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 '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.
Modernism
Thomas Jefferson
Theodore Dreiser
John Steinbeck
2. 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
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Two Most Famous Poets of the 20th Century
John Adams
Carl Sandburg
3. Written by Cottonn Mather - to justify the execution of 19 women during the Salem Witch Trials.
Imagist Poetry
Edwin Arlington Robinson
Wonders of the Invisible World
Richard Wright
4. Words that carry a strong emotional overtones.
Carl Sandburg
Loaded Words
Walt Whitman
John Adams
5. Wrote 'Daddy' and 'The Bell Jar' - Confessional Poet
Stanza
Sylvia Plath
Carl Sandburg
Erica Jong
6. A false science that argued tat different human races possessed distinguishing traits that determined their particular behavior and achievement in society.
Racialism
William Byrd
Erica Jong
Foot
7. America's most popular humorist in the 30s and 40s. Frequently explored the battle of the sexes. Wrote 'The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.'
Aphorisms
James Thurbur
Wonders of the Invisible World
Rhythm
8. Recluse - agoraphobic - Didn't title her poems. All are designated by numbers. Paved the way for the Imagist movement of the 1920s. Considered on of the founders of Modern American Poetry. Concrete imagery - forceful language - and unique style usher
Alice Walker
Emily Dickinson
The Day of Doom
Kate Chopin
9. Wrote 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' - first American novel to sell a million copies. The most influential book of the 19th century. Credited with starting the Civil War. Most famous American woman of her day.
Sylvia Plath
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Rhyme Scheme
Refrain
10. The belief that 'true' Americans were those of earlier Anglo-Saxon descent - and that this 'race' was under threat from the growing influx of Central European and Asian immigrants.
Jack Kerouac
Nativism
Scientism
Rhythm
11. Applying the evolutionary 'survival of the fittest' concept to a world marked by struggle and competition. (Promulgated by Herbert Spencer - a best-selling sociologist of the late 19th Century.
Narrative Poem
Ballad
Social Darwinism
Monologue
12. An artistic and intellectual movement originating in Europe in the late 18th Century and characterized by a heightened interest in nature - emphasis on the individual's expression of emotion and imagination - departure from the attitudes and forms of
Romanticism
William Byrd
Broadside
Aphorisms
13. 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
Modernism
Kate Chopin
Rhyme
Bret Harte
14. Wrote 'Richard Cory' - Created poems dealing with historic myths and characters. Known primarily for short - ironic characteristics of ordinary individuals. Won 3 Pulitzers : 'Collected Poems -' 'The Man Who Died Twice -' and 'Tristram'
John Winthrop
Edwin Arlington Robinson
Persona
Genteel Tradition
15. 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.
Broadside
Mayflower Compact
Realism
Puritan Poetry
16. Unorthodox writers who hung around the bars and coffee houses of San Francisco's North Beach.
Refrain
The 3 primary literary genres
Beat Writers
Jean Toomer
17. (Colonial Period) Only person to publicly repent his part in the Salem Witch Trials. Published America's first anti-slavery tract.
Naturalism
Edith Wharton
Samuel Sewall
James Baldwin
18. All events follow natural laws.
Scientism
Frank Norris
Broadside
Determinism
19. The repeated use of identical sounds.
Rhyme
Edwin Arlington Robinson
Benjamin Franklin
Wonders of the Invisible World
20. (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
Monologue
Gothic
Edith Wharton
John Winthrop
21. (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
Edward Teller
William Bradford
Scan
Social Darwinism
22. Best-known and most influential early Naturalist. Rougon-Marcquart
Emile Zola
John Steinbeck
Dorthy Parker
Prose
23. 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
Bret Harte
Walt Whitman
Gwendolyn Brooks
Prose
24. First Black female poet to win a Pulitzer. Best known for her poems 'The Bean Eaters' and 'We Real Cool.'
Mary Wilkins Freeman
Monologue
Gwendolyn Brooks
Washington Irving
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
Loss of Traditional Values
Iambic Pentameter
Anne Sexton
26. Credited with creating: the modern short story and the detective novel - and the entire genre of mystery. Wrote 'The Philosophy of Composition' - 'The Raven' - 'Tell-Tale Heart -' 'The Cask of Amontillado -' and 'The Gold Bug.' (The first detective
Determinism
Beat Writers
Edgar Allen Poe
William Bradford
27. A stanza.
Verse
Langston Hughes
Wonders of the Invisible World
Washington Irving
28. A long narrative that represents characters in a high position who take part in a series of adventures of significance.
Iambic Pentameter
James Thurbur
Blank Verse
Epic Story
29. 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
Prose
Nativism
Ezra Pound
Stephen Crane
30. American novelist - essayist - social critic - painter and spoken performer. Most of his works are autobiographical. Frequently experimented with drugs. He wrote the 'Naked Lunch' and the 'Cities of Red Night'
Robert Lowell
William S. Burroughs
Determinism
Broadside
31. (Colonial Period) First writer of American Literature. Wrote 'The Generall Historie of Virginia - New England - and The Summer Isles.' Archetypal American.
Edward Teller
John Smith
Melting Pot
Epic Story
32. 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.
Puritan Poetry
Edward Teller
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Sonnet
33. Coined the term 'Beat Generation' - Wrote 'On the Road' - All of his books are Autobiographical
James Weldon Johnson
Blank Verse
Gwendolyn Brooks
Jack Kerouac
34. Wrote 'The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man' and 'Lift Every Voice and Sing -' (The Black National Anthem)
Ezra Pound
James Weldon Johnson
Sonnet
F. Scott Fitzgerald
35. Pattern of five feet (groups of syllables) - each having one unstressed syllable and one stressed syllable.
Free Verse
Epic Story
Iambic Pentameter
Benjamin Franklin
36. 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.
Frederick Douglass
Richard Wright
John Winthrop
Two Most Famous Poets of the 20th Century
37. 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
William Bradford
T.S Eliot
James Thurbur
Persona
38. A regular pattern of words that end with the same sound.
Rhyme Scheme
W.E.B Du Bois
Scan
William Bradford
39. Major theme of 20th Century literature.
Loss of Traditional Values
Herman Melville
Beat Writers
Sonnet
40. Ezra Pound and T.S Eliot
Two Most Famous Poets of the 20th Century
Henry James
Abigail Adams
Determinism
41. Well-known humorists.
Countee Cullen
Genteel Tradition
Melting Pot
Robert Benchley - Will Rogers and the Marx Brothers
42. 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
Erica Jong
F. Scott Fitzgerald
John Winthrop
43. (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
Persona
William Faulkner
Calvinism
Jean Toomer
44. Wrote 'Songs of Jamaica' - Poetry and 'Harlem Shadows' (first great literary achievement of the Harlem Renaissance. Much of his poetry evokes the rich heritage of Jamaica.
Edward Teller
Toni Morrison
Claude McKay
Prose
45. (Colonial Period) Stands in direct opposition to the principles - personalities and literary styles of William Bradford and John Winthrop. Did not come to settle the land and establish God's Kingdom - but to trade beaver pelts and live pleasantly. Es
Bret Harte
Washington Irving
Thomas Morton
Ernest Hemmingway
46. Third US President Referred to as the 'Sage of Monticello'Drafted the Declaration of Independence.
Norman Mailer
Drama
Ralph Ellison
Thomas Jefferson
47. Work did not have a political agenda. Wrote 'Their Eyes Were Watching God -' 'Mules and Men -' and 'Jonahs Gourd Vine.' Considered one of the key black writers of the 20th Century.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Zora Neal Hurston
Aphorisms
Stephen Crane
48. Wrote 'My Antonia' and 'Death Comes for the Archbishop' Won a Pulitzer for her novel 'One of Ours'
Drama
Willa Cather
Poetry
Ballad
49. A 14-line poem with a set rhythm and rhyme scheme.
Sonnet
Gwendolyn Brooks
Scan
Lyric Poem
50. Most prominent black leader of his day. Wrote 'Up From Slavery'
Ernest Hemmingway
Booker T. Washington
Sarah Orne Jewett
Samuel Sewall