Literature in English JAMB, WAEC, NECO AND NABTEB Official Past Questions

This question is based on General Literature Principles and Literary Appreciation.

A picaresque novel is a

This question is based on selected poems from Wole Soyinka (ed.) Poems of Black Africa and D.I. Nwoga (ed.) West African Verse.

…….Their eyes recede from tomorrow.
No sense of mission sustains them.’
These lines from Odia Of Ofeimun’s ‘The Prodigals express

This question is based on George Bernard Shaw’s Arms and the Man.

‘That is a photograph of the gentleman – the patriot and hero – to whom I am betrothed’,. The gentleman referred to in this passage is

This question is based on General Literature Principles and Literary Appreciation
‘Having finished the paper, a second cup of coffee and a roll and butter, he rose; shook a crumb or two from his waist coat, and expanding his broad chest, smiled happily, not because he felt particularly light-hearted his happy smile was simply the result of a good digestion.
The character referred to in this passage

This question is based on General Literature Principles and Literary Appreciation
‘America! there it lay, handy and tantalizing, allheat and scurry. All morning they had kept catching glimpses of it beyond the potholes as they stood in long lines, waiting to reach the tables where the immigration men in dacrion shirts checked their visas, inspected the X-ray pictures of their lungs that they held in their hands, decided whether to admit them or not. Getting into America was, it seemed, quite as hard as getting into heaven; and the trouble was… that as with heaven one couldn’t know whether one would like it when one got there’.
The picture of America presented in this passage is that of a place

This question is based on General Literature Principles and Literary Appreciation
‘A slight breeze murmured in the air. Grasses swayed as if in resentment. Over in the horizon, just beneath the spectrum of the ascending sun, horizontal brands of red cloud hung menacingly above the tips of the trees and morning air smelled of burnt clay.
The Victims by Isidore Okpewho
Effect in the above passage is achieved through the use of

This question is based on General Literature Principles and Literary Appreciation
‘I have a sin of fear, that when I have spun
My last thread, I shall perish on the shore;
But swear by thyself, that at my death thy sun
Shall shine as he shines now, and heretofore;
And, having done that, thou hast done,
I fear no more.’
These lines from John Donne’s ‘Hymn to God the Father’ contain examples of

This question is based on General Literature Principles and Literary Appreciation
‘As soon as the fellows were departed, the lawyer,
Who had, it seems, a case of pistols in the seat of the coach, informed the company, that if it had been daylight, and he could have submitted to the robbery; he likewise set forth that he had often met highwaymen when he travelled on horseback, but none ever durst attack him; concluding, that if he had not been more afraid for the lady than for himself, he should not have now parted with his money so easily.’
Joseph Andrews by Henry Fielding
It can be inferred that the lawyer mentioned above is a

This question is based on General Literature Principles and Literary Appreciation
‘I had a tent impression that there was something decidedly fine in Mr. Wopsle’s elocution-not for old association’s sake, I am afraid, but because it was very slow, very dreary, very up-hill and down-hill, and very unlike any way in which any man in any natural circumstances of life or death ever expressed himself about anything’.
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens.
The uniqueness of Mr. Wopsle’s speech is expressed in this passage through

This question is based on General Literature Principles and Literary Appreciation
‘She certainly doesn’t want to play
Other Woman in some conventional, boring triangle. She doesn’t feel like an other Woman; she isn’t weedling or devious, she doesn’t wear negligees or paint her toe nails. William may think she’s exotic but she isn’t really; she’s straightforward, narrow and unadomed, a scientist; not of web-spinner, expert at the entrapment of husbands.
Life before Man by Margaret Atwood
According to the passage, the ‘Other Woman’ by definition is

This question is based on General Literature Principles and Literary Appreciation.
‘I die, yet depart not,
I am bound, yet soar free;
Thou art and thou art not,
And ever shall be!’
‘The City of Dreams’ by Robert Buchanan. The literary device consciously used in the above extract is

This question is based on General Literature Principles and Literary Appreciation.
‘His mind was crowded with memories; memories of the knowledge that had come to them when they closed in on the struggling pig, knowledge that they had outwitted a living thing, imposed their will upon it, taken away its life like a long satisfying drink,’
Lord of the Flies by William Golding.
The dominant device in this extract is

This question is based on General Literature Principles and Literary Appreciation.
‘Beautiful Kareendi, flower of my heart. No one but you can type them. For I want to send them care of the address of your heart, by the post of your heart, to be read by the eye of your heart, thereafter to be kept within your heart, sealed there forever and ever’.
Devil on the Cross by Ngugi wa Thiong’o.
The aesthetic appeal of this seduction emanates from the predominant use of

This question is based on General Literature Principles and Literary Appreciation.
A necessary quality of every work of literature is that it

This question is based on General Literature Principles and Literary Appreciation.
In literary criticism, a casual reference to a figure or an event is regarded as an

This question is based on General Literature Principles and Literary Appreciation.
A paradox is

This question is based on General Literature Principles and Literary Appreciation.
Which of the following could be applicable to all genres?

This question is based on General Literature Principles and Literary Appreciation.
Which of the following is central to narrative fiction?

This question is based on General Literature Principles and Literary Appreciation.
A statement whose meaning is contrary to that openly expressed is an example of

This question is based on General Literature Principles and Literary Appreciation.
When a character in a literary work exists primarily to enhance, through contrast, the portrayal of the personal traits of another character is a

This question is based on General Literature Principles and Literary Appreciation.
The epilogue in a literary composition is