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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. Won 4 Pulitzers - Top 20th Century Poet - Wrote 'The Road Not Taken -' ' Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening -' and 'Mending Wall'
Lyric Poem
Robert Frost
James Baldwin
Alice Walker
2. 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.
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Imagist Poetry
William Faulkner
Zora Neal Hurston
3. Considered the voice of the Twenties. Wrote 'The Great Gatsby' - Heavy drinking problem.
Booker T. Washington
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Nathaniel Hawthorne
The 3 primary literary genres
4. Produces ribald - exuberant - feminist poems - novels and essays. Most famous novel is 'Fear of Flying.'
Narrative Poem
Calvinism
Erica Jong
Benjamin Franklin
5. 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.
Atavism
Zora Neal Hurston
Narrative Poem
Iambic Pentameter
6. That America's unique identity transcends ethnic - cultural - or religious backgrounds. Idea given by St. Jean de Crevecoeur
Toni Morrison
Melting Pot
The Day of Doom
Jonathan Edwards
7. 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.
Cotton Mather
T.S Eliot
Theodore Dreiser
Frederick Douglass
8. First vice president and second president. Member of the First and Second Continental Congresses. Helped draft the Declaration of Independence. Husband of Abigail Adams.
John Adams
Social Darwinism
Stephen Crane
Three main colonial era poets
9. (Colonial Period) Only person to publicly repent his part in the Salem Witch Trials. Published America's first anti-slavery tract.
Sarah Orne Jewett
Jack Kerouac
The Day of Doom
Samuel Sewall
10. Chicago School - Work bridges folk poetry and modernist poems. Used music and strong rhythm - Wrote 'The Congo'
W.E.B Du Bois
Persona
Robert Benchley - Will Rogers and the Marx Brothers
Vachel Lindsay
11. A regular pattern of words that end with the same sound.
Rhyme Scheme
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Willa Cather
Alice Walker
12. The idea that there is something different - unique and special about Americans.
American Adam
John Adams
Edgar Lee Masters
Stephen Crane
13. 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.
Carl Sandburg
John Steinbeck
Ballad
Gwendolyn Brooks
14. (Colonial Period) One of the most brilliant of American thinkers. Theologian and philosopher; vigorous defender of Calvinistic orthodoxy at the end of the Puritan era. Influenced major nineteenth century writers such as Emerson - Hawthorne - Melville
John Winthrop
Gwendolyn Brooks
Jonathan Edwards
Verse
15. America's most popular humorist in the 30s and 40s. Frequently explored the battle of the sexes. Wrote 'The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.'
James Thurbur
Allegory
John Steinbeck
Toni Morrison
16. 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
Meter
Ralph Ellison
Edgar Allen Poe
Willa Cather
17. Genius; called the 'Black Keats' - Worked within traditional poetic forms rather than jazz rhythms. Wrote ' Copper Sun -' and 'The Ballad of the Brown Girl.'
Ralph Ellison
Persona
Countee Cullen
Norman Mailer
18. Pilgrim's constitution. Shaped the politics - religion - and social behavior of the first settlers. Eventually influenced the shape - style and content of the U.S Constitution. William Bradford was famous for being one of the authors and signers.
Beat Writers
Thomas Paine
Mayflower Compact
Scan
19. Brief - musical poems that convey a speaker's feelings.
W.E.B Du Bois
Lyric Poem
Loaded Words
Ernest Hemmingway
20. Greatest poet of American colonial period. Influenced T.S Elliot - Ezra Pound - and other modern-day metaphysical poets. Defined 'American'
J.D Salinger
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Edward Teller
Modernism
21. 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'
Free Verse
Rhyme Scheme
Booker T. Washington
Toni Morrison
22. 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.
Robert Benchley - Will Rogers and the Marx Brothers
Narrative Poem
Realism
Scan
23. Major theme of 20th Century literature.
Ezra Pound
Polemic
Edwin Arlington Robinson
Loss of Traditional Values
24. Pattern of five feet (groups of syllables) - each having one unstressed syllable and one stressed syllable.
Romanticism
Iambic Pentameter
Transcendentalism
Norman Mailer
25. A long narrative that represents characters in a high position who take part in a series of adventures of significance.
Washington Irving
James Baldwin
Epic Story
James Thurbur
26. Wrote 'My Antonia' and 'Death Comes for the Archbishop' Won a Pulitzer for her novel 'One of Ours'
Abigail Adams
Foot
Willa Cather
Dorthy Parker
27. Coined the term 'Beat Generation' - Wrote 'On the Road' - All of his books are Autobiographical
Determinism
Jack Kerouac
W.E.B Du Bois
Realism
28. Naturalist - Wrote 'McTeague - a Story of San Francisco'
Frank Norris
Henry James
Herman Melville
Puritan Poetry
29. 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'
Polemic
Edwin Arlington Robinson
Social Darwinism
Poetry
30. Friedrich Nitezche's belief in the 'will to power' as the primary force of society and the individual.
Richard Wright
The Declaration of Independence
Transcendentalism
Nietzscheism
31. Well-known humorists.
Jack Kerouac
Robert Benchley - Will Rogers and the Marx Brothers
James Thurbur
Thomas Paine
32. 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.
Edgar Allen Poe
Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain)
Harriet Beecher Stowe
W.E.B Du Bois
33. Southern Gothic writer. Creates stories that simultaneously shock readers and reflect her strong Catholic faith.
34. Wrote 'The Call of the Wild -' 'White Fang -' ' Sea Wolf -' and 'To Build a Fire.' Socialist. Naturalist
Transcendentalism
Drama
Jack Kerouac
Jack London
35. 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
Edgar Allen Poe
Puritans (Saints - Separatists)
Thomas Paine
William Bradford
36. Famous Poet and Novelist - 'I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings'
Maya Angelou
The Day of Doom
Sonnet
Iambic Pentameter
37. 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
Loss of Traditional Values
T.S Eliot
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Claude McKay
38. 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
Lyric Poem
Realism
Edgar Lee Masters
Thomas Jefferson
39. 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
Emile Zola
Zora Neal Hurston
Naturalism
Dorthy Parker
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
The Day of Doom
Imagist Poetry
Thomas Paine
Ernest Hemmingway
41. Leader of naturalism in American writing. Wrote 'An American Tragedy'
Beat Writers
Gothic
Theodore Dreiser
John Adams
42. Unrhymed poetry Captures natural rhythm of speech.
Robert Lowell
Edgar Allen Poe
Gwendolyn Brooks
Blank Verse
43. (Colonial Period) First writer of American Literature. Wrote 'The Generall Historie of Virginia - New England - and The Summer Isles.' Archetypal American.
John Smith
Romanticism
Realism
Racialism
44. 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
Blank Verse
Polemic
T.S Eliot
William Byrd
45. (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
Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain)
William Bradford
Refrain
Epic Story
46. 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.
Edith Wharton
Social Darwinism
Poetry
The Declaration of Independence
47. Famous for writing - marriages - divorces and media hype. Wrote 'The Executioner's Song.'
Norman Mailer
T.S Eliot
John Smith
Edward Teller
48. People who are best adapted to survive are chosen through the process of natural selection.
Racialism
Puritans (Saints - Separatists)
e.e cummings
Darwinism
49. Wrote 'Daddy' and 'The Bell Jar' - Confessional Poet
Edgar Allen Poe
Persona
Sylvia Plath
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
50. A single sheet of paper printed on one or both sides. 'The Dying Redcoat'
Calvinism
Social Darwinism
End Rhyme vs Internal Rhyme
Broadside