphus”

2. “Existentialism is a Humanism”

3. “Fear and Trembling”

4. “Being and Time”

Answer: 1

Explanation: Camus’s essay shaped absurdist philosophy.

 

Q.100. A technique used by Harold Pinter came to be known as:

1. Pinter Look

2. Pinter Pause

3. Pinter Lapse

4. Pinter Dash

Answer: 2

Explanation: The Pinter Pause signifies tension and subtext.

 

Q.101. Re: Colonised Planet 5, Shikasta is a science fiction novel by the British Nobel laureate:

1. George Orwell

2. Iris Murdoch

3. Doris Lessing

4. Alice Munro

Answer: 3

Explanation: Doris Lessing authored this science fiction novel.

 

Q.102. The author of Frankissstein: A Love Story:

1. Mary Shelley

2. Margaret Atwood

3. J. K. Rowling

4. Jeanette Winterson

Answer: 4

Explanation: The novel is by Jeanette Winterson.

 

Q.103. The first novel by Kazuo Ishiguro is:

1. The Remains of the Day

2. Never Let Me Go

3. A Pale View of Hills

4. Klara and the Sun

Answer: 3

Explanation: Ishiguro’s debut novel appeared in 1982.

 

Q.104. The quarterly journal of American Transcendentalists was:

1. Blast

2. The Dial

3. Punch

4. The Quiver

Answer: 2

Explanation: The Dial promoted Emerson and Thoreau’s ideas.

 

Q.105. Representative Men by Ralph Waldo Emerson contained:

1. sonnets

2. sermons

3. biographies

4. psalms

Answer: 3

Explanation: Emerson wrote biographical essays on great thinkers.

 

Q.106. The Indian leader who was deeply influenced by Thoreau and his works:

1. M. K. Gandhi

2. Jawaharlal Nehru

3. Indira Gandhi

4. Vallabhbhai Patel

Answer: 1

Explanation: Gandhi was inspired by Civil Disobedience.

 

Q.107. The American classic which bore the dedication “in token of my admiration for his genius this book is:

1. Walden

2. Moby Dick

3. Redburn

4. Dred

Answer: 2

Explanation: Melville dedicated Moby Dick to Hawthorne.

 

Q.108. What is the name of the daughter of Hester Prynne in The Scarlet Letter?

1. Hope

2. Angel

3. Pearl

4. Rachel

Answer: 3

Explanation: Pearl symbolises sin and redemption.

 

Q.109. The symbol used by Whitman to indicate grief and mourning:

1. Roses

2. Lilacs

3. Carnations

4. Lily

Answer: 2

Explanation: In When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d.

 

Q.110. “‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers” is the opening line of a poem by:

1. Walt Whitman

2. Pearl S. Buck

3. Edgar Allan Poe

4. Emily Dickinson

Answer: 4

Explanation: A famous lyric poem by Emily Dickinson.

 

Q.111. What is the word spoken by the raven to the grieving student in Poe’s best-known poem, “The Raven”?

1. Nevermore

2. Forever

3. Love

4. Alas

Answer: 1

Explanation: “Nevermore” symbolises despair.

 

Q.112. “The Red Wheel Barrow” by William Carlos Williams consists of sixteen:

1. lines

2. words

3. similes

4. stanzas

Answer: 2

Explanation: The poem famously contains 16 words.

 

Q.113. Whom did Harold Bloom describe as “the best and most representative American poet of our time”?

1. T. S. Eliot

2. Walt Whitman

3. Wallace Stevens

4. Ezra Pound

Answer: 3

Explanation: Bloom praised Wallace Stevens highly.

 

Q.114. Transformations by Anne Sexton, considered to be the most feminist of her works, is a retelling of 17 of:

1. Greek myths

2. Grimm’s fairy tales

3. Anglo-Saxon myths

4. Fables

Answer: 2

Explanation: Anne Sexton rewrote 17 Grimm tales.

 

Q.115. The famous American author who remarked about India that “This is indeed India — the land of dreams and romance, of fabulous wealth and fabulous poverty, of splendour and rags, of palaces and hovels” following his two-month tour of the land?

1. E. M. Forster

2. Rudyard Kipling

3. Mark Twain

4. T. S. Eliot

Answer: 3

Explanation: From Mark Twain’s travel writings.

 

Q.116. Which of the following is not a work by Henry James?

1. Roderick Hudson

2. The Portrait

3. The Art of Travel

4. The Art of Fiction

Answer: 2

Explanation: The Portrait

 

Q.117. The famous observation that “The poet’s voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail” was part of the Nobel Prize acceptance speech of:

1. William Faulkner

2. Rudyard Kipling

3. John Galsworthy

4. Winston Churchill

Answer: 1

Explanation: From Faulkner’s Nobel speech (1950).

 

Q.118. Identify the correctly matched pair:

1. Adventures of Huck Finn – Autobiography

2. The Turn of the Screw – Romantic Tragedy

3. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man – Bildungsroman

4. The Picture of Dorian Gray – Kunstlerroman

Answer: 3

Explanation: Joyce’s novel is a classic Bildungsroman.

 

Q.119. The nom de plume, Mark Twain, used by Samuel Langhorne Clemens, means:

1. 6 feet

2. 1 foot

3. 2 feet

4. 12 feet

Answer: 4

Explanation: A river term meaning Two fathoms deep. 2 fathoms is equal to exactly 12 feet.

 

Q.120. Which is the title of the work by Ernest Hemingway?

1. Old Man and Sea

2. Old Man and the Sea

3. The Old Man and Sea

4. The Old Man and the Sea

Answer: 4

Explanation: Hemingway’s novella won the Pulitzer Prize (1953).

 

STATE ELIGIBILITY TEST - July - 2025
(Conducted on 24/08/2025)

ANSWER KEYS
Published on 25/08/2025

English[25707-A]

Qn.No	Key	Qn.No	Key	Qn.No	Key	Qn.No	Key	Qn.No	Key	Qn.No	Key
1	B	21	B	41	C	61	D	81	C	101	C
2	B	22	C	42	D	62	B	82	D	102	D
3	C	23	A	43	B	63	A	83	A	103	C
4	A	24	C	44	A	64	C	84	D	104	B
5	B	25	B	45	C	65	B	85	C	105	C
6	A	26	C	46	C	66	D	86	A	106	A
7	C	27	B	47	B	67	B	87	C	107	B
8	D	28	B	48	A	68	D	88	B	108	C
9	B	29	D	49	B	69	A	89	C	109	B
10	C	30	D	50	C	70	B	90	B	110	D
11	A	31	A	51	C	71	C	91	D	111	A
12	C	32	C	52	D	72	B	92	B	112	B
13	B	33	A	53	A	73	D	93	C	113	C
14	D	34	B	54	B	74	B	94	A	114	B
15	B	35	A	55	D	75	A	95	C	115	C
16	C	36	D	56	B	76	C	96	D	116	B
17	DEL	37	C	57	C	77	B	97	C	117	A
18	C	38	B	58	B	78	B	98	B	118	C
19	A	39	D	59	A	79	A	99	A	119	D
20	B	40	A	60	C	80	D	100	B	120	D