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 1601:

  This question is based on Ernest Hermingway's The Old Man and the Sea

  Santiago loses his catch to the sharks because

  Options:
  A) the blood attracts them
  B) he does not sail home early
  C) the sharks are predators
  D) it is too dark
  Show Answer
  The correct answer is B .
• Question 1602:

  This question is based on Isidore Okpewho's The Victims.

  'It ish only becaush of your late feda that we have been sho shilent. When we came to thish town and had nowhere to shtay, hw gave ush shelter, then let ush work on hish farm and fed ush there

  He ish the one we are yeshpecting '.

  This passage is written in this way in order to show that the speaker

  Options:
  A) cannot spell correctly
  B) cannot speak English correctly
  C) is a stranger
  D) is very angry
  Show Answer
  The correct answer is B .
• Question 1603:

  This question is based on Wole Soyinka's The Trials of Brother Jero.

  The play is

  Options:
  A) a melodrama
  B) a tragedy
  C) an epic
  D) a farce
  Show Answer
  The correct answer is A .
• Question 1604:

  This question is based on General Literary Principles

  Empathy is achieved when the audience

  Options:
  A) feels betrayed bythe director
  B) denounces and humiliates the protagonist
  C) vicariously participates in the stage experience
  D) attacks the character foil
  Show Answer
  The correct answer is C .
• Question 1605:

  Use the extract below to answer questions

  Line 1: My heart leaps up when I behold
  Line 2: A rainbow in the sky
  Line 3: so was it when my life began
  Line 4: so is it now
  Line 5: so is it when I have grown
  Line 6: the child is the father of the man.

  The mood of the writer is that of _____?

  Options:
  A) Elation
  B) Sarcasm
  C) Sorrow
  D) Anxiety
  Show Answer
  The correct answer is A .
• Question 1606: These question are 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; Umukoro M. et al: Exam Focus: Literature in English; Eruvbetine, A.E. et al (eds.): Longman Examination Guides: Poetry for Senior Secondray Schools NWOGA, d.i. (ED.) West African Verse.The tone of Umeh's Ambassadors of Poverty can be described as Options:
  A) panegyrical
  B) metaphorical
  C) sarcastic
  D) admonitory
  Show Answer
  The correct answer is C .
• Question 1607: This question is based on Charles Dicken's Great Expectations.
  Í am ugly but I can buy myself the most beautiful of women. Therefore I am not ugly....I according to my individual characteristics am lame but money furnishes me with twenty-four feet.
  Therefore I am not lame. I am bad, dishonest unscrupulous, stupid; but money is honoured, and hence its possessor...I am brainless, but money is the real brain of all things and how then should its possessor be brainless ? Besides, he can buy clever people for himself and is he who has power over the clever not more clever than the clever?
  The writer of the above passage is Options:
  A) jealous of rich and influential people
  B) overwhelmed by the power of money
  C) contemptuous of the poor
  D) indirectly exposing the negative influence of money
  Show Answer
  The correct answer is D .
• Question 1608:

  The question is based on William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. "What, drawn and talk of peace? I hate

  The word As I hate hell, all Montagues,

  And thee Have at thee,coward!"Based on William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, the lines above reveal the speaker as a

  Options:
  A) real Montague
  B) trouble shooter
  C) violence seeker
  D) peace maker
  Show Answer
  The correct answer is C .
• Question 1609:

  This question is based on Literary Principles.

  ''Virture in Russia as in his childhood, seemed something that arose from men, like a comforting body odour, rather than something from above that impaled the struggling soul like a moth on a pin.''

  John Updike, Beech: A Book

  The tone of the passage above is

  Options:
  A) authoritative
  B) mocking
  C) appreciative
  D) scathing
  Show Answer
  The correct answer is D .
• Question 1610: Based on George Orwell's Ninety Eighty-Four, the Ministry of Love is concerned with Options:
  A) peace and freedom
  B) torture and pain
  C) joy and peace
  D) hatred and pain
  Show Answer
  The correct answer is A .