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 'Daddy' and 'The Bell Jar' - Confessional Poet
John Steinbeck
Puritans (Saints - Separatists)
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Sylvia Plath
2. Ranked as top American novelist - even though few of his contemporaries recognized his genius. Moby Dick is considered to be America's greatest prose epic. It is also top contender for best American novel. Wrote the first great romance about the Sout
Frank Norris
Gwendolyn Brooks
Herman Melville
Toni Morrison
3. Produces ribald - exuberant - feminist poems - novels and essays. Most famous novel is 'Fear of Flying.'
Erica Jong
Edwin Arlington Robinson
John Steinbeck
Racialism
4. Confessional Poet - Won a Pulitzer for 'Live or Die'
Anne Sexton
Lyres
Saul Bellow
Dorthy Parker
5. Story in which the characters - setting and action represent abstract concepts apart from their literal meaning.
The Day of Doom
Maya Angelou
Allegory
Langston Hughes
6. America's most popular humorist in the 30s and 40s. Frequently explored the battle of the sexes. Wrote 'The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.'
Genteel Tradition
James Thurbur
Scan
Three main colonial era poets
7. Won 4 Pulitzers - Top 20th Century Poet - Wrote 'The Road Not Taken -' ' Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening -' and 'Mending Wall'
Loss of Traditional Values
Loaded Words
Robert Frost
Iambic Pentameter
8. Naturalist - Wrote 'McTeague - a Story of San Francisco'
Beat Writers
Frank Norris
James Fenimore Cooper
Refrain
9. A type of literature win which words are selected and strung together for their beauty - sound - and power to express feelings.
Genteel Tradition
Cotton Mather
Poetry
Flannery O'Connor
10. Won the Nobel Prize - Novels concentrate on the turmoil of modern Jewish life.
Meter
Saul Bellow
Three main colonial era poets
Nathaniel Hawthorne
11. Wrote 'The Invisible Man' - Considered a landmark achievement in American literature
The Day of Doom
Meter
Ralph Ellison
Darwinism
12. A story in poetic form. Has plot. characters and theme.
Vachel Lindsay
Sylvia Plath
Narrative Poem
Determinism
13. Produced a number of sketches - poems - and a one-act pay titled 'Cane.'
Sarah Orne Jewett
Iambic Pentameter
Jean Toomer
Imagist Poetry
14. Key intellectual and philosophical voice of 19th-century America. Key player in the transcendentalist movement. First to define what made American poetry American - it is verse that celebrates ordinary experience rather than the epic themes of the pa
Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain)
Lyres
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Claude McKay
15. Anne Bradstreet - Michael Wigglesworth - Edward Taylor
Three main colonial era poets
Allegory
Maya Angelou
Walt Whitman
16. 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
Puritans (Saints - Separatists)
Monologue
Transcendentalism
Toni Morrison
17. Confessional Poet - Wrote 'Lord Weary's Castle' and 'In Life Studies'
J.D Salinger
Robert Lowell
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Allen Ginsberg
18. 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.
Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain)
Atavism
Edgar Lee Masters
Naturalism
19. Words that carry a strong emotional overtones.
Atavism
Loaded Words
Jonathan Edwards
Mayflower Compact
20. Movement in the early part of the 20th Century where writers experimented with new themes such as fragmentation - stream of consciousness - and imagery.
Benjamin Franklin
Bret Harte
Modernism
Darwinism
21. Involves a speaker who addresses an unseen audience. Usually takes place at a crucial moment in the speaker's life.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
End Rhyme vs Internal Rhyme
John Adams
Monologue
22. An organization of the leading transcendentalists living around Boston. They were interested in new developments in theology - philosophy - and literature. Major writers: Ripley - Emerson - Alcott - Fuller - Hawthorne - Thoreau - Channing - Hedge - P
Transcendental Club
Alice Walker
Langston Hughes
Beat Movement
23. 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 S. Burroughs
Edgar Allen Poe
Three main colonial era poets
24. New England local color writer - is known primarily for her two collections of stories. 'A Humble Romance' and 'A New England Nun'
Mary Wilkins Freeman
John Smith
The 3 primary literary genres
Beat Writers
25. 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
Nativism
Scan
Stephen Crane
F. Scott Fitzgerald
26. (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
John Winthrop
Iambic Pentameter
Aphorisms
Dorthy Parker
27. People who sang lyrics as they played string-like instruments.
Lyres
William Faulkner
Three main colonial era poets
Phillip Roth
28. A false science that argued tat different human races possessed distinguishing traits that determined their particular behavior and achievement in society.
Beat Writers
Booker T. Washington
Racialism
Maya Angelou
29. 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.
Zora Neal Hurston
Mary Wilkins Freeman
Darwinism
Abigail Adams
30. 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.
Nativism
Abigail Adams
Darwinism
Cotton Mather
31. Prose - Poetry - Drama
Drama
Lyres
Mayflower Compact
The 3 primary literary genres
32. (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
Abigail Adams
Refrain
Edward Teller
Thomas Morton
33. All events follow natural laws.
Claude McKay
Thomas Morton
Determinism
Norman Mailer
34. The idea that there is something different - unique and special about Americans.
Rhyme Scheme
Herman Melville
Vachel Lindsay
American Adam
35. Written by Cottonn Mather - to justify the execution of 19 women during the Salem Witch Trials.
Wonders of the Invisible World
Robert Lowell
Emile Zola
Melting Pot
36. 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
Mayflower Compact
Beat Movement
Edith Wharton
Ralph Waldo Emerson
37. Use of medieval - wild - or mysterious elements in literature. Features gloomy settings and horrifying events. Edgar Allen Poe is regarded as the American Master of Gothic writing.
Samuel Sewall
William Byrd
Gothic
Romanticism
38. 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
Drama
Romanticism
Emile Zola
Edwin Arlington Robinson
39. 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
Beat Movement
James Fenimore Cooper
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Puritans (Saints - Separatists)
40. 'The Old Man and the Sea -' 'The Sun Also Rises -' 'A Farewell to Arms -' and 'For Whom the Bell Tolls.' Writing style emphasizes: Short sentences - brief paragraphs - active verbs - authenticity - compression - clarity - and immediacy. Produced some
Ernest Hemmingway
John Adams
Two Most Famous Poets of the 20th Century
T.S Eliot
41. 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
Stephen Crane
John Winthrop
Allen Ginsberg
42. 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.
e.e cummings
Realism
Norman Mailer
John Steinbeck
43. A pattern of stressed unstressed syllables that create a beat - as in music.
Ballad
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
The 3 primary literary genres
Rhythm
44. Used to describe literature that was pandered to the polite - refined - and delicate elements of society. Denied the unsavory underbelly of life.
Darwinism
Cotton Mather
Genteel Tradition
Claude McKay
45. People who are best adapted to survive are chosen through the process of natural selection.
Frederick Douglass
Anne Sexton
Darwinism
John Steinbeck
46. Local Colorist Wrote 'The Awakening' Writing is memorable for its : Vivid and economical style - Rich Local Dialect - and Penetrating view of the culture of South Louisiana.
Jean Toomer
Rhyme Scheme
William Byrd
Kate Chopin
47. 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
Cotton Mather
Scan
Thomas Paine
Verse
48. Wrote 'Howl -' ' Empty Mirror -' and 'Kaddish and Other Poems' - Poet
Allen Ginsberg
e.e cummings
Loss of Traditional Values
Bret Harte
49. 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
William S. Burroughs
Polemic
Emily Dickinson
Scientism
50. A single sheet of paper printed on one or both sides. 'The Dying Redcoat'
Broadside
William Bradford
Countee Cullen
Racialism