English Literature Mcqs Practice Test

Question 1

The most important tenet of the Black Arts Movements is________________?

Accepted Answer

B. African American images should inspire African Americans.

Question 2

The genre Octavia Butler’s “Bloodchild” is______________?

Accepted Answer

B. Science Fiction.

Question 3

In Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, living underground is symbolic of_____________?

Accepted Answer

C. The narrator’s invisibility to society.

Question 4

Why was the “drop of blood” rule developed ?

Accepted Answer

A. To keep the slave offspring of White slave owners from inheriting.

Question 5

What was special about Zora Neale Hurston’s home town of Eatonville, Florida ?

Accepted Answer

C. It was primarily African American.

Question 6

Which is not a characteristic of Realism ?

Accepted Answer

A. Characters are not as important as plot.

Question 7

Etheridge Knight’s “Hard Rock Returns to Prison from the Hospital for the Criminal Insane,” what is Hard Rock’s function in the prison ?

Accepted Answer

C. To do what the other inmates were afraid to do.

Question 8

What does the term “passing” mean ?

Accepted Answer

A. The ability of an African American to live as a White person.

Question 9

Alice Walker’s novels often explore the abuse experienced by African American women. What is the only abuse Celie does not experience The Color Purple ?

Accepted Answer

B. Betrayal by her sister.

Question 10

In what way is Jane Toomer’s Cane an example of Modernism ?

Accepted Answer

A. Its fractured, collage effect.

Question 11

In Nella Larsen’s novel Passing, why is Clare afraid to have another child ?

Accepted Answer

D. She is afraid it may have dark skin.

Question 12

In Octavia Butler’s “Bloodchild,” The Tlick keep the humans happy by_______________?

Accepted Answer

A. Supplying them with narcotic eggs.

Question 13

In Gwendolyn Brooks’ poem, “kitchenette building,” what is most important to the building’s inhabitants ?

Accepted Answer

A. Having a bathroom with warm water.

Question 14

The narrator of Langston Hughes’s “Weary Blues” is describing__________________?

Accepted Answer

D. Blues being played in a Harlem bar.

Question 15

What unforgivable action does Mag Smith take in Chapter One of Our Nig ?

Accepted Answer

D. She marries a Black man.

Question 16

According to Henry Louis Gates, Jr., reconstructing black people into the “New Negro” has been a matter of_______________?

Accepted Answer

D. All of the above

Question 17

Neo-Slave narratives are contemporary novels written about slavery. Toni Morrison’s Beloved is about the ghost of a baby the character Sethe murdered to keep her from being recaptured by their master. The opening chapter of the novel represents the neo-slave narrative by its________________?

Accepted Answer

C. Examination of the psychological damage of slavery.

Question 18

Charles W. Chesnutt used vernacular speech to________________?

Accepted Answer

D. Challenge American stereotypes about race

Question 19

Booker T. Washington’s message in Up from Slavery is_______________?

Accepted Answer

D. African Americans will have to help themselves by becoming educated.

Question 20

For Booker T. Washington, racial uplift means_______________?

Accepted Answer

B. Allowing Whites to help AfricanAmericans to reach their potential.