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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. Produces ribald - exuberant - feminist poems - novels and essays. Most famous novel is 'Fear of Flying.'
Erica Jong
Racialism
Wonders of the Invisible World
Rhyme
2. Produced a number of sketches - poems - and a one-act pay titled 'Cane.'
Loaded Words
Rhyme Scheme
Jonathan Edwards
Jean Toomer
3. 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.
Bret Harte
Zora Neal Hurston
Gwendolyn Brooks
Ballad
4. 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.
John Smith
Bret Harte
Claude McKay
Loaded Words
5. A line or group of lines repeated at the end of a poem or song. Refrains reinforce the main point and create musical effects.
Frank Norris
Refrain
Two Most Famous Poets of the 20th Century
Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain)
6. Unorthodox writers who hung around the bars and coffee houses of San Francisco's North Beach.
Nietzscheism
Saul Bellow
Beat Writers
Thomas Morton
7. 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.
Lyric Poem
John Steinbeck
Allegory
Vachel Lindsay
8. 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
Thomas Paine
Zora Neal Hurston
Henry David Thoreau
Washington Irving
9. A group of lines in a poem. - Lines of poems are grouped into _______s - just as sentences of prose are grouped into paragraphs.
T.S Eliot
Stanza
Free Verse
Thomas Paine
10. First vice president and second president. Member of the First and Second Continental Congresses. Helped draft the Declaration of Independence. Husband of Abigail Adams.
Realism
Drama
William Byrd
John Adams
11. A literary argument that aims to change public opinion rather than entertain.
Puritan Poetry
John Smith
Polemic
Abigail Adams
12. Wrote 'The Souls of Black Folk' - Founder of the NAACP
Genteel Tradition
Robert Frost
W.E.B Du Bois
Kate Chopin
13. Anne Bradstreet - Michael Wigglesworth - Edward Taylor
Naturalism
Three main colonial era poets
Bret Harte
Frank Norris
14. The primacy of science over religious - mythical - or spiritual interpretations of life.
Loaded Words
Richard Wright
Scientism
Willa Cather
15. Wrote 'Portnoy's Complaint.' Work reflects the changing attitude of Jews living in post-World War II America.
Phillip Roth
Determinism
Jack Kerouac
Stephen Crane
16. 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.
Realism
The Declaration of Independence
The Day of Doom
Mary Wilkins Freeman
17. Typically referred to as the greatest American novelist (next to Mark Twain) of the second half of the 19th century. Main theme of his work was the innocence and exuberance of America compared to the corruption and wisdom of Europe. Wrote 'The Portra
Walt Whitman
Henry James
Prose
Verse
18. Confessional Poet - Won a Pulitzer for 'Live or Die'
Anne Sexton
J.D Salinger
Scan
Stanza
19. Resisted materialism and chose a life of simplicity - close to nature. Walden is a guidebook for life - showing the reader how to live wisely in a world designed to make wise living impossible. 'On the Duty of Civil Disobedience' has become a primer
James Thurbur
Henry David Thoreau
Countee Cullen
Thomas Morton
20. 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
Henry James
T.S Eliot
Loaded Words
21. 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
Aphorisms
Modernism
Edgar Allen Poe
James Baldwin
22. (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
Blank Verse
Verse
Thomas Morton
William Bradford
23. Wrote 'Howl -' ' Empty Mirror -' and 'Kaddish and Other Poems' - Poet
Allen Ginsberg
Edwin Arlington Robinson
Robert Benchley - Will Rogers and the Marx Brothers
Bret Harte
24. That America's unique identity transcends ethnic - cultural - or religious backgrounds. Idea given by St. Jean de Crevecoeur
Melting Pot
Narrative Poem
Alice Walker
e.e cummings
25. A story told in song form. Ballads often tell stories of adventure and love.
Ballad
Drama
Ralph Ellison
Rhythm
26. 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
Realism
The Declaration of Independence
Emile Zola
Edgar Lee Masters
27. Most prominent black leader of his day. Wrote 'Up From Slavery'
Gwendolyn Brooks
Booker T. Washington
Toni Morrison
Edward Teller
28. The beat or rhythm of a poem - created by a pattern of stressed an unstressed syllables.
Scan
Saul Bellow
Meter
Edward Teller
29. (Colonial Period) First writer of American Literature. Wrote 'The Generall Historie of Virginia - New England - and The Summer Isles.' Archetypal American.
William Faulkner
Ballad
John Smith
Allen Ginsberg
30. A single sheet of paper printed on one or both sides. 'The Dying Redcoat'
Jonathan Edwards
Thomas Morton
Foot
Broadside
31. Writings interweave sexual and racial concerns; what it means to be black and homosexual in America in the 2nd half of the 20th Century.
James Baldwin
Jean Toomer
Robert Frost
American Adam
32. A false science that argued tat different human races possessed distinguishing traits that determined their particular behavior and achievement in society.
Theodore Dreiser
Sarah Orne Jewett
Racialism
Stephen Crane
33. Brief - musical poems that convey a speaker's feelings.
Lyric Poem
Langston Hughes
The 3 primary literary genres
Allegory
34. 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'
Toni Morrison
Carl Sandburg
Alice Walker
John Steinbeck
35. Greatest poet of American colonial period. Influenced T.S Elliot - Ezra Pound - and other modern-day metaphysical poets. Defined 'American'
Determinism
Edward Teller
Darwinism
Aphorisms
36. 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
Langston Hughes
Ralph Ellison
Realism
Samuel Sewall
37. 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
James Thurbur
Edward Teller
Transcendental Club
William Faulkner
38. (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
Dorthy Parker
John Winthrop
Realism
Richard Wright
39. Third US President Referred to as the 'Sage of Monticello'Drafted the Declaration of Independence.
The Declaration of Independence
Frederick Douglass
Jack Kerouac
Thomas Jefferson
40. Words that carry a strong emotional overtones.
Edward Teller
Frederick Douglass
Loaded Words
Robert Benchley - Will Rogers and the Marx Brothers
41. A literary mask a writer assumes for the purpose of creating a character in a poem.
Transcendentalism
Broadside
Persona
Allegory
42. Wrote 'Native Son -' and 'Black Boy' - First Black Best-Seller - Staunch Communist : Believed it was black America's best hope for equality.
The 3 primary literary genres
Naturalism
Richard Wright
Edgar Allen Poe
43. 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
Gothic
Jean Toomer
Robert Benchley - Will Rogers and the Marx Brothers
44. 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
Samuel Sewall
Jack London
Abigail Adams
Robert Benchley - Will Rogers and the Marx Brothers
45. 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.
Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain)
Nativism
Sarah Orne Jewett
Puritan Poetry
46. Wrote 'since feeling is first -' 'somewhere i have never traveled - gladly beyond -' and 'The Enormous Room' - Experimented with : form - punctuation - spelling - typography - grammar - imagery - rhythm - and syntax.
Phillip Roth
Realism
Samuel Sewall
e.e cummings
47. Clever - memorable sayings.
John Adams
Edwin Arlington Robinson
William S. Burroughs
Aphorisms
48. 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.
William Faulkner
Willa Cather
Jean Toomer
Nietzscheism
49. Coined the term 'Beat Generation' - Wrote 'On the Road' - All of his books are Autobiographical
Jack Kerouac
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Edward Teller
Washington Irving
50. A stanza.
Jonathan Edwards
Verse
Transcendentalism
Robert Frost