All GRE Subject Test: Literature in English Resources
Example Questions
Example Question #21 : Identification Of Plays
This Pulitzer Prize-winning play by Tony Kushner focuses on sexuality and the AIDS epidemic in 1980s New York City.
The Way We Live Now
Andre’s Mother
As Is
Safe Sex
Angels in America
Angels in America
Although all the titles listed above are American plays dealing with AIDS, only the 1993 Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes was written by Tony Kushner. It is by far the most famous work of the Kushner’s and includes character doubling, interweaving storylines, and various angels and imaginary friends.
Example Question #12 : Identification Of American Plays
This 1965 comedy by Neil Simon follows the ill-suited relationship between roommates Felix Ungar and Oscar Madison. What play is it?
A Raisin in the Sun
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead
Waiting for Lefty
The Odd Couple
The Philadelphia Story
The Odd Couple
The play described is The Odd Couple, which follows the tiffs and jokes of Oscar, a notoriously laidback slob, and Felix, an extremely organized neat-freak. The play’s main premise is that the two recently divorced main characters become roommates out of financial necessity but end up forming their own close relationship.
Example Question #2 : Identification Of American Plays After 1925
Which 1959 play takes its title from the Langston Hughes poem “A Dream Deferred”?
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead
The Philadelphia Story
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
A Raisin in the Sun
Glengarry Glen Ross
A Raisin in the Sun
The play in question is A Raisin in the Sun, a work that portrays the experiences of an impoverished black family in mid-century Chicago. It is known for its cast of almost exclusively African-American characters as well as its involvement in a U.S. Supreme Court case about racist housing policies.
Example Question #31 : Identification Of Plays
What theatrical genre is characterized by its series of unrelated music, magic, comedy, dancing, and/or circus acts all on one playbill?
Broadway
talkies
vaudeville
burlesque
satire
vaudeville
The theatrical genre described in the question is vaudeville, a genre that developed in late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century America. It has its roots in a range of different disciplines, including stage magic, burlesque, circus sideshows, and musical theater.
Example Question #32 : Identification Of Plays
Who wrote Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Edward Albee
Tom Stoppard
Leonard Woolf
Tennessee Williams
Tony Kushner
Edward Albee
The author is Edward Albee, an award-winning American playwright who was born in 1928. The play follows the disintegration of the marriage of an impotent middle-aged couple and is remarkable for its interplay of reality and illusion.
Example Question #33 : Identification Of Plays
Which of the following is the title of an absurdist tragicomedy by Tom Stoppard?
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead
Glengarry Glen Ross
Arcadia
Waiting for Godot
Not I
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead
The play described in the question stem is Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, which follows the offstage adventures of Hamlet’s two hapless friends. The conceit is that the eponymous characters are confused by the plot of Hamlet, which they aren’t privy to, and this conceit allows Stoppard to pose strong existential questions about human purpose and determinism.
Example Question #34 : Identification Of Plays
Glengarry Glen Ross was written by which American playwright?
Tony Kushner
Tom Stoppard
Edward Albee
David Mamet
Tennessee Williams
David Mamet
Glengarry Glen Ross was written by David Mamet and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1984. It centers on the machinations of four unscrupulous real estate agents in Chicago who are trying their best to sell the two pieces of real estate in the play’s title. It is known for its exquisite dialogues and attention to language.
Example Question #1 : Identification Of British Plays 1660–1925
Determine the title and author of this passage based on its content and style.
“But I can't stand saying one thing when everyone knows I mean another. What's the use in such hypocrisy? If people arrange the world that way for women, there's no good pretending it’s arranged the other way . . .”
Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw
Mrs. Warren’s Profession by George Bernard Shaw
An Inspector Calls by J. B. Priestly
Educating Rita by Willy Russel
The Maids by Jean Genet
Mrs. Warren’s Profession by George Bernard Shaw
These lines are from the 1893 play Mrs. Warren's Profession by George Bernard Shaw. This quote is by Mrs. Warren (a former prostitute and current brothel owner) during a conversation with her daughter, Vivie. Vivie has returned home from college and is finally aware of her mother's occupation, causing much debate throughout the course of the play.
Example Question #1 : Identification Of British Plays 1660–1925
Identify the author and title of the excerpt.
"The great secret, Eliza, is not having bad manners or good manners or any other particular sort of manners, but having the same manner for all human souls: in short, behaving as if were in Heaven, where there are no third-class carriages, and one soul is as good as another.”
Arcadia by Tom Stoppard
The Maids by Jean Genet
Mrs. Warren’s Profession by George Bernard Shaw
An Ideal Husband, Oscar Wilde
Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw
Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw
These lines are from George Bernard Shaw’s 1913 play Pygmalion. The play centers on Eliza Doolittle, a seemingly simple Cockney flower girl, who Professor Henry Higgins attempts to transform into a sophisticated and well-spoken lady who can pass as a duchess. The name of the play comes from the Greek mythological character, Pygmalion, a sculptor who falls in love with his sculpture when it comes to life. The passage contains two majors clues as to its source material: it mentions "Eliza" and it discusses manners.
Passage adapted from Act V of Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw (1913)
Example Question #2 : Identification Of British Plays 1660–1925
“True, 'tis an unhappy circumstance of life that love should ever die before us, and that the man so often should outlive the lover. But say what you will, 'tis better to be left than never to have been loved. To pass our youth in dull indifference, to refuse the sweets of life because they once must leave us, is as preposterous as to wish to have been born old, because we one day must be old. For my part, my youth may wear and waste, but it shall never rust in my possession.”
Identify the title of the work from which the passage is adapted.
Doctor Faustus
The Tempest
As You Like It
The Way of the World
The Alchemist
The Way of the World
These lines are adapted from of William Congreve's play The Way of the World, first performed in 1700. The play's main characters, Mirabell and Millamant, are lovers attempting to marry, but Millamant's aunt, Lady Wishfort, tries to foil their plans by getting her own nephew, Sir Wilfull, to marry Millamant instead.
Adapted from The Way of the World by William Congreve, II.i (1700)