SUBJECTS
|
BROWSE
|
CAREER CENTER
|
POPULAR
|
JOIN
|
LOGIN
Business Skills
|
Soft Skills
|
Basic Literacy
|
Certifications
About
|
Help
|
Privacy
|
Terms
|
Email
Search
Test your basic knowledge |
CLEP American Literature
Start Test
Study First
Subjects
:
clep
,
literature
Instructions:
Answer 50 questions in 15 minutes.
If you are not ready to take this test, you can
study here
.
Match each statement with the correct term.
Don't refresh. All questions and answers are randomly picked and ordered every time you load a test.
This is a study tool. The 3 wrong answers for each question are randomly chosen from answers to other questions. So, you might find at times the answers obvious, but you will see it re-enforces your understanding as you take the test each time.
1. Wrote 'The Souls of Black Folk' - Founder of the NAACP
Gothic
W.E.B Du Bois
James Baldwin
Robert Benchley - Will Rogers and the Marx Brothers
2. Writings portray the lives of poor - oppressed black women in the early 1900s.
Iambic Pentameter
Erica Jong
Determinism
Alice Walker
3. Wrote 'The House of Mirth -' and 'The Age of Innocence' most famous for 'Ethan Frome' Noted use of indirection and allusion. First women to win a Pulitzer for 'The Age of Innocence' Main themes were upper-class life and the constraints it placed on b
Edith Wharton
Jack London
Mayflower Compact
John Smith
4. A long narrative that represents characters in a high position who take part in a series of adventures of significance.
Langston Hughes
Epic Story
Broadside
Richard Wright
5. Book of feline poems - 'Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats -' formed the basis of the Broadway hit 'Cats.' Wrote 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock - Published 'The Waste-Land' which became the most famous poem of the first half of the 20th Centur
Three main colonial era poets
Lyres
Frank Norris
T.S Eliot
6. A line or group of lines repeated at the end of a poem or song. Refrains reinforce the main point and create musical effects.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Refrain
Abigail Adams
Romanticism
7. Confessional Poet - Wrote 'Lord Weary's Castle' and 'In Life Studies'
Stephen Crane
Allegory
Robert Lowell
Racialism
8. Father of American Literature - First American writer to achieve an international reputation. Rip Van Winkle (antihero). Legend of Sleepy Hollow. The Devil and Tom Walker. Was 50 years old before his real name appeared on any of his books. Used alias
American Adam
Meter
Washington Irving
Ernest Hemmingway
9. Wrote gold-rush stories like 'The Luck of Roaring Camp' and 'The Outcasts of Poker Flat'; never matched up to his previous fame local colorist
Bret Harte
Kate Chopin
Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain)
Edwin Arlington Robinson
10. Story in which the characters - setting and action represent abstract concepts apart from their literal meaning.
Flannery O'Connor
Allegory
Edwin Arlington Robinson
Aphorisms
11. A social and artistic movement of the 1950's stressing unrestrained literary self expression and nonconformity with the mainstream culture
Jack London
Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain)
Beat Movement
Ernest Hemmingway
12. (Colonial Period) One of colonial New England's most eminent clergyman. Greatest achievement was as an historian of the Puritan experience. 'Diary of Cotton Mather' - Account of Mather wrestling with sexual temptation to marry a much younger women di
Erica Jong
Frank Norris
Genteel Tradition
Cotton Mather
13. Written by Michael Wigglesworth - the most famous poem of 17th Century - proceeds from judgement day to hell and then to paradise. First American Best Seller.
Atavism
Rhythm
Claude McKay
The Day of Doom
14. Best-known and most influential early Naturalist. Rougon-Marcquart
Emile Zola
Richard Wright
Bret Harte
John Smith
15. Wrote 'The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man' and 'Lift Every Voice and Sing -' (The Black National Anthem)
James Weldon Johnson
Booker T. Washington
Richard Wright
Henry James
16. Wrote 'Grapes of Wrath -' 'Of Mice and Men -' and 'East of Eden -' and 'Winter of Our Discontent.' Awarded Nobel Prize for Literature - Pulitzer and and the National Book Award.
Stephen Crane
James Thurbur
John Steinbeck
Narrative Poem
17. A type of literature win which words are selected and strung together for their beauty - sound - and power to express feelings.
Determinism
Poetry
Emile Zola
Aphorisms
18. Considered the voice of the Twenties. Wrote 'The Great Gatsby' - Heavy drinking problem.
Abigail Adams
Benjamin Franklin
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Polemic
19. (Colonial Period) Best-known Southern colonial writer. Famous for 'The History of the Dividing Line' and 'The Secret Diary of William Byrd of Westover'
Thomas Jefferson
Maya Angelou
William Byrd
Nietzscheism
20. She holds a unique place in American history as both the wife of one president and the mother of another. In her own right - she was an ardent American patriot. Her perseverance during the American Revolution kept her family together and enabled her
Abigail Adams
Thomas Morton
Sylvia Plath
Calvinism
21. The process of reading a poem to figure out it's meter.
William Byrd
Three main colonial era poets
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Scan
22. Ezra Pound and T.S Eliot
Puritans (Saints - Separatists)
Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain)
The Declaration of Independence
Two Most Famous Poets of the 20th Century
23. The Bard of Harlem; most successful black writer in America during the Harlem Renaissance. Wanted to capture the dominant oral traditions of black culture in written form. Best known for his poetry: 'The Weary Blues -' 'Fields of Wonder -' and 'The D
Mayflower Compact
John Adams
Langston Hughes
Booker T. Washington
24. A literary mask a writer assumes for the purpose of creating a character in a poem.
Edgar Allen Poe
Persona
Imagist Poetry
Vachel Lindsay
25. A group of lines in a poem. - Lines of poems are grouped into _______s - just as sentences of prose are grouped into paragraphs.
Stanza
Willa Cather
Frederick Douglass
John Winthrop
26. Local Colorist Great Niece of Harriet Beecher Stowe. Wrote 'The Yellow Wallpaper'
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
William Bradford
Ralph Ellison
Nietzscheism
27. A pattern of stressed unstressed syllables that create a beat - as in music.
Rhythm
Saul Bellow
William S. Burroughs
Nietzscheism
28. Unrhymed poetry Captures natural rhythm of speech.
American Adam
Blank Verse
Beat Movement
Ralph Waldo Emerson
29. First great writer of psychological fiction; obsessed with sin and guilt. 'The Scarlet Letter' - 'Young Goodman Brown' - Claimed his work was romance and therefore not required to be realistic.
W.E.B Du Bois
Broadside
Naturalism
Nathaniel Hawthorne
30. Chicago School : Verses often concern ordinary - everyday people; realistic poems and dramatic emphasis attract a large audience. Wrote 'Chicago -' and a biography of Abraham Lincoln. Poems describe everyday Americans - have a positive tone - use sim
Scientism
The 3 primary literary genres
Carl Sandburg
Sarah Orne Jewett
31. The primacy of science over religious - mythical - or spiritual interpretations of life.
Rhythm
e.e cummings
Scientism
Robert Frost
32. The beat or rhythm of a poem - created by a pattern of stressed an unstressed syllables.
Broadside
Racialism
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Meter
33. A story in poetic form. Has plot. characters and theme.
Loss of Traditional Values
Narrative Poem
Thomas Jefferson
Henry David Thoreau
34. Leader of naturalism in American writing. Wrote 'An American Tragedy'
Modernism
Monologue
The Day of Doom
Theodore Dreiser
35. Words that carry a strong emotional overtones.
Persona
Loaded Words
Verse
Prose
36. In the 1920s - became the symbol of the liberated woman for her wit and independence. Known for her caustic and clever poems and short stories.
Calvinism
Dorthy Parker
Determinism
Theodore Dreiser
37. People who are best adapted to survive are chosen through the process of natural selection.
Darwinism
Thomas Paine
William Byrd
Walt Whitman
38. Stylistic Elements Parallel Structure: repeated used of phrases - clauses - or sentences that are similar in structure. Rhythm - Forceful and Direct Language
The Declaration of Independence
Flannery O'Connor
Abigail Adams
Determinism
39. A group of stressed and unstressed syllables in a line of poetry.
Epic Story
Foot
Determinism
Willa Cather
40. A regular pattern of words that end with the same sound.
Allen Ginsberg
Rhyme Scheme
The Declaration of Independence
Genteel Tradition
41. Local Colorist Wrote 'The Country of the Pointed Firs' Famous for use of idiomatic language - conservative values and imagery and vivid descriptions of rural New England.
James Baldwin
Gothic
Sarah Orne Jewett
Calvinism
42. Wrote 'The Red Badge of Courage' and 'Maggie: A Girl of the Streets -' and 'The Open Boat.' Red Badge of Courage is considered the first modern war novel. Work is celebrated for its images and symbolism. Work is often described as impressionist due t
Benjamin Franklin
Naturalism
Stephen Crane
James Weldon Johnson
43. Wished to return to more primitive principles - to simplicity - sobriety - religious earnestness - and personal self-control. Aim was to purify church of England from 'Popery' - Persecuted harshly by Charles I and Archbishop of Canterbury William Lau
Jonathan Edwards
Edith Wharton
Puritans (Saints - Separatists)
John Steinbeck
44. Wrote 'The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass.' Escaped slave that became one o f the most effective orators of his day - an influential newspaper writer - a militant abolitionist - and a famous diplomat.
Meter
Frederick Douglass
W.E.B Du Bois
Transcendentalism
45. Literary movement of the 19th century that traced the effects of heredity and environment on people who ere helpless to change their situations. Also called Determinism for its belief in the effects of environment - heredity - and chance on human fat
Naturalism
William Byrd
Jonathan Edwards
Thomas Jefferson
46. A philosophy pioneered by Ralph Waldo Emerson in the 1830's and 1840's - in which each person has direct communication with God and Nature - and there is no need for organized churches. It incorporated the ideas that mind goes beyond matter - intuiti
Scan
James Baldwin
T.S Eliot
Transcendentalism
47. The reappearance in an individual of characteristics of some distant ancestor that have not been present in intervening generations - such as hand like a hairy paw.
Jean Toomer
Atavism
John Smith
Refrain
48. That America's unique identity transcends ethnic - cultural - or religious backgrounds. Idea given by St. Jean de Crevecoeur
Nativism
Ballad
Melting Pot
F. Scott Fitzgerald
49. Created the first American adventure story. First successful American novelist. 'Father of the American novel.' Very litigious - cranky and vain. Most famous for the 'Leatherstocking Tales': A series of five novels about the frontiersman - Natty Bump
James Fenimore Cooper
T.S Eliot
Monologue
Benjamin Franklin
50. New England local color writer - is known primarily for her two collections of stories. 'A Humble Romance' and 'A New England Nun'
Romanticism
Flannery O'Connor
Richard Wright
Mary Wilkins Freeman