Home ยป Past Questions ยป Literature-in-english ยป Waec ยป 2006 ยป Page 3
43

Read the poem and answer the question

Sleep, O sleep
With thy Rod of Incantation
Charm my Imagination,
Then, only then, I cease to weep

By thy power,
The virgin, by Time O’ ertaken,
For Years forlorn, forsaken,
Enjoys the happy Hour.

What’s to sleep?
‘Tis a visionary Blessing;
A dream that’s past expressing;
Our utmost Wish possessing;
So may I always keep.

The poem makes use of

  • A. end-stopped lines
  • B. run-on lines
  • C. rhyme
  • D. metaphor
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44

Read the poem and answer the question

Sleep, O sleep
With thy Rod of Incantation
Charm my Imagination,
Then, only then, I cease to weep

By thy power,
The virgin, by Time O’ ertaken,
For Years forlorn, forsaken,
Enjoys the happy Hour.

What’s to sleep?
‘Tis a visionary Blessing;
A dream that’s past expressing;
Our utmost Wish possessing;
So may I always keep.

The dominant device used in the first line is

  • A. Oxymoron
  • B. apostrophe
  • C. rhyme
  • D. metaphor
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45

Read the poem and answer the question

Sleep, O sleep
With thy Rod of Incantation
Charm my Imagination,
Then, only then, I cease to weep

By thy power,
The virgin, by Time O’ ertaken,
For Years forlorn, forsaken,
Enjoys the happy Hour.

What’s to sleep?
‘Tis a visionary Blessing;
A dream that’s past expressing;
Our utmost Wish possessing;
So may I always keep.

The poem is

  • A. an epic
  • B. an ode
  • C. a lyric
  • D. a ballad
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46

UNSEEN PROSE AND POETRY

Read the passage and answer the question

Here in the station, it is in no way different save that the city is busy in its snow. But the old men cling to their seats as though they were symbolic and could not be given up. Now and then they sleep, their grey old heads resting with painful awkwardness on the backs of the benches.
Also, they are not at rest. For an hour, they may sleep in the gasping exhaustion of the ill-nourished and aged, who have to walk in the night. Then, a policeman comes by on his round and nudges them upright.
”You can’t sleep here”, he growls.
A strange ritual then begins. An old man is difficult to wake. One man after a slight lurch does not move at all, he sleeps on steadily. Once in a while, one of the sleepers will not wake; he will have had his wish to die in the great droning centre of the hive rather than in some lonely room fulfilled.

”droning” and ”have” illustrate

  • A. anecdote
  • B. epigram
  • C. allusion
  • D. epitaph
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47

UNSEEN PROSE AND POETRY

Read the passage and answer the question

Here in the station, it is in no way different save that the city is busy in its snow. But the old men cling to their seats as though they were symbolic and could not be given up. Now and then they sleep, their grey old heads resting with painful awkwardness on the backs of the benches.
Also, they are not at rest. For an hour, they may sleep in the gasping exhaustion of the ill-nourished and aged, who have to walk in the night. Then, a policeman comes by on his round and nudges them upright.
”You can’t sleep here”, he growls.
A strange ritual then begins. An old man is difficult to wake. One man after a slight lurch does not move at all, he sleeps on steadily. Once in a while, one of the sleepers will not wake; he will have had his wish to die in the great droning centre of the hive rather than in some lonely room fulfilled.

”…..gasping exhaustion of the ill-nourished and aged” infers

  • A. helplessness
  • B. slowness
  • C. sadness
  • D. tiredness
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48

UNSEEN PROSE AND POETRY

Read the passage and answer the question

Here in the station, it is in no way different save that the city is busy in its snow. But the old men cling to their seats as though they were symbolic and could not be given up. Now and then they sleep, their grey old heads resting with painful awkwardness on the backs of the benches.
Also, they are not at rest. For an hour, they may sleep in the gasping exhaustion of the ill-nourished and aged, who have to walk in the night. Then, a policeman comes by on his round and nudges them upright.
”You can’t sleep here”, he growls.
A strange ritual then begins. An old man is difficult to wake. One man after a slight lurch does not move at all, he sleeps on steadily. Once in a while, one of the sleepers will not wake; he will have had his wish to die in the great droning centre of the hive rather than in some lonely room fulfilled.

The passage conveys a mood of

  • A. defiance
  • B. hope
  • C. fear
  • D. despair
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49

UNSEEN PROSE AND POETRY

Read the passage and answer the question

Here in the station, it is in no way different save that the city is busy in its snow. But the old men cling to their seats as though they were symbolic and could not be given up. Now and then they sleep, their grey old heads resting with painful awkwardness on the backs of the benches.
Also, they are not at rest. For an hour, they may sleep in the gasping exhaustion of the ill-nourished and aged, who have to walk in the night. Then, a policeman comes by on his round and nudges them upright.
”You can’t sleep here”, he growls.
A strange ritual then begins. An old man is difficult to wake. One man after a slight lurch does not move at all, he sleeps on steadily. Once in a while, one of the sleepers will not wake; he will have had his wish to die in the great droning centre of the hive rather than in some lonely room fulfilled.

”….on the backs of the benches” illustrates

  • A. synecdoche
  • B. epithet
  • C. assonance
  • D. personification
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50

UNSEEN PROSE AND POETRY

Read the passage and answer the question

Here in the station, it is in no way different save that the city is busy in its snow. But the old men cling to their seats as though they were symbolic and could not be given up. Now and then they sleep, their grey old heads resting with painful awkwardness on the backs of the benches.
Also, they are not at rest. For an hour, they may sleep in the gasping exhaustion of the ill-nourished and aged, who have to walk in the night. Then, a policeman comes by on his round and nudges them upright.
”You can’t sleep here”, he growls.
A strange ritual then begins. An old man is difficult to wake. One man after a slight lurch does not move at all, he sleeps on steadily. Once in a while, one of the sleepers will not wake; he will have had his wish to die in the great droning centre of the hive rather than in some loney room fulfilled.

The style of writing is

  • A. argumentative
  • B. epistolary
  • C. narrative
  • D. expository
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51

”The strong gongs groaning as the guns boom far” illustrates

  • A. metonymy
  • B. refrain
  • C. onomatopoeia
  • D. repetition
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52

Pick the odd item from the options listed below.

  • A. Romance
  • B. Novel
  • C. Short Story
  • D. Sonnet
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53

”I don’t fancy forbidden fruits of fashions and fads” illustrates

  • A. refrain
  • B. repetition
  • C. assonance
  • D. alliteration
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54

The dominant device used in drama is

  • A. stage direction
  • B. dialogue
  • C. characterisation
  • D. solioquy
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55

”Friendship is a sheltering tree” illustrates

  • A. simile
  • B. metaphor
  • C. personification
  • D. oxymoron
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56

A pair of rhymed iambic pentametre lines is a

  • A. tercet
  • B. heroic couplet
  • C. sestet
  • D. blank verse
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57

The specific literary term used to distinguish a novel from a play is

  • A. genre
  • B. verse
  • C. diction
  • D. style
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58

Pick the odd item from the options listed below.

  • A. Euphemism
  • B. Oxymoron
  • C. Hyperbole
  • D. Rhythm
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59

A poem with fourteen lines of rhymed iambic pentrametre is

  • A. an epic
  • B. a sonnet
  • C. a quatrain
  • D. an octave
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60

A metrical pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables illustrates the

  • A. iambus
  • B. anapaest
  • C. dactil
  • D. trochee
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61

A struggle between opposing forces in a literary work is the

  • A. plot
  • B. conflict
  • C. climax
  • D. denouement
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62

A humorous imitation of a serious literary work is

  • A. an ode
  • B. a parody
  • C. an epitaph
  • D. a burlesque
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63

The recurrence of rhythmic pattern of stress in a poem is a

  • A. couplet
  • B. metre
  • C. consonance
  • D. scansion
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