Questions 1-10 (10 points)
There are 10 incomplete sentences in this part. For each sentence, there are four choices marked A, B, C and D. Choose the answer that best completes the sentence. Then circle the corresponding letter on the Answer Sheet.
1. Scrooge is a character created by ______.
A. Jane Austen B. William Shakespeare
C. Charles Dickens D. William Wordsworth
2. Which type of the text would you consider as literature?
A. newspaper stories B. short stories
C. business letter D. memo
3. “Pygmalion” is a ______ by ______.
A. short story, Bernard Shaw B. play, Bernard Shaw
C. poem, W. B. Yeats D. play, W. B. Yeats
4. “A Red Red Rose” is known as “ballad stanza”. This poetic form usually contains ______ rhymed lines in each stanza.
A. 4 B. 6
C. 2 D. 8
5. In literary language, especially, in the language of poetry, poets are “privileged” to break some of the commonly observed rules in their use of language. This is what is known as ______.
A. dramatic measurement B. artistic ways
C. poetic licence D. reader’s Digest
6. A speech, often of some length, in which a character, alone on the stage, expresses his
thoughts and feelings, is known as ______.
A. speculation B. figure of speech
C. soliloquy D. flashback
7. Hamlet, Othello and King Lear are well-known tragedies by Shakespeare, together with ______.
A. Merchant of Venice B. Midsummer Night’s dream
C. As you Like it D. Macbeth
8. The term ______ is the jargon used to indicate the essential structure in a story, the pattern, the order which a story is built up and which holds it together, the storyline.
A. exposition B. plot
C. climax D. classic plot structure
9. “Wuthering Heights” is a house where the main characters live ______ according to the novel.
A. on a plain B. on a moor
C. in a valley D. in a hill
10. The method that the writer uses to start his story in the middle of the event, rather than in the beginning is called ______, a latin phrase, literally translated as “in the middle of things.”
A. tension B. elaboration
C. denouement D. in media rest
Questions 11-15 (15 points)
There are 5 incomplete sentences in this part. Fill in the blanks with proper words or phrases to complete each sentence. Write your answers on the answer sheet.
11. Please list 3 types of literary genre ______, ______, ______.
12. In discussing themes of the literary works, the writer usually uses four ways of giving his or her ideas, please write at least 3 of them ______, ______, ______.
13. There are usually 5 elements involved in reading fictions and dramas. They are setting, ______, ______, ______ and conflict.
14. Is Jane Eyre a round character or flat character? Give at least one reason to support your point. ____________.
15. List at least 3 different types of conflicts mentioned in the textbook. ______, ______, ______.
Section II: Checking Understanding of English Poems (16 points) (Questions 16-19)
Here is a short poem by American poet Joyce Kilmer. He talks about trees in the poem. Read the poem carefully and answer questions below. Write your answers on the Answer Sheet.
Trees
I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast; A tree that looks at God all day, And lifts her leafy arms to pray; A tree that may in Summer wear A nest of robins in her hair;
Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain. Poems are made by fools like me, But only God can make a tree.
—— Joyce Kilmer
Questions on the poem.
16. What’s the rhyme scheme of the poem? (4 points)
17. Find two examples of figures of speech used in the poem. (4 points)
18. What does the poet intend to say in the last two lines? (4 points)
19. Find two images in the poem, what do they symbolize? (4 points)
Section III: Checking Understanding of English Drama (14 points)
Part A (Questions 20-23) (8 points)
Here’s an extract from Bernard Shaw’s play Pygmalion. Read it and answer questions below. Write your answers on the Answer Sheet. Bernard Shaw (1856-1950). Pygmalion. 1916.
ACT 1
Covent garden at 11. 15 p.m. Torrents of heavy summer rain. Cab whistles blowing frantically in all directions. Pedestrians running for shelter into the market and under the portion of St. Paul’s Church, where there are already several people, among them a lady and her daughter in evening dress. They are all peering out gloomily at the rain, except one man with his back turned to the rest, who seems wholly preoccupied with a notebook in which he is writing busily.
The church clock strikes the first quarter.
THE DAUGHTER [in the space between the central pillars, close to the one on her left] I’m getting chilled to the bone. What can Freddy be doing all this time?
He’s been gone twenty minutes.
THE MOTHER [On her daughter’s right] Not so long. But he ought to have got us a cab by now.
A BYSTANDER [on the lady’s right] He won’t get no cab not until half-past eleven, missus, when they come back after dropping their theatre fares.
THE MOTHER. But we must have a cab. We can’t stand here until half-past eleven.
It’s too bad.
THE BYSTANDER. Well, it ain’t my fault, missus.
THE DAUGHTER. If Freddy had a bit of gumption, he would have got one at the theatre door.
THE MOTHER. What could he have done, poor boy?
THE DAUGHTER. Other people got cabs. Why couldn’t he?
Freddy rushes in out of the rain from the Southampton Street side, and comes between them closing a dripping umbrella. He is a young man of twenty, in evening dress, very wet around the ankles.
THE DAUGHTER. Well, haven’t you got a cab?
FREDDY. There’s not one to be had for love or money.
THE MOTHER. Oh, Freddy, there must be one. You can’t have tried.
THE DAUGHTER. It’s too tiresome. Do you expect us to go and get one ourselves?
FREDDY. I tell you they’re all engaged. The rain was so sudden: nobody was prepared; and everybody had to take a cab. I’ve been to Charing Cross one way and nearly to Ludgate Circus the other; and they were all engaged.
THE MOGHER. Did you try Trafalgar Square?
FREDDY. There wasn’t one at Trafalgar Square.
THE DAUGHTER. Did you try?
FREDDY. I tried as far as Charing Cross Station. Did you expect me to walk to Hammersmith?
THE DAUGHTER. You haven’t tried at all.
THE MOGTHER. You really are very helpless, Freddy. Go again; and don’t come back until you have found a cab.
FREDDY. I shall simply get soaked for nothing.
THE DAUGHTER. And what about us? Are we to stay here all night in this draught, with next to nothing on. You selfish pig.
FREDDY. Oh, very well: I’ll go, I’ll go. [He opens his umbrella and dashes off Strandwards but comes into collision with a flower girl, who is hurrying in for shelter, knocking her basket out of her hands. A blinding flash of lightning, followed instantly by a rattling peal of thunder, orchestrates the incident].
THE FLOWER GIRL. Nah then, Freddy: look why’ gowin, deah.
FREDDY. Sorry [he rushes off].
THE FLOWER GKRL [picking up her scattered flowers and replacing them in the basket] There’s menners f’ yer! Te-oo banches o voylets trod into the mad. [She sits down on the plinth of the column, sorting her flowers, on the lady’s right. She is not at all an attractive person. She is perhaps eighteen, perhaps twenty, hardly older. She wears a little sailor hat of black straw that has long been exposed to the dust and soot of London and has seldom if ever been brushed. Her hair needs washing rather badly: its mousy color can hardly be natural. She wears a shoddy black coat that reaches nearly to her knees and is shaped to her waist. She has a brown skirt with a coarse apron. Her boots are much the worse for wear. She is no doubt as clean as she can afford to be; but compared to the ladies she is very dirty. Her features are no worse than theirs; but their condition leaves something to be desired; and she needs the services of a dentist].
Questions on the extract.
20. What is the function of the first paragraph? (2 points)
21. Among all the characters who actually appeared in the piece of writing, who did not talk
but was mentioned in particular? (2 points)
22. What was Freddy trying to do? (2 points)
23. Who do you think will be the central character (s) of the play, and why? (2 points)
Part B Understanding Shakespeare
Questions 24-26 (6 points)
The following is an extract from Shakespeare’s play As You Like it. Read it and paraphrase the underlined parts. Write your answers on the answer Sheet.
All the World’s a Stage
24. And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms.
25. And then the school boy, with his satchel.
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woful ballads,
Make to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then the soldier,
Full of wise oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
26. Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lin’d.
Section III: Checking Understanding of English Short Stories
Questions 27-34 (25 points)
Here is a complete short story, A Day’s Wait, written by Ernest Hemingway. Read it and answer Questions 27-34. write your answers on the Answer Sheet.
(Please note: This reading task will be relevant to the writing task in Section V.)
A Day’s Wait
Ernest Hemingway
He came into the room to shut the windows while we were still in bed and I saw he looked ill. He was shivering, his face was white, and he walked slowly as though it ached to move.
“What’s the matter, Schatz?”
“I’ve got a headache.”
“You better go back to bed.”
“No, I’m all right.”
“You go up to bed, ’I said, “you’re sick.”
“I’m all right,” he said.
When the doctor came he took the boy’s temperature.
“What is it?” I asked him.
“One hundred and two.”
Downstairs, the doctor left three different medicines in different coloured capsules with instructions for giving them. One was to bring down the fever, another a purgative, the third to overcome an acid condition, he explained. The germs of influenza can only exist in an acid condition, he explained. He seemed to know all about influenza and said there was nothing to worry about if the fever did not go above one hundred and four degrees. This was a light epidemic of flu and there was no danger if you avoided pneumonia. Back in the room I wrote the boy’s temperature down and made a note of the time to give the various capsules.
“Do you want me to read to you?”
“All right. If you want to,” said the boy. His face was very white and there were dark areas under his eyes. He lay still in the bed and seemed very detached from what was going on. I read aloud from Howard Pyle’s Book of Pirates; but I could see that he was not following what I was reading.
“How do you feel, Schatz?” I asked him.
“Just the same, so far,” he said.
I sat at the foot of the bed and read to myself while I waited for it to be time to give another capsule. It would have been natural for him to go to sleep, but when I looked up he was looking at the foot of the bed looking very strangely.
“Why don’t you try to go to sleep? I’ll wake you up for the medicine.”
“I’d rather stay awake.”
After a while he said to me, “You don’t have to stay in here with me, Papa, if it bothers you.”
“It doesn’t bother me.”
“No, I mean you don’t have to stay if it’s going to bother you.”
I thought perhaps he was a little lightheaded and after giving him the prescribed capsules at eleven o’clock I went out for a while.
It was a bright, cold day, the ground covered with a sleet that had frozen so that it seemed as if all the bare trees, the bushes, the cut brush and all the grass and the bare ground had been varnished with ice. I took the young Irish setter for a little walk up the glassy surface and the red dog slipped and slithered and I fell twice, hard, once dropping my gun and having it slide away over the ice.
We flushed a covey of quail under a high bank with overhanging brush piles and it was necessary to jump on the ice-coated mounds of brush several times before they would flush. Coming out while you were poised unsteadily on the icy, springy brush they made difficult shooting and I killed two, missed five, and started back, pleased to have found a covey close to the house and happy there were so many left to find on another day.
At the house they said the boy had refused to let anyone come into the room.
“You can’t come in,” he said. “You mustn’t get what I have.”
I went up to him and found him in exactly the position I had left him, white-faced, but with the
tops of his cheeks flushed by the fever, staring still, as he had stared, at the foot of the bed.
I took his temperature.
“What is it?”
“Something like a hundred,” I said. It was one hundred and two and four tenths.
“It was a hundred and two,” he said.
“Who said so?”
“The doctor.”
“Your temperature is all right,” I said. “It’s nothing to worry about.”
“I don’t worry,” he said, “but I can’t keep from thinking.”
“Don’t think,” I said. “Just take it easy.”
“I’m taking it easy,” he said, and looked straight ahead. He was evidently holding tight on to himself about something.
“Take this with water.”
“Do you think it will do any good?”
“Of course it will.”
I sat down and opened the Pirate book and commenced to read, but I could see he was not following, so I stopped.
“About what time do you think I’m going to die?” he asked.
“What?”
“About how long will it be before I die?”
“You aren’t going to die. What’s the matter with you?”
“Oh, yes, I am. I heard him say a hundred and two.”
“People don’t die with a fever of one hundred and two. That’s a silly way to talk.”
“I know they do. At school in France the boys told me you can’t live with forty-four degrees. I’ve got a hundred and two.”
He had been waiting to die all day, ever since nine o’clock in the morning. “You poor Schatz,” I said. “Poor old Schatz. It’s like miles and kilometers. You aren’t going to die. That’s a different thermometer. On that thermometer thirty-seven is normal. On this kind it’s ninety-eight.”
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely,” said. “It’s like miles and kilometers. You know, like how many kilometers we make when we go seventy miles in the car?”
“Oh,” he said.
But his gaze at the foot of the bed relaxed slowly. The hold over himself relaxed too, finally, and the next day it was very slack and he cried very easily at little things that were of no importance.
Questions on the short story:
27. Who was the main character of the story? (2 points)
28. What was the relationship between the narrator and the main character? (2 points)
29. What happened to the main character of the story on that day? (2 points)
30. What did “I” do on that day besides taking caring of Schatz? (2 points)
31. How did “I” help Schatz to change back to his usual self at the end of the story? (2 points)
32. Read the second underlined parts on page 21 again. Why did Schatz refuse to let anyone get into the room? (5 points)
33. What was the boy waiting for on that day and why? (5 points)
34. Read the first underlined parts on page 21 again. Why was Schatz not following what “I” was reading? (5 points)
Section V: Checking Writing Skills (20 points)
Please write an article of approx. 200 words based on the reading of the short story offered in section IV. Read the instructions carefully before you start writing.
* Imagine that you are Schatz and retell the story from his point of view.
* You should stick to the original story-line and keep the basic content of the story.
* Use specific words to express your feelings and experiences as you imagine could be true of Schatz. Write your answers on the Answer Sheet.
答案
Section I. Checking Understanding of General Literary Concepts and Course Content Awareness
Questions 1-10 (10 points, one point for each correct answer)
1. C 2. B 3. B 4. A 5. C
6. C 7. D 8. B 9. B 10. D
Questions 11-15 (15 points, 3 points for each correct answer.)
11. (Award one point for each correct answer) drama, poetry, fiction
12. (Award one point for each correct answer) direct statements by the author, dramatic statements made by characters, characters who stand for ideas.
13. (Award one point for each correct answer) plot, theme, characterization
14. Jane Eyre is a round character, since she has undergone a lot of changes in the story.
15. (Award a total of 3 points, one point for any one of the following answers) people against people, a person against himself, people against nature, individual against society
Section II. Checking Understanding of English Poems (16 points)
16. The rhyme scheme is: aa bb cc dd ee aa. (4 points)
17. (Award a maximum of 4 points, a points for each correct example of figures of speech.)
a. The earth is personified. The earth has sweet flowing breast.
b. The tree is personified. It has hair/bosom/arms. /It can look at God/lift her arms and pray.
18. The beauty of nature as created by God can never be reached by human efforts such as poetry. (4 points)
19. (Award a maximum of 4 points, 2 points for each correct answer.)
a. Arms symbolize branches of the tree.
b. Hair symbolizes the top of the tree.
Section III. Checking Understanding of English Drama (14 points)
Part A. Questions 20-23 (8 points)
20. The first paragraph describes the place in which this part of the play was set. (2 points)
21. The characters who talked in this part of the play include The Daughter, The Mother, The Bystander, Freddy, and The Flower Girl. The Note-taker did not talk. He had “his back turned to the rest, wholly preoccupied with a notebook in which he is writing”. (2 points)
22. Freddy seemed to be trying hard to find a cab. He came back to explain how hard he had tried and hurried off to search again. (2 points)
23. [Again there is no fixed answer for this question. The same criteria apply here as in the last question. In the play, the central characters turned out to be the Flower Girl and the Note-taker (Professor Henry Higgins). The students do not have to know who the central characters are in the play as written by Shaw. What is important here is that they have to give an argument or explanation why they think who the main character is. For instance, they can say that the Flower Girl will be the main character and argue that it is so because there is a large paragraph describing her in the beginning part of the play.] (2 points)
Part B. Understanding Shakespeare (6 points)
(Award 2 points for each paraphrase: 1 point for correct understanding of the original English for each sentence, another 1 point for appropriate language.)
24. And all the men and women are playing their roles. They were born into this world and death would take them away from this world.
25. And then the man plays the part of a school boy whose face shines in the morning. He walks very slowly toward school, carrying his school bag, for he is very unwilling to go to school.
26. (They were) seeking reputation even at the risk of their lives in the war. Yet the reputation will not last for ever.
Section IV. Checking Understanding of English Short Stories (25 points)
Questions 27-34
27. Schatz, a little boy. (2 points)
28. Father and son. (2 points)
29. He fell ill. (2 points)
30. He went hunting. (2 points)
31. Schatz was thinking about other things. He thought that he would not survive his fever. He was thinking about his death and other things associated with it. At that time he would be the least interested in what happened in the story. (2 points)
32. Thinking that he had caught a terminal disease, the boy showed an adult-like responsibility. He did not allow the others to get close to him to prevent them from catching the deadly disease. (5 points)
33. The boy was waiting for his death. He did not know that the doctor was using a different system of temperature than that he knew and thought that he would not be able to survive his fever. (5 points)
Section V. Checking Writing Skills. (20 points)
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