GRE Subject Test: Literature in English : Contexts of American Prose
Study concepts, example questions & explanations for GRE Subject Test: Literature in English
All GRE Subject Test: Literature in English Resources
Example Questions
Example Question #2 : Contexts Of American Prose After 1925
This author set many of his novels in the fictional Mississippi county of Yoknapatawpha. Who is he?
John Steinbeck
Cormac McCarthy
John Dos Passos
William Faulkner
Jack Kerouac
William Faulkner
This is William Faulkner. Yoknapatawpha comes from a Cherokee phrase and is based on real places in Mississippi, and many of his novels—such as Absalom! Absalom!, Light in August, As I Lay Dying, and The Sound and the Fury—are set here.
Example Question #3 : Contexts Of American Prose After 1925
This 1958 novel features a storyline about an adult man who becomes obsessed with and begins a sexual relationship with a preteen girl.
Lolita
All the King’s Men
Of Mice and Men
Rabbit, Run
White Noise
Lolita
This is Vladimir Nabokov’s highly controversial Lolita. Although the book was largely regarded as pornographic and received little critical acclaim when it was first published, it has since become one of the most highly regarded novels of the twentieth century.
Example Question #21 : Contexts Of American Prose
Who, by 2014, was the only African-American writer to win both the Pulitzer and the Nobel Prizes?
Richard Wright
James Baldwin
Langston Hughes
Maya Angelou
Toni Morrison
Toni Morrison
This is Toni Morrison. Her novels, which include The Bluest Eye, Beloved, Sula, and Song of Solomon, feature deeply developed characters and examinations of race and history.
Example Question #82 : Contexts Of Prose
Which of the following writers was not an influential twentieth-century African-American novelist?
Zora Neale Hurston
James Baldwin
Toni Morrison
Don DeLillo
Richard Wright
Don DeLillo
Don DeLillo is a white novelist known for works such as Underworld and White Noise.
Example Question #22 : Contexts Of American Prose
What is the subject of Robert Penn Warren’s All the King’s Men?
The Teapot Dome scandal
Richard Nixon’s Watergate hearing
The Tuskegee experiments
Huey Long’s political corruption
The AIDS crisis
Huey Long’s political corruption
Although Warren denied them, parallels were often drawn between Louisiana governor Huey Long’s rise to political power and the life of his novel’s characters.
Example Question #23 : Contexts Of American Prose
Which of the following is a short story by the author of The Shipping News?
“The Story of an Hour”
“Brokeback Mountain”
“The Monkey’s Paw”
“Bartleby the Scrivener”
“The Gift of the Magi”
“Brokeback Mountain”
“Bartleby the Scrivener” (1853) is by Herman Melville, “The Gift of the Magi” (1905) is by O. Henry, “The Monkey’s Paw” (1902) is by W.W. Jacobs, and “The Story of an Hour” (1894) is by Kate Chopin. “Brokeback Mountain” was published in 1997 by E. Annie Proulx.
Example Question #24 : Contexts Of American Prose
Which of the following is not another work by the author of The Shipping News?
Accordion Crimes
The Big Sleep
Close Range: Wyoming Stories
Heart Songs and Other Stories
Bad Dirt: Wyoming Stories 2
The Big Sleep
Accordion Crimes (1996), Close Range: Wyoming Stories (1999), Bad Dirt: Wyoming Stories 2 (2004), and Heart Songs and Other Stories (1988) are all by E. Annie Proulx. The Big Sleep is a 1939 novel by Raymond Chandler.
Example Question #15 : Contexts Of American Prose After 1925
During what decade was Blood Meridian published?
1940s
1900s
1980s
1920s
1960s
1980s
Blood Meridian was published in 1985. Even if you didn’t know this, you could narrow down the answer choices by recognizing that McCarthy wasn’t born until 1933 and didn’t begin publishing until the 1960s.
Example Question #25 : Contexts Of American Prose
Which of the following is not another work by the author of Infinite Jest?
A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again
The Corrections
Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
Consider the Lobster
The Broom of the System
The Corrections
The Corrections is a 2001 novel by Jonathan Franzen. The Broom of the System (1987), A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again (1997), Consider the Lobster (2005), and Brief Interviews with Hideous Men (1999) are all works by David Foster Wallace.
Example Question #26 : Contexts Of American Prose
Who is the author of The Shipping News?
David Foster Wallace
Cormac McCarthy
Philip Roth
E. Annie Proulx
Jonathan Franzen
E. Annie Proulx
The Shipping News (1993) is a novel by the American author E. Annie Proulx. Proulx was awarded both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award for the novel.
Cormac McCarthy is the author of Blood Meridian (1985), David Foster Wallace is the author of Brief Interviews with Hideous Men (1999), Jonathan Franzen is the author of The Corrections (2001), and Phillip Roth is the author of Portnoy's Complaint (1972)
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