英美文学知识150题

1． Most of Emily Dickinson‟s poems were published __________.

A. when she was young B. after her failed love affair

C. in her old age D. after her death

2. __________is a kind of drama that expounds an existential ideology and views

its task as essentially metaphysical. It represents a view of the absurdity of the human

condition by the abandoning of rational devices and the nonrealistic form.

A. black humor B. non-fiction

C. anti-hero D. theater of the absurd

3. The Importance of Being Earnest is a comedy by__________.

A. George Bernard Shaw B. Oscar Wilde

C. Richard Brinsley Sheridand D. William Shakespeare

4. The Gothic style started in _________and quickly spread through all parts of

western Europe.

A. French B. English C. Hebrew D. Germanic

5. Ireland is called the Emerald Isle because of __________.

A. its connection with Britain B. its green countryside

C. its unique shape D. its abundant natural resources

6. __________is the oldest newspaper in Australia.

A. The Sydney Morning Herald B. he Australia

C. Daily Mirror D. Sun

7. __________ was once the president of the Royal Society for twenty-three years.

A. William Harvey B. Francis Bacon

C. Isaac Newton D. John Dalton

8. What is the relationship between the two words “flower/rose”?

A. Homonymy B. Antonymy C. Hyponymy D. Polysemy

9. The function of the sentence “How are you?”

A. directive B. informative C. performative D. phatic

10. Homonyms __________.

A. are words that share the same phonetic features and the same semantic

features

B. are words that share the same semantic features but have different sets of

phonetic features

C. are words that share the same phonetic features but have different sets of

semantic features

D. are two words that all but one of semantic feature in common

1-10. D D B A B A C C D C

11. The Ring and the Book is a masterpiece of ____.

A. Alfred Tennyson B. Robert Browning

C. Thomas Hardy D. Ralph Waldo Emerson

12. “Studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability” is one of the epigrams

found in _____

A. Bacon‟s of Studies

B. Bunyan‟s The Pilgrim’s Progress

C. Fielding‟s Tom Jones

D. Johnson‟s A Dictionary of the English Language

13. Who is Afraid of Virginia Woolf is written by ____.

A. Samuel Beckett B. Virginia Wolf

C. Edward Albee D. John Barth

14. The world‟s largest freshwater lake is Lake ____.

A. Superior B. Ontario C. Huron D. Michigan

15. The state _____is rich in fishing and trapping.

A. Hawaii B. California C. Alaska D. New York

16. The Australian National Day is set on January 26 to commemorate ____.

A. the first European settlement of the continent

B. the founding of the Commonwealth of Australia

C. the discovery of the great southern “unknown land”

D. Iacques Cartier‟s first voyage around Australia

17. In 1788 Australia was settled by the British as a colony founded ____.

A. to receive convicts from Britain

B. to receive free settlers

C. to supply Britain with wool and food

D. to expand Britain‟s imperial power

18. The distinction between langue and parole is proposed by ____.

A. Halliday B. Saussure C. Chomsky D. Firth

19. In the following dialogue, the maxim of ____ is not observed.

A. quality B. quantity C. relevance D. manner

20. ____ are linguistic units larger than sentences.

A. Moves B. Discourses C. Topics D. Tendencies

11-20. B A C A C A A B C B

21. ____ is a classification of fiction in which a historical event is described in a way

that exploits some of the devices of fiction, including a nonlineal time sequence and

access to inner states of mind and feeling not commonly present in historical wirting.

A. New fiction B. Nouveau Roman

C. Historical story D. Nonfiction Novel

22. Ralph Waldo Emerson, the American Transcendentalist, argued for the following

ideas except ____.

A. man‟s dependence on himself for spiritual perfection

B. Faith in Christianity

C. direct intuition of a spiritual God in nature

D. the importance of an independent American culture

23. In the line “So ling lives this, and this gives life to thee” of Sonnet 18,

Shakespeare ___

A. meditates on man‟s mortality

B. eulogizes the power of artistic creation

C. satirizes human vanity

D. presents a dream vision

24. Australia is the world‟s largest exporter of ____.

A. wheat B. meat C. daily products D. wool

25. ____ is the most important work by Marx about Marxist economics.

A. Thesis on Feuerback B. The German Ideology

C. Capital D. The capital

26. Harvard University was founded in ____.

A. 1366 B. 1633 C. 1636 D. 1363

27. The state to which the Mayflower sailed is ____.

A. Florida B. Maine C. Virginia D. Massachusetts

28. Which of the following two-term sets shows the feature of complementarity?

A. single/married B. big/small C. hot/cold D. old/young

29. Usually ____refers to the use of linguistic research in language teaching, but

linguistics is used in other areas, as well.

A. applied linguistics B. theoretical linguistics

C. contextual linguistics D. general linguistics

30. Two words that are differentiated by one phoneme, such as “cat” and “rat”, are

known as a ___

A. distinctive feature B. argument

C. code D. minimal pair

21-30. D B B D C C D A A D

31. “Utopia” was written by __________.

A. Thomas More B. Francis Bacon

C. Daniel Defoe D. Jonathan Swift

32. The Preface to Shakespeare and Lives of the Poets are the works of critic

__________.

A. G.. B. Shaw B. Samuel Johnson

C. Ben Johnson D. F. M. Foster

33. In 1837, Ralph Waldo Emerson made a speech entitled __________ at Harvard,

which was hailed by Oliver Wendell Holmes as “Our intellectual Declaration of

Independence”.

A. Nature B. Self-Reliance

C. Divinity School Address D. The American Scholar

34. The U.S.A is known as a “Melting Pot” for its __________.

A. mixture of nationalities B. mixture of climates

C. mixture of habits D. mixture of religions

35. __________ is regarded as the cradle of the Renaissance?

A. Greece B. Italy C. Germany D. England

36. Who was “The father of psychoanalysis” and the author of The Interpretations of

Dreams?

A. Monet B. Sigmund Freud C. Yeats D. James Joyce

37. As far as Australian culture is concerned, the history of Australia can be divided

into the following phases with the exception of __________.

A. the period of the original culture of Aboriginal people

B. the period of the dominant British culture

C. the period of Asian culture

D. the period of a multicultural society

38. __________ is often regarded as the founder of the study of sociolinguistics.

A. Saussaure B. Halliday C. Chomsky D. Labov

39. __________ is the academic discipline concerned with the study of the processes

by which people learn languages in addition to their native tongue.

A. IPA B. IC Analysis C. SLA D. TG

40. The __________ is the primary lexical units of a word, which carries the most

significant aspects of semantic content and cannot be reduced into smaller

constituents.

A. bound morphemes B. affix C. root D. prefix

31-40. A B D A B B C D C C

41. ____ is Mark Twain‟s master work, the one book from which as Ernest

Hemingway noted, “all modern American literature comes.”

A. The Gilded Age

B. The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County

C. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

D. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

42. Apart from the dislocation of time and the modern stream-of-consciousness, the

other narrative techniques Faulkner used to construct his stories include ____,

symbolism and mythological and biblical allusions.

A. impressionism B. expressionism

C. multiple points of view D. first person point of view

43. Murder on the Orient Express is written by ____ a novelist of detective fiction.

A. Arthur Conan Doyle B. Edgar Allan Poe

C. Agatha Christie D. John Fowels

44. Who was the first woman Prime Minister in British history?

A. Elizabeth I B. Elizabeth II

C. Margaret Thatcher D. Diana Princess of Wales

45. The important thing done in the Second Continental Congress was that ____.

A. “the Declaration of the Independence” was signed

B. the Revolutionary Was ended

C. a new government was discussed

D. Washington was appointed commander of the army

46. Whose book Evolution and Ethics was translated into Chinese in 1897 by Yan Fu?

A. Darwin B. Thomas Huxley C. Malthus D. Herbert Spencer

47. Who is the author of On the Principle of Population?

A. Darwin B. Thomas Hulxley C. Malthus D. Herbert Spencer

48. In terms of Searle‟s classification system of illocutionary acts, the sentence „Ten

bucks say that The Yankee will win the game‟ used to bet belongs to _____.

A. representative B. commissive C. directive D. declaration

49. Three factors involved in describing vowels are ____.

A. place of articulation/part of the tongue raised/voicing

B. tongue height/ part of the tongue raised/lip rounding

C. articulators/extreme vowel positions/voicing

D. teeth position alveolar ridge position/voicing

50. In ____ the structure of words is studied.

A. phonetics B. phonology C. morphology D. syntax

41-50. D C C C D B C A B C

51． “The Three Unities”, formulated by Renaissance dramatists, are the unities of the

following elements but ____.

A. time B. place C. action D. character

52. “The founder of English materialist philosophy” is ____.

A. Geoffrey Chaucer B. Edmund Spenser

C. Francis Bacon D. John Donne

53. Babbitt is written by ____ who is also the writer of Main Street.

A. William Faulkner B. Sinclair Lewis

C. John Steinbeck D. Jack London

54. Under the Whitlam government “God Save the Queen” was replaced by ____ as

Australian national anthem.

A. “Waltzing Matilda” B. “Click Go the Shears”

C. “Advance Australia Fair D. “My Country”

55. Australia is the world‟s largest exporter of ____.

A. wheat B. meat

C. daily products D. wool

56. The United States is ____ populous country in the world.

A. the third most B. the second most

C. the most D. the fourth most

57. Which of the following is the father of the modern mode of painting?

A. Raphael B. Titian C. da Vinci D. Michelangelo

58. If we begin interpretation of a sentence spontaneously and automatically on the

basis of whatever information is available to us, that is called ___.

A. top-down processing B. hotttom-up processing

C. inductive analysis D. Comparative analysis

59. ____ is a personal dialect of an individual speaker that combines elements

regarding regional, social, gender, and age variations.

A. Dialect B. Idiolect C. Ethnic dialect D. Linguistics

repertoire

60. Of the following words, ____ is an initialism.

A. UN B. NATO C. BASIC D. UNESCO

51-60: D C B C D A B A B A

61. Which of the following writer was not the representative of Harlem Renaissance?

A. Claude Mckay B. Countee Cullen C. Langston Hughes D. J.D.

Salinger

62. Yoknapatawpha saga refers to a series of fictions written by _____.

A. Thomas Hardy B. Mark Twain C. William Faulkner D. Allan Poe

63. Why is Samuel Johnson called “Dictionary Johnson”?

A. Because he knows a lot more than other writers in words.

B. Because he often consults an encyclopedia while writing.

C. Because he is a master of English language.

D. Because he is author of the first English dictionary by an Englishman.

64. In Australia, under _____ the legislation to provide equal pay for men and women

doing the same work was passed.

A. the Whitlam government B. the Hawke government

C. the keating government D. the Fraser government

65．When did the third wave of migration begin in Australia?

A. After the First World War

B. After the Second World War

C. During the Second World War

D. After the Vietnam War

66. The “Big Stick” Policy was advanced by President _____.

A. Franklin D. Roosevelt B. William Mekinley

C. Thomas Woodrow Wilson D. Theodore Roosevelt

67. What is the largest river in America?

A. The Ohio River B. The Columbia

C. The Mississippi River D. The Colorado

68. “Autumn” and “fall” are used respectively in Britain in and America, but refer to

the same thing. The words are _____ synonyms.

A. collocational B. dialectal C. complete D. stylistic

69. _____ is the abstract syntactic representation of a sentence, namely, the

underlying level of structural organization which specifies all the factors governing

the way the sentence should be interpreted.

A. surface structure B. syntactic ambiguity

C. syntactic component D. deep structure

70. London speech that was illustrated by Shakespeare‟s writing was generally termed

_____.

A. Old English B. Middle English

C. Early Modern English D. Late Modern

61-70: D C D A B D C B D C

71. Percy Bysshe Shelly is famous for ________.

A. Ode to a Skylark and Ode to a Nightingale

B. Ode on a Grecian Urn and Ode to the West Wind

C. Ode to a Nightingale and Ode on a Grecian Urn

D. Ode to the West Wind and Ode to a Skylark

72. “Tom Jones” was written by ________.

A. Henry Fielding B. Daniel Defoe

C. Jonathan Swift D. Samuel Richardson

73. Love Story is written by ________.

A. Margaret Millar B. Mario Puzo

C. Erich Segal D. Helen Eustis

74. New Zealanders have adopted their name from the Kiwi, ________.

A. which is an introduced flightless bird

B. which was the only mammal in New Zealand

C. which is a native flightless bird

D. which was introduced to New Zealand 1000 years ago

75. The two main land masses in New Zealand are ________.

A. the White Island and the thermal region

B. the North Island and the South Island

C. Auckland and the South Island

D. the Southern Apls and the North Island

76. Which of the following was best known for his Madona (Virgin Mary)?

A. Raphael B. Michelangelo C. Da Vinci D. Titian

77. The first American President who inaugurated in Washington City was ________.

A. George Washington B. Thomas Jefferson

C. John Adams D. Andrew Jackson

78. The study of the linguistic meaning of words, phrases, and sentences is called

_____.

A. semantics B. pragmatics C. syntax D. language change

79. In making conversation, the general principle that all participants are expected to

observe is called the ________ principle proposed by .

A. comprehensive B. generative C. discourse D. cooperative

80. ________ is concerned with the inherent meaning of the linguistic form.

A. reference B. lexical meaning C. sense D. word

71-80: D A C C B A B A D C

81. The Hairy Ape by Eugene O‟Neill is a drama in the styles of ____.

A. realism and romanticism B. romanticism and symbolism

C. romanticism and expressionism D. realism and expressionism

82. Literary criticism written from the perspective of women, reflecting female

attitudes, conerns and values is regarded as ____.

A. New Criticism B. Psychoanalysis

C. Structuralism D. Feminist Criticism

83. “Three or four families in a country village is something to work.” This statement

was presented by ___.

A. Emily Bronte B. Jane Austen C. Mrs. Gaskell D. George Eliot

84. ____ had the title “the Wizard of Menlo Park”.

A. John Stevens B. Charlie Chaplin C. Thomas A Edison D. Robert

Fulton

85. ____ major works Last Supper is the most famous of religious pictures.

A. Loenardo da Vinci‟s B. Titian‟s

C. Raphael‟s D. Michelangelo‟s

86. What is the other official language besides English in New Zealand?

A. German B. Japanese C. French D. Maori

87. Who produced the first complete map of New Zealand in 1769?

A. Abel Tasman B. a Dutchman C. Hobson D. James Cook

88. Of the following linguists, ____ should be grouped into London school.

A. Firth B. Bloomfield C. Boas D. Trubetzkoy

89. ____ refers to a marginal language of few lexical items and straightforward

grammatical rules, used as a medium of communication.

A. Lingua franca B. Creole

C. Pidgin D. Standard language

90. The basic essentials of the first language are acquired in the short period from

about age two to puberty, which is called the ____ period for first language

acquisition.

A. initial B. one-word stage C. puberty D. critical

81-90: D D B C A D D A C D

91. John Milton created Satan the real hero in his poem ___.

A. “Paradise Lost” B. “Paradise Regained” C. “Agonists” D.

Lycidas

92. Erehwon is a satiric novel written by ____.

A. Samuel Butler B. Henry Fielding C. Thomas More D. Mark Twin

93. “ In a station of the Metro” by ____ has been regarded as a classic specimen of

Imagist poetry.

A. Ezra Pound B. T.S. Eliot

C. William Carlos Williams D. Amy Lowell

94. The Head of State of New Zealand is ____.

A. the Prime Minister B. the British monarch

C. the Governor-General D. the President

95. The first settlers of New Zealand were ____.

A. European navigators B. sealers and whalers

C. voyagers from East Polynesia D. Christian missionaries

96. ____ is the oldest of all the parties in Ireland.

A. Finn Gael B. The Progressive Democrats

C. Finna Fail D. The Irish Labour Party

97. The largest state of all the states of America is ____.

A. Texas B. Alaska C. California D. Hawaii

98. The feature that distinguishes “hotdog” and “hot dog” is ____.

A. tone B. stress C. intonation D. aspiration

99. ____deals with how language is acquired, understood and produced.

A. Psycholinguistics B. Sociolinguistics

C. Neurolinguistics D. Anthropological linguistics

100. The study of language at some point of time is generally termed as ____

linguistics.

A. applied B. diachronic C. comparative D.

synchronic

91-100: A A A B C D B B A D

101. Which of the following is not written by the author of The Scarlet Letter?

A. The House of the Seven Gables B. Young Good man Brown

C. The Fall of the House of Usher D. The Minister‟s Black Veil

102. I Have a Dream is famous speech addressed by _____.

A. Abraham Lincoln B. Martin Luther King

C. Winston Churchill D. Mark Twain

103. All the following writers are the great masters of “stream of consciousness” but

_____.

A. James Joyce B. Virginia woolf

C. William Faulkner D. Henry James

104. The largest city in Canada is _____.

A. Ottawa B. Toronto C. Vancouver D. Montreal

105. About _____ of the people of Quebec are French descents.

A. 80% B. 30% C. 90% D. 50%

106. Today, the City of London is the business centre of London where you can find

_____.

A. big supermarkets B. theatres and cinemas

C. large financial organizations D. restaurants and cafes

107. In the United Kingdom, the party which wins the _____ number of seats in the

House of Commons becomes the official Opposition.

A. largest B. third largest C. fourth largest D. second largest

108. “Speech Act Theory” was proposed by ____ in 1962.

A. Saussure B. Chomsky C. Jane Austin D. John Austin

109. The major new development in linguistics in 20th century was _____ grammar.

A. speculative B. traditional

C. structural D. Interference

110. _____ refers to the tendency of many learners to stop developing their

interlanguage grammar in the direction of the target language.

A. Fossilization B. Error analysis

C. Overgeneralization D. Interference

101-110: C B D B A C D D D A

111. Aspect of the Novel was originally a series of lectures delivered at Cambridge by

____. It was one of the most important books on the theory of novel.

A. E.M. Forster B. Mark Twain

C. William Faulkner D. Henry James

112. Daniel Defoe is a famous ____.

A. poet B. novelist C. playwright D. essayist

113. The famous representative drama of “theatre of the absurd” is ____ by Samuel

Beckett.

A. Waiting for Lefty B. Who is Afraid of Virginia Woolf

C. Waiting for Godot D. The Zoo Story

114. When printing was invented in the 1500‟s, the ____ Bible was the first complete

work printed.

A. Latin B. English C. Aramaic D. Hebrew

115. Which of the following is NOT a characteristic of the Open University?

A. It‟s open to everybody.

B. No university degree is awarded.

C. It requires no formal educational qualification.

D. University course are followed through TV, radio, correspondence, etc.

116. The backbone of Canada‟s economy is ____.

A. crude oil B. cereal export

C. manufacturing D. timber

117. The longest river in Canada is ____.

A. the St. Lawrence B. the Mackenzie

C. the Severn D. the Yukon

118. The most recognizable difference between American English and British English

are in ____ and vocabulary.

A. structure B. grammar C. usage D. pronunciation

119. The study of how we do things with utterance is the study of ____, the nature of

which is determined by context.

A. context B. pragmatics C. speech act D. semantics

120. A(n) ____ is a mild, indirect or less offensive word or expression that replaces a

taboo word or serves to avoid more direct wording that might he harsh, unpleasantly

direct, or offensive, e.g. “pass away” for “die”.

A. euphemism B. delete C. coinage D. taboo

111-120: A B C A B C B D C A

121. The first novel of stream of consciousness written by a black writer _____ was

Cran

A. Claude Mckay B. Countee Cullen

C. Langston Hughes D. Jean Toomer

122. The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung up in America was written by _____.

A. John Smith B. John Ellis

C. Anne Bradstreet D. Nathaniel Morton

123. In reading Shakespeare, you must have come across the line “To be or not to

be---that is the question” by ____.

A. Iago in Othello

B. Lear in King Lear

C. Shylock in The Merchant of Venice

D. Hamlet in Hamlet

124. The name “Canada” is thought to be derived from kanata, an Indian word

meaning _____.

A. a settlement B. a guitar

C. a meeting place D. a piece of land

125. Canada has become the world‟s _____ exporter of fish.

A. second B. largest C. forth D. fifth

126. The most important and influential of English Bible is the Authorized or King

James version, first published in _____.

A. 1382 B. 1901 C. 1611 D. 1979

127. In Britain, ministers are appointed by the Queen on the recommendation of

_____.

A. the lord Chancellor B. the Prime Minister

C. the Speaker D. the Parliamentary Commissioner

128. In many societies of the world, we find a large number of people who speak

more than one language. As a characteristic of societies, _____ inevitably results from

the coming into contact of people with different cultures and different languages.

A. transfer B. bilingualism C. diglossia D. interlanguage

129. Pragmatics differs from traditional semantics in that it studies meaning not in

isolation, but in _____.

A. relationship B. dependence C. sentence D. context

130. _____ is a design feature of human language that enables speakers to talk about a

wide range of things, free from barriers caused by separation in time and space.

A. Cultural transmission B. Duality

C. Displacement D. Productivity

121-130: D C D A B C B B D C

131. Robert Browning‟s “May Last Duchess” is composed in the form of a(n)____.

A. dramatic monologue B. extended metaphor

C. syllogistic argument D. dialogue

132. The novel starts with “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in

possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” This novel is Jane Austen‟s

____.

A. Emma B. Persuasion

C. Sense and Sensibility D. Pride and Prejudice

133. I‟m Nobody is a poem by ____ in the form of “dramatic monologue”.

A. Ralph Waldo Emerson B. Emily Dickinson

C. Edgar Allan Poe D. Robert Browning

134. The Middle Ages is also called the ____.

A. “Age of Faith” B. “Age of Christianity”

C. “Age of Holy Spirit” D. “Age of Literature”

135. In the latter part of the 4th century, which of the following tribes swept into

Europe from central Asia, robbing and killing large numbers of the half civilized

Germanic tribes?

A. the Mongolians B. the Turkish

C. the Syrians D. the Huns

136. Who is the most influential person in the Canadian government?

A. the Queen B. the Prime Minister

C. the Parliament D. the Govbernor-General

137. The Queen is represented by ____ in Canada.

A. The leader of the majority party B. the Prime Minister

C. the Parliament D. the Governor-General

138. Traditional grammarians begin with ____ definition of the sentence and its

components.

A. structural B. notional C. descriptive D. prescriptive

139. ____ is defined as any regionally or socially definable human group identified by

shared linguistic system.

A. A speech community B. A race

C. A society D. A country

140. ____ invasions established three major groups in England: Saxons, Angles and

Jutes.

A. Germanic B. Norman C. French D. Roman

131-140: A D B A D B D B A A

141. Moby Dick is a novel by ____.

A. Edgar Allan Poe B. Nanthaniel Hawthorn

C. Herman Melville D. Henry James

142. The God Father is written by ____.

A. Margaret Millar B. Mario Puzo C. Dashiell Hammett D.

Helen Eustis

143. The major concern of _____fiction lies in the tracing of the psychological

development of his characters and in his energetic criticism of the dehumanizing

effect of the capitalist industrialization on human nature.

A. Charles Dickens‟ B. D.H. Lawrence‟s

C. Thomas Hardy‟s D. John Galsworthy‟s

144. In Canada the Head of State is ____.

A. the Prime Minister B. the leader of the majority party

C. the government-General D. Queen Elizabeth II

145. What is the other official language besides English in Canada?

A. German B. Japanese C. French D. Finnish

146. The president of the Lords in Britain is called _____

A. Lord Chancellor B. Speaker C. Prime Minister D.

President

147. The Church was divided into the Roman Catholic Church and Eastern Orthodox

Church after ____.

A. 1066 B. 1296 C. 1054 D. 476

148. Japanese is the only major language that uses ____ writing system.

A. a word writing B. a logographic

C. an alphabetic D. a syllabic

149. ____ is one whose distribution is functionally equivalent to that of one or more

of its constituents, i.e. a word or a group of words, which serves as a definable

“centre” or “head”.

A. Exocentric construction B. Coordination

C. Endocentric construction D. Collocation

150. Of the following linguists, ____ should not be grouped into American school.

A. Firth B. Sapir C. Bloomfield D. Boas

141-150: C B B D C A C D C A