GCE Literature in English 2023
Past Questions

When an author deliberately places two contrasting characters side by side to highlight their differences, the literary device employed is known as

The opening section of a novel that provides background information about characters, setting, and situation before the main conflict develops is called the

When a novelist presents a character whose beliefs and values are clearly opposite to those the author wishes to endorse, that character is functioning as a

Read the following lines: 'The harmattan comes with its dusty breath, / Choking the land in a shroud of grey.' The figure of speech used in 'dusty breath' is

In the analysis of a poem's rhyme scheme, the lines of the following stanza — 'The eagle soars above the hill (A) / And surveys the land below (B) / The rivers run against their will (A) / Through val…

Which of the following statements most accurately distinguishes a 'tragedy of fate' from a 'tragedy of character'?

Which of the following best describes the narrative technique predominantly used in Ama Ata Aidoo's Our Sister Killjoy?

The central irony in Guy de Maupassant's The Necklace is that Mathilde Loisel spends years in poverty replacing the lost necklace only to discover that

In Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, Kurtz's last words, 'The horror! The horror!' are most accurately interpreted as

The tone of Wole Soyinka's 'Telephone Conversation' is best described as

In Wole Soyinka's 'Telephone Conversation', the landlady's repeated question about the colour of the speaker's skin serves primarily to

In J.P. Clark-Bekederemo's poem 'Streamside Exchange', the conversation between the child and the bird is used mainly to

In William Wordsworth's 'Daffodils', the speaker compares the flowers to the stars because both

The phrase 'the fog comes on little cat feet' in Carl Sandburg's poem 'Fog' is an example of

In Shakespeare's Sonnet 18, the line 'Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?' functions primarily as

When a writer uses a minor character solely to represent a particular social group or type without individualising that character, the character is described as

A character who remains essentially unchanged throughout the course of a narrative is referred to as a

In literature, a theme is best described as

In Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart, Okonkwo's tragic flaw is BEST described as his

Read the following passage and answer the question. 'She was, in the eyes of the village, a woman of no consequence — a widow who tilled a patch of land too small to feed ambition. But in the quiet h…

a) Explain what is meant by the term 'theme' in a literary work. (3 marks) b) Distinguish between 'plot' and 'subplot' in prose fiction. (4 marks) c) Examine the importance of ANY THREE of the followi…

Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions that follow. In Charles Dickens' novel Oliver Twist, Oliver is a young orphan boy born in a workhouse and raised in an environment of cru…

African poetry is often described as a literature of protest, identity, and cultural affirmation. (a) Explain what is meant by the term 'oral tradition' as it relates to African poetry. (4 marks) (b)…