All Free English Literature MCQs with Answers
Every English Literature question in the bank, across all chapters, each with the correct answer and a written explanation. Free and unlimited, with no account needed.
3,192 questions · page 3 of 160
- A. The ability of an African American to live as a White person.
- B. To do well on one's schoolwork.
- C. To leave one's past behind.
- D. To gain approval from one's community.Download Interactive Maps
Explanation: In the context of race, passing means that an African American person with a sufficiently light appearance lives publicly as white.
Correct answer: The ability of an African American to live as a White person.- A. Betrayal by the educational system.
- B. Betrayal by her sister.
- C. Betrayal by her community.
- D. Betrayal by a family member.Stream History Documentaries
Explanation: Celie suffers abuse and betrayal from family members, her community, and institutions, but Nettie does not betray her; their separation…
Correct answer: Betrayal by her sister.- A. She almost died in childbirth with her first child.
- B. She doesn't want to lose her figure.
- C. Her husband has threatened to leave her.
- D. She is afraid it may have dark skin.Books & Literature
Explanation: Clare fears another child because a darker-skinned baby could expose her African ancestry and destroy the white identity she has…
Correct answer: She is afraid it may have dark skin.Books & Literature- A. Supplying them with narcotic eggs.
- B. Letting them choose their own mates.
- C. Freeing the males after they are hosts.
- D. Paying them very well.
Explanation: The Tlic use narcotic eggs to soothe the humans and make their dependence on the Tlic relationship more acceptable.
Correct answer: Supplying them with narcotic eggs.- A. Redefining black people in terms of a presence, not an absence.
- B. Working against the existing racist stereotypes.
- C. A struggle ongoing since 1619.
- D. All of the above
Explanation: Gates presents the New Negro as a reconstruction of Black identity against absence, racist stereotypes, and a long history of oppression…
Correct answer: All of the above- A. Explain how African Americans could not learn standard English
- B. Make his written inaccessible to white audiences
- C. To encourage feelings of pride in African American readers
- D. Challenge American stereotypes about race
Explanation: Chesnutt uses vernacular not to suggest that African Americans cannot speak standard English, but to expose and challenge fixed white…
Correct answer: Challenge American stereotypes about race- A. Whites should pay reparations to former slaves.
- B. African Americans should acculturate to mainstream White culture.
- C. White institutions should reform to meet African American needs.
- D. African Americans will have to help themselves by becoming educated.Language Resources
Explanation: Washington's autobiography stresses self-help through education, work, discipline, and economic advancement rather than dependence on…
Correct answer: African Americans will have to help themselves by becoming educated.Language Resources- A. Get an education.
- B. Get a job.
- C. To be clean.
- D. To be a teacher
Explanation: Chapter Three recounts Washington's determination to obtain an education despite poverty and obstacles, especially his journey to Hampton…
Correct answer: Get an education.- A. Resistance to the overseers.
- B. Learning to be midwives.
- C. Resistance against dehumanization.
- D. Lower suicide rates.
Explanation: Female slaves often formed supportive networks that helped them preserve dignity, identity, and mutual strength in conditions designed to…
Correct answer: Resistance against dehumanization.- A. Most slave children lived in two family homes.
- B. Slave owners did not allow their slaves to live as married couples.
- C. Slaves were given limited civil rights.
- D. Most slaves were not Christian.
Explanation: Although enslaved marriages had no full legal protection, many enslaved children lived with both parents in family households.
Correct answer: Most slave children lived in two family homes.- A. The theme of man against nature.
- B. The theme of man against man.
- C. The theme of heredity.
- D. Nature as an invisible force.
Explanation: The opening Battle Royal places the narrator in violent conflict with other Black men while white authorities control the spectacle…
Correct answer: The theme of man against man.- A. Led to novels of passing.
- B. Existed only in fiction by White authors.
- C. Developed in the 20th century.
- D. Existed only in fiction by female authors.
Explanation: The tragic-mulatto figure, usually a mixed-race character unable to belong fully to either racial group, helped produce stories and novels…
Correct answer: Led to novels of passing.- A. Because in was cheaper to live in Africa.
- B. Because he did not feel African Americans would ever achieve equality in America.
- C. He was asked by African countries to bring African Americans to Africa.
- D. He had to leave the country.
Explanation: Marcus Garvey doubted that African Americans would gain genuine equality within the United States and therefore promoted Black nationalism…
Correct answer: Because he did not feel African Americans would ever achieve equality in America.- A. Highly original.
- B. Typical of Colonial poetry.
- C. Progressive and challenging.
- D. Abolitionist in subject.
Explanation: Phillis Wheatley's verse follows the neoclassical conventions and religious subjects typical of eighteenth-century Colonial poetry…
Correct answer: Typical of Colonial poetry.- A. 1804
- B. 1865
- C. 1848
- D. 1807
Explanation: The Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery in the United States in 1865, after the Civil War.
Correct answer: 1865- A. Bringing African culture to the United States.
- B. Leaving the African peoples alone.
- C. Writers who took African themes for their work.
- D. Completing an oppressed people's quest for freedom, liberty and democracy.
Explanation: Garvey's Back-to-Africa programme presented migration and Black self-determination as part of the struggle of an oppressed people for…
Correct answer: Completing an oppressed people's quest for freedom, liberty and democracy.- A. Robert Frost
- B. John Keats
- C. John Milton
- D. Robert Herrick
Explanation: Robert Frost was an American poet known for poems about rural New England, including “The Road Not Taken.” Keats, Milton, and Herrick were…
Correct answer: Robert Frost- A. teacher
- B. journalist
- C. black-smith
- D. farmer
Explanation: Robert Frost’s father, William Prescott Frost Jr., was a journalist and newspaper editor in San Francisco.
Correct answer: journalist- A. Stein was a crucially important figure in the Paris émigré community.
- B. Stein was primarily a muse for modernist poets.
- C. Stein was a proponent of low modernism.
- D. Stein was an opponent of vanguard trends.
Explanation: Stein's Paris salon made her a major figure in the expatriate modernist community, where writers such as Hemingway and other avant-garde…
Correct answer: Stein was a crucially important figure in the Paris émigré community.- A. French Classicism
- B. British Romanticism
- C. American Romanticism
- D. German Romanticism
Explanation: Hart Crane drew substantially on the visionary tradition of American Romanticism, especially its expansive treatment of nature…
Correct answer: American Romanticism