Literary Genres and Techniques

Read the paragraph carefully and determine the main point the author is trying to make. What conclusion can be drawn from the argument? Each paragraph is followed by five statements.One statement supports the author's argument better than the others do................ One New York publisher has estimated that 50,000 to 60,000 people in the United States want an anthology that includes the complete works of William Shakespeare. And what accounts for this renewed interest in Shakespeare? As scholars point out, his psychological insights into both male and female characters are amazing even today. This paragraph best supports the statement that

What did Christie do with her travel experiences?

Directions: Read the following passage to answer the given question.

Agatha Christie was probably the most successful writer in history. She wrote seventy-eight crime novels, six other novels, one hundred and fifty short stories, four non-fiction books and nineteen plays. That represents two billion books sold: more than William Shakespeare’s.

Christie became a writer by accident. She was bored when her husband was away in the First World War. Agatha was working in a hospital dispensary (which is where she learned all the information about poisons that she used in her books). She decided to write a novel to pass the time. She chose a detective novel because she loved reading them. Her first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, was an instant success. Each book had a new ingenious plot. Readers loved the books, particularly because Christie always gave the readers all the information they needed to find the solution.

Christie loved travelling. When she became rich she could go all over the world. She used the travels in her writing. Agatha Christie died in 1976, but her stories are still immensely popular. Many have been adapted into films or for television.

Why did she start by writing detective stories?

Directions: Read the following passage to answer the given question.

Agatha Christie was probably the most successful writer in history. She wrote seventy-eight crime novels, six other novels, one hundred and fifty short stories, four non-fiction books and nineteen plays. That represents two billion books sold: more than William Shakespeare’s.

Christie became a writer by accident. She was bored when her husband was away in the First World War. Agatha was working in a hospital dispensary (which is where she learned all the information about poisons that she used in her books). She decided to write a novel to pass the time. She chose a detective novel because she loved reading them. Her first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, was an instant success. Each book had a new ingenious plot. Readers loved the books, particularly because Christie always gave the readers all the information they needed to find the solution.

Christie loved travelling. When she became rich she could go all over the world. She used the travels in her writing. Agatha Christie died in 1976, but her stories are still immensely popular. Many have been adapted into films or for television.

The writer's attitude towards the contemporary criticism is

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

       
A good deal of contemporary criticism, originating at that point at which criticism merges with scholarship, and at which scholarship merges into criticism, may be characterized as the criticism of explanation by origins. The question of how far information about the poet or information about the factors contributed to making of the poem helps us to understand the poetry is not as simple as one might think. Each reader must answer it for himself, for the enjoyment of poetry can be a complex experience in which several forms of satisfaction are mingled; and they may be mingled in different proportions for different readers. There are several methods of getting to that level of satisfaction. But as every method has its own limitations and dangers, it is only reasonable to mention what seem to me the limitations and dangers of this one, dangers against which, if it were practised for what I suspect should be its chief use, that is, as an exercise for pupils, it would be the business of the teacher to warn his class.
The first danger is that of assuming that there must be just one interpretation of the poem as a whole that must be right. There will be details of explanation, especially with poems written in another age than our own, matters of fact, historical allusions, meaning of a certain word at a certain date, which can be established, and the teacher can see that his pupils get these right. But as for the meaning of the poem as a whole, it is not exhausted by way of explanation, for the meaning is what the poem means to different sensitive readers. The second danger—the danger to which a reader is exposed—is that of assuming that the interpretation of a poem, if valid, is necessarily an account of what the author consciously or unconsciously was trying to do. For the tendency is so general, to believe that we understand a poem when we have identified its origins and traced the process to which the poet submitted his materials, that we may easily believe the converse—that any explanation of the poem is also an account of how it was written. The analysis of the poem to which I have referred interested me because it helped me to see the poem through the eyes of an intelligent, sensitive, and diligent reader. That is not at all to say that he saw the poem through my eyes, or that his account has anything to do with the experiences that led up to my writing it, or anything I experienced in the process of writing it. And my third comment is that I should, as a test, like to see the method applied to some new poems, some very good poem, and one that was previously unknown to me: because I should like to find out whether, after perusing the analysis, I should be able to enjoy the poem. For nearly all the poems in the volume were poems that I had known and loved for many years; and after reading the analyses, I found I was slow to recover my previous feeling about the poems. It was as if someone had taken a machine to pieces and left me with the task of reassembling the parts. I suspect, in fact, that a good deal of the value of an interpretation is—that it should be my own interpretation. There are many things, perhaps, to know about this poem, or that, many facts about which scholars can instruct me which will help me to avoid definite misunderstanding; but a valid interpretation, I believe, must be at the same time an interpretation of my own feelings when I read it.

What danger, according to the passage, is a reader exposed to?

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

       
A good deal of contemporary criticism, originating at that point at which criticism merges with scholarship, and at which scholarship merges into criticism, may be characterized as the criticism of explanation by origins. The question of how far information about the poet or information about the factors contributed to making of the poem helps us to understand the poetry is not as simple as one might think. Each reader must answer it for himself, for the enjoyment of poetry can be a complex experience in which several forms of satisfaction are mingled; and they may be mingled in different proportions for different readers. There are several methods of getting to that level of satisfaction. But as every method has its own limitations and dangers, it is only reasonable to mention what seem to me the limitations and dangers of this one, dangers against which, if it were practised for what I suspect should be its chief use, that is, as an exercise for pupils, it would be the business of the teacher to warn his class.
The first danger is that of assuming that there must be just one interpretation of the poem as a whole that must be right. There will be details of explanation, especially with poems written in another age than our own, matters of fact, historical allusions, meaning of a certain word at a certain date, which can be established, and the teacher can see that his pupils get these right. But as for the meaning of the poem as a whole, it is not exhausted by way of explanation, for the meaning is what the poem means to different sensitive readers. The second danger—the danger to which a reader is exposed—is that of assuming that the interpretation of a poem, if valid, is necessarily an account of what the author consciously or unconsciously was trying to do. For the tendency is so general, to believe that we understand a poem when we have identified its origins and traced the process to which the poet submitted his materials, that we may easily believe the converse—that any explanation of the poem is also an account of how it was written. The analysis of the poem to which I have referred interested me because it helped me to see the poem through the eyes of an intelligent, sensitive, and diligent reader. That is not at all to say that he saw the poem through my eyes, or that his account has anything to do with the experiences that led up to my writing it, or anything I experienced in the process of writing it. And my third comment is that I should, as a test, like to see the method applied to some new poems, some very good poem, and one that was previously unknown to me: because I should like to find out whether, after perusing the analysis, I should be able to enjoy the poem. For nearly all the poems in the volume were poems that I had known and loved for many years; and after reading the analyses, I found I was slow to recover my previous feeling about the poems. It was as if someone had taken a machine to pieces and left me with the task of reassembling the parts. I suspect, in fact, that a good deal of the value of an interpretation is—that it should be my own interpretation. There are many things, perhaps, to know about this poem, or that, many facts about which scholars can instruct me which will help me to avoid definite misunderstanding; but a valid interpretation, I believe, must be at the same time an interpretation of my own feelings when I read it.

What, according to the author, is the most important thing for a reader of poetry to do?

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

       
A good deal of contemporary criticism, originating at that point at which criticism merges with scholarship, and at which scholarship merges into criticism, may be characterized as the criticism of explanation by origins. The question of how far information about the poet or information about the factors contributed to making of the poem helps us to understand the poetry is not as simple as one might think. Each reader must answer it for himself, for the enjoyment of poetry can be a complex experience in which several forms of satisfaction are mingled; and they may be mingled in different proportions for different readers. There are several methods of getting to that level of satisfaction. But as every method has its own limitations and dangers, it is only reasonable to mention what seem to me the limitations and dangers of this one, dangers against which, if it were practised for what I suspect should be its chief use, that is, as an exercise for pupils, it would be the business of the teacher to warn his class.
The first danger is that of assuming that there must be just one interpretation of the poem as a whole that must be right. There will be details of explanation, especially with poems written in another age than our own, matters of fact, historical allusions, meaning of a certain word at a certain date, which can be established, and the teacher can see that his pupils get these right. But as for the meaning of the poem as a whole, it is not exhausted by way of explanation, for the meaning is what the poem means to different sensitive readers. The second danger—the danger to which a reader is exposed—is that of assuming that the interpretation of a poem, if valid, is necessarily an account of what the author consciously or unconsciously was trying to do. For the tendency is so general, to believe that we understand a poem when we have identified its origins and traced the process to which the poet submitted his materials, that we may easily believe the converse—that any explanation of the poem is also an account of how it was written. The analysis of the poem to which I have referred interested me because it helped me to see the poem through the eyes of an intelligent, sensitive, and diligent reader. That is not at all to say that he saw the poem through my eyes, or that his account has anything to do with the experiences that led up to my writing it, or anything I experienced in the process of writing it. And my third comment is that I should, as a test, like to see the method applied to some new poems, some very good poem, and one that was previously unknown to me: because I should like to find out whether, after perusing the analysis, I should be able to enjoy the poem. For nearly all the poems in the volume were poems that I had known and loved for many years; and after reading the analyses, I found I was slow to recover my previous feeling about the poems. It was as if someone had taken a machine to pieces and left me with the task of reassembling the parts. I suspect, in fact, that a good deal of the value of an interpretation is—that it should be my own interpretation. There are many things, perhaps, to know about this poem, or that, many facts about which scholars can instruct me which will help me to avoid definite misunderstanding; but a valid interpretation, I believe, must be at the same time an interpretation of my own feelings when I read it.

The writer states or implies that

Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage:

       
A good deal of contemporary criticism, originating at that point at which criticism merges with scholarship, and at which scholarship merges into criticism, may be characterized as the criticism of explanation by origins. The question of how far information about the poet or information about the factors contributed to making of the poem helps us to understand the poetry is not as simple as one might think. Each reader must answer it for himself, for the enjoyment of poetry can be a complex experience in which several forms of satisfaction are mingled; and they may be mingled in different proportions for different readers. There are several methods of getting to that level of satisfaction. But as every method has its own limitations and dangers, it is only reasonable to mention what seem to me the limitations and dangers of this one, dangers against which, if it were practised for what I suspect should be its chief use, that is, as an exercise for pupils, it would be the business of the teacher to warn his class.
The first danger is that of assuming that there must be just one interpretation of the poem as a whole that must be right. There will be details of explanation, especially with poems written in another age than our own, matters of fact, historical allusions, meaning of a certain word at a certain date, which can be established, and the teacher can see that his pupils get these right. But as for the meaning of the poem as a whole, it is not exhausted by way of explanation, for the meaning is what the poem means to different sensitive readers. The second danger—the danger to which a reader is exposed—is that of assuming that the interpretation of a poem, if valid, is necessarily an account of what the author consciously or unconsciously was trying to do. For the tendency is so general, to believe that we understand a poem when we have identified its origins and traced the process to which the poet submitted his materials, that we may easily believe the converse—that any explanation of the poem is also an account of how it was written. The analysis of the poem to which I have referred interested me because it helped me to see the poem through the eyes of an intelligent, sensitive, and diligent reader. That is not at all to say that he saw the poem through my eyes, or that his account has anything to do with the experiences that led up to my writing it, or anything I experienced in the process of writing it. And my third comment is that I should, as a test, like to see the method applied to some new poems, some very good poem, and one that was previously unknown to me: because I should like to find out whether, after perusing the analysis, I should be able to enjoy the poem. For nearly all the poems in the volume were poems that I had known and loved for many years; and after reading the analyses, I found I was slow to recover my previous feeling about the poems. It was as if someone had taken a machine to pieces and left me with the task of reassembling the parts. I suspect, in fact, that a good deal of the value of an interpretation is—that it should be my own interpretation. There are many things, perhaps, to know about this poem, or that, many facts about which scholars can instruct me which will help me to avoid definite misunderstanding; but a valid interpretation, I believe, must be at the same time an interpretation of my own feelings when I read it.

'Working on your emotional literacy' means to

Directions: Read the passage given below and answer the question that follows by selecting the most appropriate option.
1.       Some researchers suggest that emotional intelligence can be leaned and strengthened, while others claim it is an inborn characteristic. The purpose for developing our emotional literacy is to precisely identify and communicate our feelings. When we do this we are helping nature fulfill its design for our feelings. We must know how we feel in order to be able to fill our emotional needs. And we must communicate our feelings in order to get the emotional support and understanding we need from others, as well as to show our emotional support and understanding to them.
2.         Also, one of the first steps to developing our emotional intelligence is to improve our emotional literacy. In other words, to improve our ability to identify our feelings by their specific names -, and the more specific we can be, the better. In the English language we have thousands of words which describe and identify our emotions, we just don't use many of them. If you are interested in working on your emotional literacy, the first step is to start using simple, three word sentences such as these : I feel sad. I feel motivated. I feel offended. I feel appreciated. I feel hurt. I feel disrespected. When we talk about our feelings using three word sentences we are sending what have been called "I messages". On the other hand, when we say things like ''You make me so jealous" we are sending a "you message". These "you messages" typically put the other person on the defensive, which hurts communication and relationships rather than helping.

Directions: The following question contains paragraph with sentence or phrase missing indicated parenthetically. From the alternatives, select the sentence or phrase that best provides the missing link.

There are people walking among us who don't care for works of fiction. For them, make-believe makes little sense in a world that is real and far more interesting than (____). In other words they take Oscar Wilde's dictum, “All art is quite useless”, quite seriously.

Directions: A brief passage or a statement is given, and a question is asked, based on the information provided by the passage/statement. The question has four alternatives marked 1 to 4. Critically examine them and choose the best answer.

In many works of fiction, the heroes and heroines are either authors or actors or social figures. Very rarely is the common man, a plumber or an accountant, portrayed as a hero. The one reason for this would perhaps be

Directions: Choose the correct answer for the following question on the basis of the given passage:

The author of the passage raises an objection to criticism of Black fiction like that by Addison Gayle as it __________________________.

RC Passage 4:
Roger Rosenblatt’s book Black Fiction, manages to alter the approach taken in many previous studies by making an attempt to apply literary rather than sociopolitical criteria to its subject. Rosenblatt points out that criticism of Black writing has very often served as a pretext for an expounding on Black history. The recent work of Addison Gayle’s passes a judgement on the value of Black fiction by clearly political standards, rating each work according to the ideas of Black identity, which it propounds.
Though fiction results from political circumstances, its author react not in ideological ways to those circumstances, and talking about novels and stories primarily as instruments of ideology circumvents much of the fictional enterprise. Affinities and connections are revealed in the works of Black fiction in Rosenblatt’s literary analysis; these affinities and connections have been overlooked and ignored by solely political studies.
The writing of acceptable criticism of Black fiction, however, presumes giving satisfactory answers to a quite a few questions. The most important of all, is there a sufficient reason, apart from the racial identity of the authors, for the grouping together of Black authors? Secondly, what is the distinction of Black fiction from other modern fiction with which it is largely contemporaneous? In the work Rosenblatt demonstrates that Black fiction is a distinct body of writing, which has an identifiable, coherent literary tradition. He highlights recurring concerns and designs, which are independent of chronology in Black fiction written over the past eighty years. These concerns and designs are thematic, and they come form the central fact of the predominant white culture, where the Black characters in the novel are situated irrespective of whether they attempt to conform to that culture or they rebel against it.
Rosenblatt’s work does leave certain aesthetic questions open. His thematic analysis allows considerable objectivity; he even clearly states that he does not intend to judge the merit of the various works yet his reluctance seems misplaced, especially since an attempt to appraise might have led to interesting results. For example, certain novels have an appearance of structural diffusion. Is this a defeat, or are the authors working out of, or attempting to forge, a different kind of aesthetic? Apart from this, the style of certain Black novels, like Jean Toomer’s Cane, verges on expressionism or surrealism; does this technique provide a counterpoint to the prevalent theme that portrays the fate against which Black heroes are pitted, a theme usually conveyed by more naturalistic modes of expressions?