Final Exam in American Literature ACTUAL EXAM QUESTIONS AND WELL
ELABORATED ANSWERS (MOST TESTED QUESTIONS WITH VERIFIED ANSWERS)
Plot - CORRECT ANSWER The events of a story and how they unfold.
Conflict - CORRECT ANSWER The main problem of a story (internal
and external)
Resolution - CORRECT ANSWER The solution or outcome of the
conflict.
Character - CORRECT ANSWER One of the individuals in a story.
Dialogue - CORRECT ANSWER Words spoken by characters in a
story.
Setting - CORRECT ANSWER The place and time in which a story
happens.
Tone - CORRECT ANSWER The way the narrator feels about the plot,
setting, and characters
Mood - CORRECT ANSWER The way a reader is made to feel when
reading a story.
Flashback - CORRECT ANSWER When the sequence of a story gets
interrupted, allowing readers to travel back in time and relive a key
event in a character's life.
Point of View - CORRECT ANSWER The perspective from which a
story is told. 1st, 2nd, 3rd
Foreshadowing - CORRECT ANSWER When the text provides hints
about what will happen later in the story.
Allusion - CORRECT ANSWER A reference to another story, poem,
character, or any other popular work
,Theme - CORRECT ANSWER The moral or message of a story.
Metaphor - CORRECT ANSWER An unlikely comparison without using
like or as
Simile - CORRECT ANSWER An unlikely comparison using like or as
Personification - CORRECT ANSWER Describing an inanimate object
with human characteristics
Hyperbole - CORRECT ANSWER An extreme exaggeration
Imagery - CORRECT ANSWER Description using the five senses
(sight, taste, touch, sound, smell)
Onomatopoeia - CORRECT ANSWER A word describing the sound
Alliteration - CORRECT ANSWER Repeating the same constant sound
at the beginning of the word
Idioms - CORRECT ANSWER A peculiar or strange phrase not relating
to the direct meaning
Verbal Irony - CORRECT ANSWER What is said is not what is meant,
sarcasm
Situational Irony - CORRECT ANSWER When something happens that
is very different from what is expected
Dramatic Irony - CORRECT ANSWER When the audience knows
something the characters do not
Paradox - CORRECT ANSWER A situation, person, or thing that
combines contradictory features
Symbolism - CORRECT ANSWER An object or situation representing
an idea that is abstract
,Puritanism - CORRECT ANSWER 1620-1730 plain and simple writing,
focus on God, lots of sermons and poetry
Colonialism - CORRECT ANSWER 1750-1800 reason and scientific
observation, focus on freedom and self control, lots of speeches and
essays
Romanticism - CORRECT ANSWER 1790-1850 celebration of nature
and ideal living, lots of poems and stories
Transcendental - CORRECT ANSWER 1830-1860 working hard,
individualism, nature and innocence (subgroup of Romanticism)
Gothic - CORRECT ANSWER 1820-1900 spooky settings,
supernatural, gore, and suspense (subgroup of Romanticism)
Modernism - CORRECT ANSWER 1900-1950 bold experimentation
with style, rejection of traditional, loss faith of American Dream
Amy Tan - CORRECT ANSWER Short Story 'Fish Cheeks'
Jesús Colón - CORRECT ANSWER Short Story 'Little Things Are Big'
Tupac - CORRECT ANSWER Poem 'The Rose That Grew From
Concrete'
Langston Hughes - CORRECT ANSWER Poems 'I, Too' and 'Harlem: A
Dream Deferred'
Claude McCay - CORRECT ANSWER Poem 'America'
Walt Whitman - CORRECT ANSWER Poem 'I Hear America Singing'
Maya Angelou - CORRECT ANSWER Poem 'Still I Rise'
Lorraine Hansberry - CORRECT ANSWER Play 'Raisin in the Sun'
, Patrick Henry - CORRECT ANSWER Speech 'Virginia Convention: Give
Me Liberty or Give Me Death'
Henry David Thoreau - CORRECT ANSWER Essay 'Civil Disobedience'
Sojourner Truth - CORRECT ANSWER Speech 'Ain't I A Woman'
Abigail Adams - CORRECT ANSWER Letter 'To John Adams'
Phyllis Wheatly - CORRECT ANSWER Poems 'To His Excellency
George Washington' and 'Coming to America'
Martin Luther King Jr. - CORRECT ANSWER Speech 'Nobel Peace
Prize'
Edgar Allan Poe - CORRECT ANSWER Poems 'The Bells', 'The
Sleeper', and 'Spirits of the Dead'
Washington Irving - CORRECT ANSWER Short Story 'The Devil and
Tom Walker'
Bram Stoker - CORRECT ANSWER Novel Excerpt 'Dracula'
F. Scott Fitzgerald - CORRECT ANSWER Novel 'The Great Gatsby'
The name of the whaling ship that Ahab captains is the...? - CORRECT
ANSWER Pequod
The white whale against whom Ahab seeks vengeance? - CORRECT
ANSWER caused Ahab to lose his leg in a previous encounter.
Ahab persuades his crew members to chase the white whale by
appealing mainly to their...? - CORRECT ANSWER greed
Ahab's rambling monologues show that he is...? - CORRECT ANSWER
single-minded
ELABORATED ANSWERS (MOST TESTED QUESTIONS WITH VERIFIED ANSWERS)
Plot - CORRECT ANSWER The events of a story and how they unfold.
Conflict - CORRECT ANSWER The main problem of a story (internal
and external)
Resolution - CORRECT ANSWER The solution or outcome of the
conflict.
Character - CORRECT ANSWER One of the individuals in a story.
Dialogue - CORRECT ANSWER Words spoken by characters in a
story.
Setting - CORRECT ANSWER The place and time in which a story
happens.
Tone - CORRECT ANSWER The way the narrator feels about the plot,
setting, and characters
Mood - CORRECT ANSWER The way a reader is made to feel when
reading a story.
Flashback - CORRECT ANSWER When the sequence of a story gets
interrupted, allowing readers to travel back in time and relive a key
event in a character's life.
Point of View - CORRECT ANSWER The perspective from which a
story is told. 1st, 2nd, 3rd
Foreshadowing - CORRECT ANSWER When the text provides hints
about what will happen later in the story.
Allusion - CORRECT ANSWER A reference to another story, poem,
character, or any other popular work
,Theme - CORRECT ANSWER The moral or message of a story.
Metaphor - CORRECT ANSWER An unlikely comparison without using
like or as
Simile - CORRECT ANSWER An unlikely comparison using like or as
Personification - CORRECT ANSWER Describing an inanimate object
with human characteristics
Hyperbole - CORRECT ANSWER An extreme exaggeration
Imagery - CORRECT ANSWER Description using the five senses
(sight, taste, touch, sound, smell)
Onomatopoeia - CORRECT ANSWER A word describing the sound
Alliteration - CORRECT ANSWER Repeating the same constant sound
at the beginning of the word
Idioms - CORRECT ANSWER A peculiar or strange phrase not relating
to the direct meaning
Verbal Irony - CORRECT ANSWER What is said is not what is meant,
sarcasm
Situational Irony - CORRECT ANSWER When something happens that
is very different from what is expected
Dramatic Irony - CORRECT ANSWER When the audience knows
something the characters do not
Paradox - CORRECT ANSWER A situation, person, or thing that
combines contradictory features
Symbolism - CORRECT ANSWER An object or situation representing
an idea that is abstract
,Puritanism - CORRECT ANSWER 1620-1730 plain and simple writing,
focus on God, lots of sermons and poetry
Colonialism - CORRECT ANSWER 1750-1800 reason and scientific
observation, focus on freedom and self control, lots of speeches and
essays
Romanticism - CORRECT ANSWER 1790-1850 celebration of nature
and ideal living, lots of poems and stories
Transcendental - CORRECT ANSWER 1830-1860 working hard,
individualism, nature and innocence (subgroup of Romanticism)
Gothic - CORRECT ANSWER 1820-1900 spooky settings,
supernatural, gore, and suspense (subgroup of Romanticism)
Modernism - CORRECT ANSWER 1900-1950 bold experimentation
with style, rejection of traditional, loss faith of American Dream
Amy Tan - CORRECT ANSWER Short Story 'Fish Cheeks'
Jesús Colón - CORRECT ANSWER Short Story 'Little Things Are Big'
Tupac - CORRECT ANSWER Poem 'The Rose That Grew From
Concrete'
Langston Hughes - CORRECT ANSWER Poems 'I, Too' and 'Harlem: A
Dream Deferred'
Claude McCay - CORRECT ANSWER Poem 'America'
Walt Whitman - CORRECT ANSWER Poem 'I Hear America Singing'
Maya Angelou - CORRECT ANSWER Poem 'Still I Rise'
Lorraine Hansberry - CORRECT ANSWER Play 'Raisin in the Sun'
, Patrick Henry - CORRECT ANSWER Speech 'Virginia Convention: Give
Me Liberty or Give Me Death'
Henry David Thoreau - CORRECT ANSWER Essay 'Civil Disobedience'
Sojourner Truth - CORRECT ANSWER Speech 'Ain't I A Woman'
Abigail Adams - CORRECT ANSWER Letter 'To John Adams'
Phyllis Wheatly - CORRECT ANSWER Poems 'To His Excellency
George Washington' and 'Coming to America'
Martin Luther King Jr. - CORRECT ANSWER Speech 'Nobel Peace
Prize'
Edgar Allan Poe - CORRECT ANSWER Poems 'The Bells', 'The
Sleeper', and 'Spirits of the Dead'
Washington Irving - CORRECT ANSWER Short Story 'The Devil and
Tom Walker'
Bram Stoker - CORRECT ANSWER Novel Excerpt 'Dracula'
F. Scott Fitzgerald - CORRECT ANSWER Novel 'The Great Gatsby'
The name of the whaling ship that Ahab captains is the...? - CORRECT
ANSWER Pequod
The white whale against whom Ahab seeks vengeance? - CORRECT
ANSWER caused Ahab to lose his leg in a previous encounter.
Ahab persuades his crew members to chase the white whale by
appealing mainly to their...? - CORRECT ANSWER greed
Ahab's rambling monologues show that he is...? - CORRECT ANSWER
single-minded
