Literature-In-English Exam Past Questions and Answers | JAMB, WAEC and NECO

Literature in English is the study of works written in the English language. It includes all forms of writing, such as novels, plays, short stories, and poetry. This subject involves exploring and analyzing these texts to understand their themes and meanings.

• Question 1:

  "... They do not see the funeral plies, At home eating up the forests..." J.P Clark: Casualties"

  The imagery created in the above excerpt is achieved through______

  Options:
  A) Metaphor
  B) Personification
  C) Synecdoche
  D) Metonymy
  Show Answer
  The correct answer is B .
• Question 2:

  "The sun used to smile in my hut".

  The line is an example of

  Options:
  A) Apostrophe
  B) personification
  C) Rhetorical Question
  D) Zeugma
  Show Answer
  The correct answer is B .
• Question 3:

  This question is based on General Literary Principles.

  Hyperbole refers specifically to

  Options:
  A) exaggeration for adornment
  B) exaggeration for emphasis
  C) understatement of ideas
  D) restatement of ideas
  Show Answer
  The correct answer is B .
• Question 4:

  These question are based on literary Appreciation.''Do not thank me,instead, let me ask you a question. Now you have all come here sprawling,vomitting,rubbing tears on one another begging me to do my duty and help you. But what about you yourselves? What have you done to help yourselves?

  Answer. Or is the land at peace?

  Are not people ailing and dying

  Ola Rotimi: The God''s Are Not

  To Blame

  Options:
  A) chieftancy tussel
  B) political unrest
  C) sickness and death
  D) famine and war
  Show Answer
  The correct answer is D .
• Question 5: These qustion is based on selected poems from Johnson, R, et al (eds.): New Poetry from Africa; Soyinka, W. (ED.): Poems of Black Africa; Senanu, K.E. and Vincent, T. (eds.): A Selection of African Poetry: U. Maduka, C.T et al: Exam Focus: Literature Examination Guides; Nwoga, D.I. (ed.): West African Verse and Adeoti G: Naked Soles.Elliot's The Journey of the Magi could be said to examine the issues of Options:
  A) three trees on the low sky
  B) empty wine-skins
  C) spiritual rebirth
  D) holy pilgrimage
  Show Answer
  The correct answer is C .
• Question 6:

  This question is based on selected poems from D. Ker, C. Maduka et al (eds.): New poetry from Africa, Wole Soyinka (ed.): Poems of Black Africa, K.E. Senanu and T. Vincent (eds.): A Selection of African poetry and E.W. Parker (ed.): A Pageant of Longer Poems.

  In my last Duchess', the poet complains about the Duchess'

  Options:
  A) indiscriminate love and admiration
  B) unrestrained blushing
  C) officious fool
  D) intermitent smiles
  Show Answer
  The correct answer is C .
• Question 7:

  'For i have known them all already, known them all.

  Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,

  I have measured out my life with coffee spoons'.

  The tone in these lines suggest

  Options:
  A) the authors desire to accomplish more in life
  B) anxiety and tension
  C) tediousness and boredom
  D) anger and exasperation.
  Show Answer
  The correct answer is C .
• Question 8:

  "The officer, surrounded by these noises,

  Was moved and a little embarrassed.He turned away

  To give them time to pull themselves together, and

  Waited, allowing his eyes to rest on the trim cruiser

  In the distance."Based on the novel Piggy's,in the above passage,Golding focuses on the

  Options:
  A) sympathy and pity the officer feels for the children
  B) contrast between savagery and order
  C) inability of the children to organize themselves
  D) children's emotional state and its consequences
  Show Answer
  The correct answer is A .
• Question 9: When the speech is written so as to be understood in one way by a certain character, while the audience or another character understands it to have some secret and special meaning, the literary device used in this context is called Options:
  A) dramatic irony
  B) paradox
  C) allusion
  D) hyperbole.
  Show Answer
  The correct answer is A .
• Question 10:

  This question is based on General Literary Principles and Literary Appreciation

  'Though nothing can bring back the hour of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower.'

  We will grieve not, rather find

  Strength in what remains behind',....

  'Ode- Intimations of Immorality

  By William Worthsworth

  The above lines convey a sense of

  Options:
  A) dejection
  B) uneasy acceptance
  C) deep distress
  D) nostalgia
  Show Answer
  The correct answer is B .