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 1951:

  'Everything in this room outrages my sense of beauty, undermine my will to create pictures of lasting appeal...'

  The speaker in the quotation above is

  Options:
  A) Happy
  B) Excited
  C) Tired
  D) Frusrated
  Show Answer
  The correct answer is D .
• Question 1952: This question is based on General Literary Principles.The sides of a stage are called Options:
  A) the ways
  B) both sides
  C) the pits
  D) the wings
  Show Answer
  The correct answer is D .
• Question 1953:

  This question is based on Literary Principles.

  'Ocol rejects the old type.

  He is in love with a modern woman

  He is in love with a beautiful girl

  Who speaks English.'

  Okot p'Bitek, 'Song of Lawino'

  The writer of the lines above

  Options:
  A) ridicules Ocol's value judgment
  B) is critical of the modern woman
  C) appraises people who speak English
  D) shuns the old type of woman
  Show Answer
  The correct answer is B .
• Question 1954:

  'It was a town of red brick, or of brick that would have been red if the smoke and ashes had allowed it; but as matters stood it was a town of unnatural red and black like the painted face of a savage. It contained several large streets all very like one another, and many small streets still more like one another, inhabited by people equally like one another, who all went in and out at the same hours...'

  The description of the town in this passage suggests

  Options:
  A) peaceful co-existence
  B) lack of progress
  C) warmth and friendliness
  D) organized living
  E) monotony
  Show Answer
  The correct answer is E .
• Question 1955:

  This question is based on zaynab Alkali's The Stillborn.

  'My blood is hot, but my flesh is famished...

  The rains have come, the field is prepared,

  But my field remains untilled,...

  The statement above reflects the

  Options:
  A) laziness of the farmer
  B) agony of unfulfilment
  C) agony of a wasted fertility
  D) consequences of an unrequited love
  Show Answer
  The correct answer is C .
• Question 1956:

  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.

  Oswald Mtshali's 'They Washerwoman's Prayer' is

  Options:
  A) a pious appeal to God
  B) about the permanence of apartheid
  C) concerned with laundry
  D) about slave labour
  Show Answer
  The correct answer is D .
• Question 1957:

  This question is based on Literary Principles.

  'SINCE I am coming to that Holy roome,

  Where, with thy Quire of Saints for evermore

  I shall be made thy Musique; As I come

  I tune the Instrument here at the dore,

  And what I must doe then, thinke here before.'

  John Donne, 'hymn to God my God'

  In the stanza above, the poet recognizes that

  Options:
  A) God is his creator
  B) he is a choir master
  C) there is music in heaven
  D) he is near his death
  Show Answer
  The correct answer is D .
• Question 1958: This question is based on General Literary Principles.The continuation of meaning without pause, from one line to the next is Options:
  A) synecdoche
  B) melodrama
  C) enjambment
  D) alliteration
  Show Answer
  The correct answer is C .
• Question 1959: "Carrying a heavy bundle of tightly wrapped bits and pieces of junk drooping over his face" The excerpt above exemplifies _______? Options:
  A) Irony
  B) synedoche
  C) symbolism
  D) euphemism
  Show Answer
  The correct answer is C .
• Question 1960:

  This question is based on General Literary Principles.

  '...let the greying day grow

  ....let the evening horns blow

  ....let the melting mountains go

  ....but let the sundown sow''

  To Wole with Love' by Atukwei Okai

  The use of the words 'melting mountains' is

  Options:
  A) metaphorical
  B) symbolical
  C) alliterative
  D) rhythmical
  Show Answer
  The correct answer is C .