CLEP Humanities : Fiction

Study concepts, example questions & explanations for CLEP Humanities

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Example Questions

Example Question #32 : Identifying Titles, Authors, Or Schools Of Fiction

Which of the following books was not written by Jane Austen?

Possible Answers:

Emma

Pride and Prejudice

Northanger Abbey

Sense and Sensibility

Jane Eyre

Correct answer:

Jane Eyre

Explanation:

Jane Austen was England's most popular and influential novelist in the early part of the nineteenth century. Her stories focused on romantic intrigue and also commented on social mores, women's status, and society. In a similar vein, but written years after Austen's death and more in the Gothic tradition, was Charlotte Bronte's 1847 novel Jane Eyre.

Example Question #7 : Identifying Titles, Authors, Or Schools Of Nineteenth Century Fiction

Who wrote the novel Frankenstein?

Possible Answers:

Oscar Wilde

Lord Byron

Edward Saïd

Mary Shelley

Jane Austen

Correct answer:

Mary Shelley

Explanation:

Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein in 1818.

Example Question #10 : Identifying Titles, Authors, Or Schools Of Nineteenth Century Fiction

Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, and Emma were written by which author?

Possible Answers:

Jane Austen

Oscar Wilde

Mary Shelley

Mary Wollstonecraft

Ernest Hemingway

Correct answer:

Jane Austen

Explanation:

Jane Austen is the author of these novels.

Example Question #33 : Identifying Titles, Authors, Or Schools Of Fiction

Which French novelist was the author of the 1856 novel Madame Bovary?

Possible Answers:

Jules Verne

Stendhal

Alexandre Dumas

Victor Hugo

Gustave Flaubert

Correct answer:

Gustave Flaubert

Explanation:

Madame Bovary was Gustave Flaubert's debut novel and wildly controversial upon its initial publication. Flaubert's novel tells the tale of a doctor's wife who conducts a number of scandalous affairs. While the plot was simple and straightforward, the book was filled with small patterns and perfectly constructed sentences, fitting Flaubert's quest to find "le mot juste," or the perfect word.

Example Question #34 : Identifying Titles, Authors, Or Schools Of Fiction

Which of the following is NOT a work of Gothic fiction?

Possible Answers:

Frankenstein

The Fall of the House of Usher

The Castle of Otranto

Dracula

Great Expectations

Correct answer:

Great Expectations

Explanation:

Gothic fiction was a development of the Romantic movement, and relied on a Gothic castle setting, horror elements, and sweeping plots. All of those features are present in all of the answer choices, except for Charles Dickens' Great Expectations. While Dickens was influenced by Gothic fiction, his work departed from it in focusing on everyday people's lives, and using almost no horror elements.

Example Question #35 : Identifying Titles, Authors, Or Schools Of Fiction

Which American novel portrays the main character viewing his own funeral as part of a practical joke?

Possible Answers:

The Turn of the Screw

The Age of Innocence

Sister Carrie

Catcher in the Rye

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

Correct answer:

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

Explanation:

Mark Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, published in 1876, details the life of a young boy growing up on the Mississippi River. At one point, Tom Sawyer and his friend Huckleberry Finn run off and make the town think they are dead, which leads to Tom witnessing his own funeral. Tom Sawyer also appears in Twain's 1884 The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

Example Question #36 : Identifying Titles, Authors, Or Schools Of Fiction

What is the Russian novel concerning a family's struggles between a father and three brothers?

Possible Answers:

Taras Bulba

Crime and Punishment

The Brothers Karamazov

Notes From Underground

Anna Karenina

Correct answer:

The Brothers Karamazov

Explanation:

The Brothers Karamazov took Fyodor Dostoevsky over two years to write, and he intended the massive work as the first in a series, but he died four months after its publication. The novel concerns the Karamazov family, led by patriarch Fyodor Karamazov and his three sons of young adult age, the hotheaded Dmitri, the rational Ivan, and the faithful Alexei. Philosophical and emotional conflicts drive the plot and themes of the lengthy novel.

Example Question #37 : Identifying Titles, Authors, Or Schools Of Fiction

What is the late-nineteenth-century novel of the Civil War by Stephen Crane?

Possible Answers:

Andersonville

Ethan Frome

War and Peace

Red Badge of Courage

Heart of Darkness

Correct answer:

Red Badge of Courage

Explanation:

The 1895 novel, The Red Badge of Courage, was Stephen Crane's second novel, but his first success, making him a literary celebrity at the age of 24. Crane was inspired to write a tale of the Civil War thirty years after the end of the conflict, after reading tales of battles from veterans. Crane thought the journalistic reports did not convey what it was like psychologically to be in war, and so he crafted his story about a soldier by interviewing a host of Civil War veterans about their experiences.

Example Question #38 : Identifying Titles, Authors, Or Schools Of Fiction

What is the early-nineteenth-century English novel about a young woman who plays matchmaker to the detriment of her own relationships?

Possible Answers:

Great Expectations

The Heart of Midlothian

Emma

Pride and Prejudice

Persuasion

Correct answer:

Emma

Explanation:

Jane Austen's Emma, published in 1815, deals with a genteel young woman dealing with romantic intrigues in Regency-era England. What sets Emma apart is its focus on its main character's foibles in attempting to play matchmaker with everyone she knows. Using her typical wit and satire, Austen portrays Emma's headstrong attitude getting in the way of her own life.

Example Question #71 : Fiction

Anna Karenina and War and Peace were written by which writer?

Possible Answers:

Mikhail Katkov

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Nikolai Gogol

Leo Tolstoy

Ivan Turgenev

Correct answer:

Leo Tolstoy

Explanation:

Both Anna Karenina and War and Peace were written by Leo Tolstoy in the mid-nineteenth century.

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