1. Fiction that draws attention to its own process of composition is called

A. Novelette

B. Novella

C. Metafiction

D. Nouveau Roman

2. When a person is anhedonic, he/she is

A. unable to experience extreme pleasure

B. able to experience extreme pleasure

C. unable to experience any pleasure

D. able to experience some pleasure

3. The story of an imaginary sister of Shakespeare was used to make a point by

A. Kate Millett

B. Mary Shelley

C. Virginia Woolf

D. Katherine Mansfield

4. Among the rivers of the underworld in Greek mythology, the one which induces memory loss is:

A. Styx

B. Acheron

C. Phlegethon

D. Lethe

5. The Biblical story about the talents is a

A. Proverb

B. Fantasy·

C. Parable

D. Fable

6. Small World, The Masters and Nice Work are

A. Detective novels

B. Campus novels

C. Memoirs

D. Travel narratives

7. "He scarce had finisht, when such murmur filled
Assembly, as when hollow Rocks retain
The sound of blustering winds, which all night long
Had rous'd the Sea, now with hoarse cadence lull
Sea"faring men o'erwatcht, whose Bark by chance
Or Pinnace anchors in a craggy Bay
After the Tempest: Such applause was heard
As Mammon ended, and his Sentence pleas'd,
Advising peace:..."

The above lines illustrate

A. Synecdoche

B. Epic simile

C. Paradox

D. Visual metaphor

8. "Coconut shy" is

A. Someone who is embarrassed by coconuts

B. A game where you throw coconuts

C. Someone injured by a falling coconut

D. A game where you throw balls at coconuts

9. Wide Sargasso Sea is a reworking of

A. Frankenstein

B. Jane Eyre

C. The Bluest Eye

D. Emma

10. What do The Lord a/the Flies, 1984, Brave New World and The Road share in common?

A. They are all utopias.

B. They are all dystopias.

C. They are all about environmental disaster.

D. They are all about nuclear holocaust.

11. "To blot one's copy book" is

A. To allow one's copy book to be blotted

B. To be scolded by the teacher for spoiling the answer

C. To make a serious mistake

D. To plagiarize one's answer in the copy book

Questions 12-16 are based on the following poem:

Two Gods: the one in the closet
and the one from school days
and both are not mine. I opened
the door on God at dusk and closed

him the rest of the day. He perched
on the ledge above my father's shirts
and wool suits, a mandir in every Hindu
house, ours smelling of starch, surrounded

by ties and old suitcases. I was the ghost
at school, sat on the pew and watched
as other girls held God under tht:ir tongues.
My lips remember the prayer my parents

taught me those evenings with their bedroom
closet open-Ganesh carved in metal, Krishna
blue in a frame. I don't remember the translation,
never sure I really knew it. I got mixed up sometimes,

said a section ofthe "Our Father" in the middle
ofthe arti, ending in Amen when I meant Krishna,
Krishna,not sure when to kneel and when to touch
someone's feet with my hands.

12. The narrator's mandir at home is located in

A. The kitchen and laundry room

B. The closet in her parents' room

C. In an old suitcase

D. The closet in her room

13. While the speaker comes from a Hindu home her days are spent at

A. A Christian school where she feels at home

B. A Christian school where she remains a ghostly presence

C. A non-religious school

D. Her friends' homes

14. The statement that neither of the Gods is hers refers to

A. Krishna and Ganesh

B. Edible Gods

C. The Christian and the Hindu deities

D. The Gods ofthe Hindu pantheon

15. The speaker presents a dilemma in which, as she looks back, she is not confused about

A. Religious rites and rituals

B. Deities and gods

C. Prayers and chants

D. What her position is regarding all of the above.

16. This poem could be an example of

A. Diasporic poetry

B. Feminist poetry

C. Carpe diem poetry

D. All of the above

Questions 17-20 are based on the following passage:

A forest is the metaphor for this site. Like a forest, rhetoric provides tremendous resources for many purposes. However, one can easily become lost in a large, complex habitat (whether it be oneofwoodor ofwit). Theorganization ofthiscentralpageandthehyperlinks withinindividual pages should provide a map, a discernible trail, to lay hold of the utility and beauty of this language discipline.

Don't be scared of the intimidating detail suggested by the odd Greek and Latin tenns. After all, you can enjoy the simple beauty of a birch tree without knowing it is Betula alba and make use of the shade of a weeping willow without knowing it is in fact Salix babylonica. The same is possible with rhetoric. The names aid categorization and are more or less conventional, but I encourage you to get past the sesquipedalian labels and observe the examples and the sa..'11ple criticism (rhetoric in practice). It is beyond the definitions that the power of rhetoric is made apparent.

17. The passage begins with the statement that "A forest is the metaphor for this site". Another statement that uses the same metaphor is

A. That of the'discernibletrail'

B. The usage of polysyllabic names and labels

C. The definitions within the site

D. The power of rhetoric

18. By pointing out that one can get lost in a large habitat the author gestures at

A. The fact that one can't see the wood for the trees

B. The nature ofthe discipline of rhetoric

C. The impossibility of finding one's way in wooded areas

D. All of the above.

19. According to the passage, the power of rhetoric lies

A. In the definitions

B. In the samples that the site will provide

C. Beyond the definitions and in the examples

D. In an indiscernible idyllic state

20. Which of the following is not true? By giving the botanical names ofthe trees the author

A. Draws yet another parallel between forests and rhetoric

B. Shows how irrelevant scientific or disciplinary names are for enjoyment

C. Brings out the fact that the names of rhetorical devices and trees are drawn from Latin and Greek words

D. Demonstrates that it is the pleasure that trees and words give that is important.

21. A villanelle is

A. A house of Italian design

B. A verse form consisting of five three-line stanzas and a final quatrain

C. A verse form which tells a story, with a moral repeated after every stanza

D. The French name for a cottage

22. By tone is meant the feature of a piece of writing or speech that shows the writer's/speciker's attitude towards

A. the audience

B. the theme of the text concerned

C. the persons or speakers in the text concerned

D. all of the above

23. John Milton's "On the Morning ofChrist's Nativity" is commonly known as the "Nativity Ode." What does nativity mean?

A. birth

B. country

C. Christmas

D. celebration

24. "Warm colours," "clear sounds," "sharp smells," etc. are examples of

A. anesthesia

B. synaesthesia

C. paronomasia

D. amnesia

25. If someone were to observe that William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar was written to condemn Fascism, the observation will be considered

A. allegorical

B. anachronistic

C. absurd

D. arguable

26. I wish that she were here now.

The above is a sentence in the

A. Subjective Mood

B. Subjunctive Mood

C. Objective Mood

D. Indicative Mood

27. Match the following titles (list with their corresponding subtitles/ titular extensions (list

The Unfortunate Traveller
MacFlecknoe
Roxana
Pamela
The Rape ofthe Lock
The History ofTom Jones

i. A Foundling
ii. Or a Satire upon the True-Blue-Protestant Poet, T. S.
iii. Or Virtue Rewarded
iv. Or The Life ofJack Wilton
v. An Heroic-Comical Poem
vi. Or The Fortunate Mistress

A.

B.

C.

D.

28. From among the following statements on A Journal ofthe Plague Year identify the statements that are TRUE.

The account ofthe Great Plague is given by H. F., a saddler of Whitechapel.

This is an autobiographical account by Daniel Defoe who lived through the year as a child in London.

The vivid account of the epidemic focuses on its symptoms, sufferings of the victims, and burial of the dead.

The year of the Plague was 1700-'01.

A. 1 and 4 are true.

B. 2 and 3 are true.

C. 1 and 3 are true.

D. 2 and 4 are true.

29. Christian of Pilgrim Progress advances through the following locales, each allegorically associated with suffering, sin, pleasure, etc. Identify the correct group of locales that appear in Pilgrim Progress (Part I).

A. Slough of Despond, The House Beautiful, The Valley of Humiliation, The Valley of the Shadow of Death, Vanity Fair, Doubting Castle.

B. Slough of Despond, The House.Beautiful, The Valley of Humiliation, The Cavernous Muddle, The Landscape ofNightmare, Pillory and Stocks.

C. The Den of Profligates, The Haunted Cathedral, Pillory and Stocks, Slough of Despond, The House Beautiful, The Valley of Humiliation.

D. The Den of Profligates, The Haunted Cathedral, The Cavernous Muddle, The Landscape of Nightmare, Vanity Fair, Doubting Castle.

30. How did the Fly interpose in "I heard a Fly buzz..." by Emily Dickinson?

A. With Buzz-uncertain stumbling Blue-

B. Between the Heaves of Storm

C. When the Windows failed-

D. With Blue-uncertain stumbling Buzz­

31. "A poet cannot help being influenced, therefore he should subject himself to as many influences as possible, in order to escape from anyone influence. He may have original talent: but originality has also to be cultivated; it takes time to mature, and maturing consists largely of the taking in and digesting various influences" (T. S. Eliot).

What Eliot suggests, in sum, is

that poets must be open to various influences without the slightest guilt or shame; that they do not have to be needlessly anxious about 'originality'; that originality is largely a myth; that it is rather immature to believe in such things as 'genuine' and 'original'; that originality can only be cultivated; that poets can afford not to be influenced by other writers.

A. and

B. and

C. and

D. and

Questions 32-36 are based on the following passage.

O'ne of the ways in which our experience of being human is both extended and defined is through those activities we may broadly classify as When we are playing, we suspend or bracket off certain features of reality: we pretend, we allow the imagined to stand in for the actual, and in this way we can get some kind of perspective on the actual, including aspects of it which we are uneasy with or which we can't quite address directly. has some resemblance to in these respects: it's a temporarily roped-off space in which some imagined alternatives to, or modifications of, reality can be explored-can be, as we say, played with. But not everyone likes having his or her life put into that space, however briefly and playfully.

Some art isn't nice either, and the more it seems to comment on our actual lives the less are inclined to extend it to the equivalent of playground privileges. But acknowledging the special protocols of what goes on in the roped-off area is as important in literature as it is in boxing. Treating an imaginative representation as indistinguishable from the reality it represents-often in rather mysterious ways-puts us in the position of the dog that runs behind the TV screen to catch the rabbit that has just passed across it. And the upsetting nature of the representation may be precisely what makes it a valuable kind of play. Certainly, if we try to decide for other people what kind of discomfort they should be spared, we may find ourselves denying them precisely the kind of imaginative experience they are most in need of. Perhaps egotistical old men shouldn't be forced to watch Shakespeare's King Lear, but nor should they have the right to prevent it from being staged because they find it hurtful. We diminish rather than sustain their autonomy if we try to second:..guess what will offend their identity in order to protect them.

32. lfthe gist of the first paragraph were to be captured in a phrase, which of the following
would you prefer?

A. the dubious role art plays in human lives

B. the beneficial role art plays in human lives

C. the resemblance of art to fun and games

D. the access extended or denied by art

33. What can be "played with," according to the author?

A. experience

B. reality

C. alternatives to reality

D. modifications of reality

34. Where does the fun stop in the of art?

A. when art hardly amuses us by being too critical.

B. when we: take art too seriously to notice its fun.

C. when art looks the other way than we do.

D. when art becomes indistinguishable from

35. Why does the author suggest that "the upsetting nature of the representation may be precisely what makes it a valuable kind of play"?

A. If we treat an imaginative representation as indistinguishable from the reality it represents, it might upset us.

B. We should be able to distinguish between the serious and playful in art.

C. Art should ideally enable us to confront the unpleasant just as much as the pleasant.

D. It is the function of art not only to please and flatter but also to displease and offend us.

36. Why should we refrain from anticipating what might or might not offend people while presenting art objects?

A. The imaginative experience art affords, that which is most crucial to individuals, can neither be known nor ascertained.

B. The more art comments on individual lives the less it is likely to be appreciated by people.

C. At play, we are not our usual selves but unusual or imagined selves.

D. Art provides for an imagined space where selves interact and know themselves better.

37. Who wrote:
Where the remote Bermudas ride,
In the ocean's bosom unespied,
From a small boat, that rowed along,
The listening winds received this song.

A. Dover Beach, MathewArnold

B. A River, A.K. Ramanujam

C. Odyssey, Homer

D. Bermudas, Andrew Marvell

38. What is a dottle?

A. Brandy measure

B. part of a motor car

C. unsmoked plug of tobacco

D. Eskimo dog

39. To whom is the famous motto -"Lead, Kindly Light" -attributed?

A. Cardinal Newman

B. The Bible

C. Pope John Paul IV

D. John Donne

40. On a lovely, beautiful morning, he walked down the road noticing quickly the furtive glances that mothers huddling their children very closely to their bosoms gave him.

From the above sentence you deduce that

A. Adverbs qualify verbs

B. Adverbs qualify verbs and adjectives

C. Adverbs qualify verbs, adverbs and adjectives

D. Adverbs qualify verbs, adverbs, adjectives and articles

41. Senescence is related to

A. Innocent infancy

B. Blooming youth

C. Mature middle-age

D. Doddering old age

42. Which of the following is correct?

There are five vowels in English.
There are twelve pure vowels in English.
There are eight diphthongs in English.

A. and are correct

B. and are correct

C. and are correct

D. Only is correct

43. A History of Indian English Literature is written by

A. K. R. Srinivasa Iyengar

B. M. K. Naik

C. Bruce King

D. K. Ayyappa Paniker

44. A verse stanza of 4 lines is called

A. quatrain

B. quarto

C. quartet

D. quartz

Questions 45-49 are based on the following passage:

Folklore is the term that needs to be problematized, since neither of its lexical components is any longer usable in a simple and straightforward way. Lore is a problematic word, laden with earlier European conceptions about the knowledge and beliefs of others. Like the word belief, lore is a term that implies knowledge that is somehow weaker in its epistemological foundations, more evanescent in its relationship to social life, and hazier in its grasp on history, than words like knowledge, theory, and world view. Each of these latter terms has its own problems, but they do not definitionally privilege the knowledge of the observer over the knowledge of those persons and traditions of which he or she speaks. Lore is a poor word to describe the very rich variety of texts and practices, of strategies and of structures, of arguments and of counterarguments of considered research.
The same is true of the prime component of the term folklore, the word folk. While anthropologists have spoken of primitives, savages, and exotics in other parts of the world (and have rightly been castigated for the implicit meaning of these terms), the term folk has, until recently, been reserved for the historical predecessors in the Euro-American West. The in folklore were typically regarded as existing in complex, preindustrial social formations, but Were not seen as 'primitives,' or 'savages.' That is, as many folklorists have recognized especially in the U. S., the idea of the is not only a romantic idea, but also an intrinsically self-referential and essentialist idea, which did facilitate the kind of fantastic and horrifying spectacle of nationhood which the Nazis erected around the German term volk.

The point is that both the lore and the folk who produce and enjoy it are far more complex realities than these terms have allowed us to imagine. Any artificial homogeneity implied by the term folk masks many social diversities: of class, of gender, of region, of skill, of taste, and of temperament. What is more, the idea of the folk in South Asia creates an illusion not just of synchronic homogeneity but also of historical and geographical fixity. Such fixity is not characteristic of the complex temporal dialogues and polylogues that performers, patrons, and audiences have been engaged in for centuries in South Asia. As to their lore, it comprises many layers of knowledge and of understanding, of belief and of irony, of certainty and of doubt, of 'common' sense and of 'uncommon' possibilities. Pleas for terminological rehabilitation, such as this one, are fraught with peril, especially when we are concerned with the discursive habits of 'departments,' and 'disciplines' in the modem university. Disciplinary labels carry deep epistemic and political force, as do master terms such asfolk, native, and primitive, which always threaten to drag anthropology and folklore back into aspects of their prehistories with which most contemporary practitioners are deeply uncomfortable.

45. From among the following statements select the closest in terms of accuracy and fairness in description:

A. This passage pleads for the restitution of folklore in the current debates centred on key terms in anthropological research.

B. This passage pleads for the restitution of folklore within departments,' and 'disciplines' of the modem university.
C. This passage cautions folklorists against assuming that the grounds on which they build categories and draw distinctions are always safe and tenable.

D. This passage cautions amateur folklorists against assuming that their motives and methods ofinvestigation are as good as those ofprofessional folklorists.

46. From among the following statements select the closest in terms of accuracy and fairness in description:

A. Evidently, the author of this passage is critical of non-western assumptions that help build and sustain suspicious terms and tendentious discursive practices in studying western societies.

B. Evidently, the author of this passage is uncritical of western assumptions that help build and sustain suspicious terms and tendentious discursive practices in studying non-western societies.

C. Evidently, the author ofthis passage is uncritical of non-western assumptions that help build and sustain suspicious terms and tendentious discursive practices in studying western societies.

D. Evidently, the author of this passage is critical of western assumptions that help build and sustain suspicious terms and tendentious discursive practices in studying non­western societies.

47. The author suggests that lore

A. is no longer tenable in sophisticated western discourses.

B. puts us in doubt about its methodological finesse.

C. fares badly in comparison with respectable forms of knowledge and experience.

D. fares badly in comparison with redoubtable forms of knowledge and experience.

48. From among the following statements select the closest in terms of accuracy and fairness in description:

A. According to the author, it is simplistic, if erroneous, to believe that folk who produce the lore do not always enjoy it.

B. According to the author, it is simplistic, if erroneous, to believe that folk who produce the lore always enjoy it.

C. According to the author, it is simplistic, if erroneous, to believe that folk and the lore produced by them stand in a mutually uncomplicated relationship.

D. According to the author, it is simplistic, if erroneous, to believe that folk who produce the lore and the lore that produces the folk are imaginary.

49. According to the author,folk not only

A. blurs identities but flattens indices of class, gender, region, skill, taste, etc.

homogenizes groups and classes but synchronizes and fixes them geographically and historically.

C. homogenizes their lays and lore but synchronizes and fixes them geographically and historically.

D. blurs synchronic and diachronic distinctions but flattens ethnic and other differences.

50. Who among the following is the author of Resisting Linguistic Imperialism in English Teaching?

A. A. S. Canagarajah

B. Anthony Giddens

C. Robert Phillipson

D. A. Pennycook



1. New Media, New Narratives

2. The End(s) of Theory

3. 'Wodding' in the Novel

4. The Industrial Revolution and Victorian Literature

5. Shakespeare on the Page: Shakespeare on the Screen

6. The Fate of Indian Drama in English

7. Reading Children Reading

8. am Indian English!'

9. Bibliotherapy

10. Romantic Agony


61. What cross-cultural communication takes place in the following poem? What does it tell you generaliy about the personae and the worlds they inhabit?

Echo Elixir 2

Cairo's taxi drivers speak to me in English.
I answer, and they say your Arabic is good.
How long have you been with us? All my life
I tell them, but never believed.
They speak to me in Farsi, speak to me in Greek,
and I answer with mountains of gold and silver,
ghost ships sailing the weed-choked seas.
And when they speak to me in Spanish,
I say Moriscos and Alhambra.
I say Jews rescued by Ottoman boats.
And when they speak to me in Portuguese,


all my life I tell them, coffee, cocoa,
Indians and poisoned spears.
I say Afonsso king of Bikongo writing
Manuel to free his enslaved sons.
And Cairo's·taxi drivers tell me
your Arabic is surprisingly good.
Then they speak to me in Italian,
and I tell them how I lay swaddled
a month's walk from here. Itell them
camps in the desert, barbed wire, wives
and daughters dying, camels frothing disease,
the sand stretching an endless pool.
And they say so good so good.
How long have you been with us?
All my life, but never believed.
Then they speak to me in French,
and I answer Jamila, Leopold, Stanley,
baskets of severed hands and feet.
I say the horror, battles of Algiers.
And they speak to me in English
and I say Lucknow, Arbenz. I say indigo,
Hiroshima, continents soaked in tea.
I play the drum beat of stamps. I invoke
Mrs. Cummings, U.S. consul in Athens,
I say Ishi, Custer, Wounded Knee.
And Cairo's taxi drivers tell me
your Arabic is unbelievably good.
Tell the truth now, tell the truth,
how long have you been with us?
I say my first name is little lion,
my last name is broken branch.
I sing "Happiness uncontainable"
and "field greening in March"
until sad and tired of truth,
and as usual never believed.


Then they lead me through congestion,
gritty air, narrow streets crowded with
Pepsi and Daewoo and the sunken faces
of the poor. And when we arrive, Cairo's
taxi drivers and I speak all the languages
of the world, and we argue and argue about
corruption, disillusionment, the missed chances,
the wicked binds, the cataclysmic fares.