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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. Famous Poet and Novelist - 'I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings'
The 3 primary literary genres
Maya Angelou
Carl Sandburg
Kate Chopin
2. A story in poetic form. Has plot. characters and theme.
Social Darwinism
Mayflower Compact
Prose
Narrative Poem
3. (Colonial Period) Primarily written to set forth orthodox Calvinist Christianity. Not considered the best representation of poetry during the whole period. Rarely approached excellence of English models. Too much of an emphasis on heavenly values and
Abigail Adams
Wonders of the Invisible World
Puritan Poetry
Atavism
4. A group of stressed and unstressed syllables in a line of poetry.
Foot
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Monologue
W.E.B Du Bois
5. 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
Zora Neal Hurston
Stephen Crane
Jack London
Puritan Poetry
6. Brief - musical poems that convey a speaker's feelings.
William Bradford
Lyric Poem
Meter
Atavism
7. Wrote 'Daddy' and 'The Bell Jar' - Confessional Poet
Jack London
Sylvia Plath
Broadside
F. Scott Fitzgerald
8. Wrote 'Native Son -' and 'Black Boy' - First Black Best-Seller - Staunch Communist : Believed it was black America's best hope for equality.
Erica Jong
Beat Movement
Melting Pot
Richard Wright
9. A line or group of lines repeated at the end of a poem or song. Refrains reinforce the main point and create musical effects.
Loss of Traditional Values
Persona
Refrain
W.E.B Du Bois
10. Wrote 'Portnoy's Complaint.' Work reflects the changing attitude of Jews living in post-World War II America.
Mayflower Compact
Thomas Paine
Flannery O'Connor
Phillip Roth
11. Created new poetic forms and subjects to fashion a distinctly American type of poetic expression. Rejected conventional themes - traditional literary references - allusions - and rhymes. Used long lines to capture rhythms of natural speech - free ver
Walt Whitman
Zora Neal Hurston
T.S Eliot
Stanza
12. 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.
Narrative Poem
Dorthy Parker
Sarah Orne Jewett
Nathaniel Hawthorne
13. People who are best adapted to survive are chosen through the process of natural selection.
Edgar Allen Poe
Darwinism
William Faulkner
Countee Cullen
14. Third US President Referred to as the 'Sage of Monticello'Drafted the Declaration of Independence.
Jack Kerouac
Phillip Roth
Thomas Jefferson
Washington Irving
15. (Colonial Period) Began 'The History of New England' aboard the Arbella in 1630. Lead 2 -000 English emigrant to Massachusetts Bay. Made daily journal-style entries until his death. Intended it to be an account of his long governorship. Style is pla
Drama
John Winthrop
John Steinbeck
Harriet Beecher Stowe
16. Used to describe literature that was pandered to the polite - refined - and delicate elements of society. Denied the unsavory underbelly of life.
Emile Zola
Genteel Tradition
John Steinbeck
John Smith
17. Characterized by: Ordinary Language - Free Verse - Concentrated Word Pictures - Very specific words and phrases - Advanced by Ezra Pound and Amy Lowell; also utilized by Robert Frost
Imagist Poetry
Epic Story
Carl Sandburg
William S. Burroughs
18. A literary mask a writer assumes for the purpose of creating a character in a poem.
Theodore Dreiser
Flannery O'Connor
Washington Irving
Persona
19. Naturalist - Wrote 'McTeague - a Story of San Francisco'
Sarah Orne Jewett
Blank Verse
Frank Norris
Racialism
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
Ezra Pound
Dorthy Parker
Abigail Adams
Narrative Poem
21. A literary argument that aims to change public opinion rather than entertain.
Polemic
Free Verse
Richard Wright
Persona
22. A story told in song form. Ballads often tell stories of adventure and love.
Henry David Thoreau
Nativism
Ballad
Thomas Paine
23. Well-known humorists.
Robert Benchley - Will Rogers and the Marx Brothers
Transcendental Club
Mayflower Compact
Wonders of the Invisible World
24. Literary movement of the 19th century Presented the details of ordinary life in art. Realists rejected the heroic and adventurous and concentrated on pessimistic views of poverty - prostitution and pain. Reaction to Romanticism.
Dorthy Parker
Stephen Crane
Realism
American Adam
25. Story in which the characters - setting and action represent abstract concepts apart from their literal meaning.
Edward Teller
William Faulkner
Allegory
Determinism
26. That America's unique identity transcends ethnic - cultural - or religious backgrounds. Idea given by St. Jean de Crevecoeur
Vachel Lindsay
Walt Whitman
James Weldon Johnson
Melting Pot
27. The idea that there is something different - unique and special about Americans.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Abigail Adams
American Adam
Transcendental Club
28. First Black woman to win the Nobel Prize for literature. Novel focus on black cultural identity in contemporary America. Wrote 'The Bluest Eye -' 'Tar Baby -' and 'Beloved'
Broadside
Toni Morrison
Sylvia Plath
Aphorisms
29. Won the Pulitzer and Nobel Prize - Works focused on the South - Wrote 'As I Lay Dying -' 'Sanctuary -' and 'The sound and the Fury.' Experimented with Stream of Consciousness writing. Considered the most innovative novelist of his time.
Meter
Bret Harte
Countee Cullen
William Faulkner
30. A social and artistic movement of the 1950's stressing unrestrained literary self expression and nonconformity with the mainstream culture
Free Verse
Willa Cather
Phillip Roth
Beat Movement
31. Clever - memorable sayings.
Aphorisms
Prose
Frank Norris
Poetry
32. 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
Edith Wharton
Transcendentalism
Ballad
Lyric Poem
33. The process of reading a poem to figure out it's meter.
Scan
Nativism
Loaded Words
Allen Ginsberg
34. Produces ribald - exuberant - feminist poems - novels and essays. Most famous novel is 'Fear of Flying.'
Erica Jong
Allen Ginsberg
Racialism
Naturalism
35. Ben Franklin paid his passage to America. First Pamphlet was Common Sense : credited with getting the colonists to see the 'advantage - necessity - and obligation' of breaking with Britain. Followed by a series of pamphlets - collectively called 'An
Jonathan Edwards
Thomas Paine
Edith Wharton
James Thurbur
36. Produced a number of sketches - poems - and a one-act pay titled 'Cane.'
Darwinism
The Day of Doom
Jean Toomer
Jack Kerouac
37. 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.
Atavism
Thomas Jefferson
J.D Salinger
Lyric Poem
38. Wrote 'Howl -' ' Empty Mirror -' and 'Kaddish and Other Poems' - Poet
Jean Toomer
Prose
Allen Ginsberg
Edgar Allen Poe
39. Greatest poet of American colonial period. Influenced T.S Elliot - Ezra Pound - and other modern-day metaphysical poets. Defined 'American'
Norman Mailer
Henry James
Edward Teller
Determinism
40. A false science that argued tat different human races possessed distinguishing traits that determined their particular behavior and achievement in society.
Emile Zola
Vachel Lindsay
Racialism
Loaded Words
41. Writings interweave sexual and racial concerns; what it means to be black and homosexual in America in the 2nd half of the 20th Century.
John Steinbeck
James Baldwin
Robert Frost
Richard Wright
42. Wrote Catcher in the Rye
Carl Sandburg
Racialism
J.D Salinger
Allegory
43. Imagist Poet - Wrote 'In a Station of the Metro -' ' The Pisan Cantos -' 'Hugh Selwyn Mauberly -' and 'Mauberly.' Modeled 'Cantos' after Whitman's 'Leaves of Grass' - Infamous traitor; Staunch supporter of Mussolini during WWII. Didn't speak for the
Modernism
Edith Wharton
Jack London
Ezra Pound
44. (Colonial Period) Wrote Of Plymouth Plantation (First Thanksgiving) - Chronicled the Pilgrim experience from the religious considerations that caused them to leave England for Holland and then for America.Style is dignified and Grave - and events are
Transcendental Club
Phillip Roth
Loaded Words
William Bradford
45. Prose - Poetry - Drama
Imagist Poetry
Edgar Allen Poe
The 3 primary literary genres
Poetry
46. America's most popular humorist in the 30s and 40s. Frequently explored the battle of the sexes. Wrote 'The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.'
Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain)
J.D Salinger
James Thurbur
Vachel Lindsay
47. The primacy of science over religious - mythical - or spiritual interpretations of life.
Loss of Traditional Values
Scientism
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ezra Pound
48. Chicago School - Wrote 'Lucinda Matlock' - Created 'Spoon River Anthology' - Spoon River poems are characterized by: An unpoetic - colloquial style - frank descriptions of sex - a very critical view of small town life - and a description of he inner
Calvinism
Edgar Lee Masters
Monologue
e.e cummings
49. (Colonial Period) 1. God is King and Ruler. 2. Our duty in this world is to see that God's will prevails.3. Man is depraved from birth. 4. Few will be saved. Damned are damned despite their best efforts. Belief in Covenant Theology : God's covenant w
Maya Angelou
Frank Norris
Calvinism
Harriet Beecher Stowe
50. Autobiography is considered the one of the greatest ever written. Wrote Poor Richard's Alamanac
Drama
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Henry James
Benjamin Franklin