Comprehensive Examination ENGLISH 1922 Tuesday, June 20 9 a.m.-12 m. Every question on this examination tests your power to read and write. Write clearly; watch your spelling and punctuation. Allow time for adequate revision. PART I (Not more than sixty minutes.) (Write upon 1, and upon either 2, 3, or 4.) 1. You have read and studied novels, short stories, plays, essays, orations, narrative poetry, and lyric poetry. On the whole, which of these forms of literature interests you the most? Explain as fully as possible your reasons for your preference, and illustrate your points by reference to three or four examples chosen from the reading you have done. 2. In a play of Shakespeare with which you are familiar choose some moment of importance to the hero. Tell as fully as you can why, at this moment, the hero acts as he does. 3. Name two or three novels that you have read in which the setting is important to the story. Tell, in the case of one of these novels, in what ways the setting is important, either to the development of character, or to the development of the plot. 4. Choose some poet with whose writings you are familiar. a) What subjects did he write about? b) Name two of his poems and state fully the way in which he has treated the subjects of these two poems. PART II (Not more than sixty minutes.) The object of this section is, in part, to test your power of observing and of applying what you have observed to the solution of unexpected problems. A. CARGOES Quinquireme of Nineveh from distant Ophir, Rowing home to haven in sunny Palestine, And apes and peacocks, Sandalwood, cedarwood, and sweet white wine. Stately Spanish galleon coming from the Isthmus, Dipping through the Tropics by the palm-green shores, With a cargo of diamonds, Emeralds, amethysts, Topazes, and cinnamon, and gold moidores. Dirty British coaster with a salt-caked smokestack, 1. Each of these poems has unity, and in each a single idea or group of ideas is carried through the poem. a) Does, or does not, "Cargoes" seem to you to need a stanza which sums it up, as the last section of Henley's poem sums up what Henley means by his poem as a whole? Tell briefly why you think as you do. b) What images or mental pictures are common to all three sections of the second poem? What part of the picture, present in the first two sections, is omitted in the third? 2. The first poem has both rhyme and meter; the second has neither, but it has rhythm. Read both poems again, and try to feel their movement. Do you think the verse form which Masefield uses would fit Henley's subject, or Henley's verse form fit Masefield's subject? Tell as simply and clearly as you can why you feel as you do. 3. Which of the two poems do you like better? Do you like it better because of its subject, or its form, or both? If the form has something to do with your preference, tell what there is about the form which you particularly like. B. State as briefly as possible, in your own words, the substance of the following paragraph: Extreme busyness, whether at school or college, kirk or market, is a symptom of deficient vitality; and a faculty for idleness implies a catholic appetite and a strong sense of personal identity. There is a sort of dead-alive, hackneyed people about, who are scarcely conscious of living except in the exercise of some conventional occupation. Bring these fellows into the country, or set them aboard ship, and you will see how they pine for their desk or their study. They have no curiosity; they cannot give themselves over to random provocations; they do not take pleasure in the exercise of their faculties for its own sake; and unless Necessity lays about them with a stick, they will even stand still. It is no good speaking to such folk: they cannot be idle, their nature is not generous enough; and they pass those hours in a sort of coma, which are not dedicated to furious moiling in the gold-mill. When they do not require to go to the office, when they are not hungry and have no mind to drink, the whole breathing world is a blank to them. If they have to wait an hour or so for a train, they fall into a stupid trance with their eyes open. To see them, you would suppose there was nothing to look at and no one to speak with; you would imagine they were paralysed or alienated; and yet very possibly they are hard workers in their own way, and have good eye-sight for a flaw in a deed or a turn of the market. They have been to school and college, but all the time they had their eye on the medal; they have gone about in the world and mixed with clever people, but all the time they were thinking of their own affairs. As if a man's soul were not too small to begin with, they have dwarfed and narrowed theirs by a life of all work and no play; until here they are at forty, with a listless attention, a mind vacant of all material of amusement, and not one thought to rub against another, while they wait for the train. Before he was breeched, he might have clambered on the boxes; . but now the pipe is smoked out, the snuff-box empty, and my gentleman sits bolt upright on a bench, with lamentable eyes. This does not appeal to me as being Success in Life. -ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. PART III (Not more than sixty minutes.) Write in several paragraphs a composition of about four hundred words upon one of the following subjects. Choose such aspects of the subject as you can well discuss according to an orderly, consecutive plan, in which each paragraph shall be one stage. 1. At the telephone. 2. The use of the imagination in reading. 3. Success in school life. 4. Good taste in dress. 5. An interesting book which I have discovered. 6. Experiences while earning money. 7. Old songs and new. 8. Business versus professional life. 9. How a town guards its health. 10. The day of the motor truck. 11. The value of school dramatics. 12. Newspaper cartoons-their good and their bad points. 13. The policeman in the modern community. 14. Friends. 15. Early days in the history of my town. ENGLISH 1922 Monday, September 18 9 a.m.-12 m. Every question on this examination tests your power to read and write. Write clearly; watch your spelling and punctuation. Allow time for adequate revision. PART I (Not more than sixty minutes.) (Write upon 1, and upon either 2, 3, or 4.) 1. What difficulties have you found in your reading that interfered with your understanding and enjoyment of what you read? Make clear by reference to particular books the difficulties that you have in mind. 2. Show to what degree the outcome of any Shakespearean tragedy results from the character of the hero. 3. Choose from the poems that you have read six which you would recommend to a friend of your own age. Give in each case the reasons for your choice. 4. Write about some essay, or oration, which you have studied, and tell what ideas and what qualities of style have impressed you. PART II (Not more than sixty minutes.) The object of this section is, in part, to test your power of observing and of applying what you have observed to the solution of unexpected problems. 1. The lines to the left (A) are part of a poem as Tennyson (when little more than a boy) first printed it. The lines to the right (B) give the same passage as he revised it several years later. Find in A, and mark in the margin with the same numerals, the details which most closely correspond to the numbered lines or groups of lines in B. Copy in your paper, with the numerals, the lines which have thus been marked in A. |