GRE Literature in English (REA) (43 page)

We have left the spaces below for you to record your scores on
this Practice Test. Please refer to the Scoring section in the front
of this book for how to compute your raw score and convert it
into a scaled score. By comparing your scores on each Practice
Test, you will be better able to mark your progress.

DIRECTIONS:

The basic tenet of Existentialism is that

1. nothing exists but what is imagined.
   
2. meaning is determined by the imagination.
   
3. existence is the significant fact, but it has no intrinsic meaning.
   
4. meaning is established by general agreement.
   
5. agreement as to significance is the only true existence.
   

“... handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her.”

 

The sentence completed above describes

1. Flaubert's Madame Bovary.
   
2. Austen's Emma.
   
3. Cather's Antonia.
   
4. Dickens' Agnes Wakefield.
   
5. Fitzgerald's Daisy.
   

Ae Fond Kiss

 

Ae fond kiss, and then we sever!
Ae farewell, and then forever!
Deep in heart-wrung tears I'll pledge thee,
Warring sighs and groans I'll wage thee.
Who shall say that Fortune grieves him
While the star of hope she leaves him?
Me, nae cheerfu' twinkle lights me;
Dark despair around benights me.

 

I'll ne‘er blame my partial fancy,
Nothing could resist my Nancy:
but to see her was to love her;
Love but her, and love forever.
Had we never lov'd sae kindly,
Had we never lov'd sae blindly,
Never met—or never parted—
We had ne'er been broken-hearted.

 

Fare thee weel, thou first and fairest!
Fare Thee weel, thou best and dearest!
Thine be ilka joy and treasure,
Peace, enjoyment, love, and pleasure!
Ae fond kiss, and then we sever;
Ae farewell, alas, forever!
Deep in heart-wrung tears I'll pledge thee,
Warring sighs and groans I'll wage thee!

In the first stanza, the poet implies that

1. his love has left him a glimmer of hope that she will return to him.
   
2. his love gives him no hope that she will return to him.
   
3. their separation was unexpected.
   
4. their separation was expected.
   
5. their heartbreak was of little consequence.
   

Which of the following most closely restates the poet's view of his affair with Nancy?

1. Their love was unavoidable, as was their heartbreak.
   
2. They could have avoided falling in love, but once done, they could not have avoided the heartbreak.
   
3. If it wasn't for his “partial fancy” he could have avoided both love and heartbreak.
   
4. He holds himself to blame for falling in love with her.
   
5. He holds Nancy to blame for their tragic affair.
   

This poem is written in

1. Chaucerian English.
   
2. Spenserian English.
   
3. West Country dialect.
   
4. Scots dialect.
   
5. Standard English.
   

The school of poetry known as “Fleshly” is associated with

1. Dickinson.
   
2. Wordsworth.
   
3. Whitman.
   
4. Swinburne.
   
5. Wilde.
   

Which one of the following is from the
Declaration of Independence?

Which one of the following is from
The Mayflower Compact?

Which one of the following is from
The Republic?

1. They in their humble address have freely declared that it is much on their hearts (if they may be permitted) to hold forth a lively experiment, that a most flourishing civil State may stand and best be maintained, and that among our English subjects, with a full liberty in religious concernments...
   

2. What reason, then, remains for preferring justice to the extreme of injustice, when common belief and the best authorities promise us the fulfillment of our desires in this life and the next, if only we conceal our ill-doing under a veneer of decent behaviour?
   

3. We have granted, moreover, to all free men of our kingdom, for us and our heirs forever, all the liberties written below to be had and holden by themselves and their heirs from us and our heirs.
   

4. We whose names are underwritten, the loyall subjects of our dread soveraigne Lord, King James, by ye grace of God, of Great Britaine, Franc, and Ireland king, defender of ye faith...
   

5. We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
   

Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,
As the swift seasons roll:—
Leave thy low-vaulted past.
Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,
Till thou at length art free,
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea.

The excerpt above expresses sentiments typical of the

1. Age of Enlightenment.
   
2. New England Renaissance.
   
3. fin de siécle.
   
4. Classic Revival.
   
5. Cavalier poets.
   

The soul is compared here to

1. a molting shellfish.
   
2. the ocean.
   
3. a home builder.
   
4. a church builder.
   
5. a monastery.
   

This poem was written by

1. Edgar Allan Poe.
   
2. Oliver Wendell Holmes.
   
3. John Greenleaf Whittier.
   
4. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
   
5. William Ellery Channing.
   

And Julia's voice was lost, except in sighs,
Until too late for useful conversation;
The tears were gushing from her gentle eyes,
I wish, indeed, they had not had occasion;
But who, alas, can love, and then be wise?
Not that remorse did not oppose temptation:
A little still she strove, and much repented,
And whispering “I will ne'er consent”—consented.

The tone of this stanza can best be described as

1. paenic.
   
2. congratulatory.
   
3. oxymoronic.
   
4. half-serious.
   
5. cynical.
   

The poem is written in

1. trochaic pentameter.
   
2. ottava rima.
   
3. versi sciolti.
   
4. rhopalic verse.
   
5. rime riche.
   

The selection is taken from

1. Childe Harold's Pilgrimage
   .
   
2. “The Rape of the Lock.”
   
3. Don Juan.
   
4. “Byzantium.”
   
5. Cynara
   .
   

Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed
Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;
And happy melodist, unwearied,
Forever piping song forever new;
More happy love! more happy, happy love!
Forever warm and still to be enjoyed,
Forever panting, and forever young;
All breathing human passion far above,
That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloyed,
A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.

 

This selection demonstrates craftsmanship similar to that of

1. Shakespeare.
   
2. Rossetti.
   
3. Browning.
   
4. Wordsworth.
   
5. Milton.
   

In Reading gaol by Reading town
There is a pit of shame,
And in it lies a wretched man
Eaten by teeth of flame,
In a burning winding-sheet he lies,
And his grave has got no name.

 

And there, till Christ call forth the dead,
In silence let him lie:
No need to waste the foolish tear,
Or heave the windy sigh:
The man had killed the thing he loved,
And so he had to die.

 

And all men kill the thing they love,
By all let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword!

The connection developed in this poem is one between

1. the murderer and the brave man.
   
2. the murderer's corpse and the objects of love.
   
3. the murderer and all men.
   
4. resurrection through Christ and insensitivity.
   
5. reading gaol and the pit of shame.
   

The author implies that brutalizing others

1. will cause physical death.
   
2. will cause spiritual death.
   
3. shows a brave man to be a coward.
   
4. is a result of Original Sin.
   
5. is a cause for being sent to Hell.
   

The poem was written by

1. Thomas Hardy.
   
2. Vachel Lindsay.
   
3. Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
   
4. Wilfred Owen.
   
5. Oscar Wilde.
   

The Beowulf utterances, “Wa-la-wa, Wa-la-wa,” and the American Indian “Nyah-eh-wa, Nyah-eh-wa,” are considered by poets to be

1. synecdoches.
   
2. pararhymes.
   
3. poesias lyricas.
   
4. parallel refrains.
   
5. tone-colors.
   

Which Alexander Pope work refers to “Belinda” as a pseudonym?

1. “Epistle to Miss Blount”
   
2. “Eloisa to Abelard”
   
3. “Essay on Man”
   
4. “To a Lady”
   
5. “The Rape of the Lock”
   

I believe Shakespeare was not a whit more intelligible in his own day than he is now to an educated man, except for a few local allusions of no consequence. He is of no age—nor of any religion, or party, or profession. The body and substance of his works came out of the unfathomable depths of his own oceanic mind: his observation and reading, which was considerable, supplied him with the drapery of his figures.

 

In this passage, S. T. Coleridge is answering the central question:

1. What was the origin of Shakespeare's drama?
   
2. What political alignment can we assign to Shakespeare?
   
3. Why are his plays difficult for the modern reader to understand?
   
4. Are Shakespeare's plays as comprehensible now as they were when they were written?
   
5. What role do local allusions play in understanding Shakespeare's plays?
   

Cuddie, for shame, hold up thy heavye head,
And let us cast with what delight to chace,
And weary thys long lingring Phoebus race.
Whilome thou want the shepheards laddes to leade,
In rymes, in ridles, and in bydding base: 5
Now they in thee, and thou in sleepe art dead.

The poet uses archaic language

1. out of homage to Chaucer.
   
2. to reinforce Classical allusions.
   
3. to ensure proper “ryme.”
   
4. to reflect the language of the time at which he writes.
   
5. to reinforce the biblical nature of his story.
   

Lines 2 and 3 may be paraphrased as:

1. Let us consider how much delight there is in winning.
   
2. Let us see how much good it is to run a race.
   
3. Let us see with what happiness Phoebus races.
   
4. Let us see how we may pass the day pleasantly.
   
5. Let us see how races help us rush the lingering day.
   

This poem was written by

1. Geoffrey Chaucer.
   
2. Dante.
   
3. Caedmon.
   
4. Christopher Marlowe.
   
5. Edmund Spenser.
   

She that but little patience knew,
From childhood on, had now so much
A gray gull lost its fear and flew
Down to her cell and there alit,
And from her fingers ate its bit.

 

Did she in touching that lone wing
Recall the years before her mind
Became a bitter, an abstract thing,
Her thought some popular enmity:
Blind and leader of the blind
Drinking the foul ditch where they lie?

 

When long ago I saw her ride
Under Ben Bulben to the meet,
The beauty of her countryside
With all youth's lonely wildness stirred,
She seemed to have grown clean and sweet
Like any rock-bred, sea-borne bird:

 

Sea-borne, or balanced on the air
When first it sprang out of the nest
Upon some lofty rock to stare
Upon the cloudy canopy,
While under its storm-beaten breast
Cried out the hollows of the sea.