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 21:

  This question is based on William Shakespeare' s Twelfth Night.

  Come away, come away, death,

  And in sad cypress let me be laid...

  In the lines above, the character is

  Options:
  A) expressing his unhappiness about death
  B) expressing his preference for a cypress coffin
  C) lamenting over his unreciprocated love
  D) wishing for death to come
  Show Answer
  The correct answer is C .
• Question 22:

  This question is based on selected poems from R. Johnson and D. Ker, et al (ed.): New poetry from Africa; Wole Soyinka (ed.): poems Black Africa; K.E. senanu and T. Vincent (eds.): A Selection of African poetry; M. Umukoro and A Sani, et al (eds.): Exam Focus: Literature - in - English; A.E. Eruvbetine and M. Jibril, et al (eds.): Longman Examination Guides: poetry: E.W. Parker (ed.): A Pageant of Longer poems and D.I. Nwoga (ed.): West African Verse.

  The rhyming pattern in the last stanza of Okigbo' s Hurrah for Thunder' makes the stanza

  Options:
  A) an octave
  B) a quatrain
  C) a couplet
  D) a sestet
  Show Answer
  The correct answer is C .
• Question 23: This question is based on Charles Dicken's Great Expectations.
  A play is called a comedy when Options:
  A) there is peaceful atmosphere and laughter in it
  B) nobody dies in it
  C) there is no serious quarrel in it
  D) there is a happy resolution of contradictions
  Show Answer
  The correct answer is D .
• Question 24: Achebe's Things Fall Apart, can be described as a Options:
  A) regional novel
  B) detective novel
  C) romatic novel
  D) historical novel
  E) novel of social criticism.
  Show Answer
  The correct answer is D .
• Question 25:

  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 rhyme scheme of the poem is_________

  Options:
  A) acbcca
  B) abccdc
  C) abcdcc
  D) abacbc
  Show Answer
  The correct answer is C .
• Question 26:

  'Earth has not anything to show more fair.

  Dull would he be of soul who could pass by

  A sight so touching in its majesty:

  This city now doth, like a garment, wear

  The beauty of the morning'.

  It is suggested in this lines that

  Options:
  A) the beauty of the morning gains from the beauty of the city
  B) the beauty of the city gains from the beauty of the morning
  C) the beauty of the city and the beauty of the morning are unrelated
  D) the beauty of the same has nothing to do with either the city or the morning
  E) there is no beauty on earth
  Show Answer
  The correct answer is B .
• Question 27:

  This question is based on Literary Principles.

  '''Yet lunchtime ''

  Without thinking of what of what he was saying

  The man tapped out, 'Not food'.

  Insu Siding answered, 'Plenty here''.

  And a conversation had begun.

  ''Lucky''.

  ''Come. Transfer. Easy''

  ''Can't.''

  ''Why?''

  ''Secret.''

  ''Familu?''

  ''Secret''.

  The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born by A.K. Armah.

  This is an example of a dialogue that is

  Options:
  A) pitchy
  B) witty
  C) laconic
  D) simple
  Show Answer
  The correct answer is C .
• Question 28:

  You

  Your head is like a drum that is beaten

  For spirits

  Your ears are like the fans used for

  Blowing fire.The lines above are a good example of

  Options:
  A) satire
  B) lampoon
  C) caricature
  D) ridicule
  Show Answer
  The correct answer is D .
• Question 29:

  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 30:

  A literacy genre which directly imitates human actions is______?

  Options:
  A) Drama
  B) comedy
  C) Prose
  D) Poetry
  Show Answer
  The correct answer is A .