GRE Subject Test: Literature in English : Identification

Study concepts, example questions & explanations for GRE Subject Test: Literature in English

varsity tutors app store varsity tutors android store

All GRE Subject Test: Literature in English Resources

1 Diagnostic Test 158 Practice Tests Question of the Day Flashcards Learn by Concept

Example Questions

Example Question #4 : Identification Of World Prose After 1925

Which novel by Indian author Arundhati Roy concerns the coming-of-age and illicit love story between twins Rahel and Esthappen in India?

Possible Answers:

The God of Small Things

Cutting for Stone

Troubles

Midnight’s Children

Twilight in Delhi

Correct answer:

The God of Small Things

Explanation:

The questions refers to The God of Small Things, which won the 1997 Booker Prize. The novel follows the lives of the aforementioned twins in an intergenerational family in the second half of the 20th century.

Salman Rushdie's Midnight’s Children (1981), J.G Farrell's Troubles (1970), Abraham Verghese's Cutting for Stone (2009), and Ahmed Ali's Twilight in Delhi (1940) were used as alternative answer choices.

Example Question #5 : Identification Of World Prose After 1925

Which of the following is a Nobel Prize-winning South African writer?

Possible Answers:

NoViolet Bulawayo

Wole Soyinka

Nadine Gordimer

Chinua Achebe

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o

Correct answer:

Nadine Gordimer

Explanation:

The correct answer is Nadine Gordimer, whose novels include The Lying Days (1953), Booker Prize-winning The Conservationist (1974), and No Time Like the Present (2012). 

Chinua Achebe was Nigerian, as is Wole Soyinka; NoViolet Bulawayo is Zimbawean (although she has been living in the United States for many years; she teaches at Stanford University); Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o is Kenyan.

Example Question #9 : Identification Of World Prose After 1925

Which of the following Indonesian writers wrote the popular novel Negeri 5 Menara (The Land of 5 Towers)?

Possible Answers:

Pramoedya Ananta Toer

Ahmad Fuadi

Leila Chudori

Ayu Utami

Sapardi Djoko Damono

Correct answer:

Ahmad Fuadi

Explanation:

This is Ahmad Fuadi, who is an important Indonesian entrepreneur as well as a novelist. Negeri 5 Menara (The Land of 5 Towers) was published in 2009. Pramoedya Ananta Toer wrote the Buru quartet, Ayu Utami wrote Saman (1998), Sapardi Djoko Damono wrote mainly lyric poetry, and Leila Chudori wrote The Last Night (1989).

Example Question #6 : Identification Of World Prose After 1925

This Indian-American author wrote Interpreter of Maladies, a Pulitzer Prize-winning short story collection, and The Namesake, a novel. Who is the author?

Possible Answers:

Jhumpa Lahiri

Salman Rushdie

Kiran Desai

Mohsin Hamid

Arundhati Roy

Correct answer:

Jhumpa Lahiri

Explanation:

The author in question is Jhumpa Lahiri. Her writing often centers around Indian or Indian-American immigrant characters and their interfamilial relationships and strife. Interpreter of Maladies was published in 1999 and won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize. Her most recent book is The Lowland (2013)

Kiran Desai won the 2006 Booker Prize for The Inheritance of Loss. Arundhati Roy won the 1997 Booker Prize for The God of Small Things. Salman Rushdie is the author of Midnight's Children (1981). Mohsin Hamid is the author of The Reluctant Fundamentalist (2007).

Example Question #21 : Identification Of World Prose

Which of the following authors wrote Red Sorghum, Pow!, and Big Breasts and Wide Hips?

Possible Answers:

Ha Jin

Mo Yan

Xiaolu Guo

Su Tong

Yu Hua

Correct answer:

Mo Yan

Explanation:

This is the Chinese author Mo Yan (Mo Yan is a pen name that loosely translated means "don't speak," his given name is Guan Moye), who uses magical realism and folk tales to investigate political, sexual, and cultural identities. Yan was the recipient of the 2012 Nobel Prize for Literature.

Red Sorghum was published in 1986, Pow! was published in 2003, and Big Breasts and Wide Hips was published in 1997.

Ha Jin wrote the National Book Award winning In the Pond (1999). Xiaolu Guo is an author and filmmaker whose novels include UFO in her Eyes (2009) and 20 Fragments of a Ravenous Youth (2008). Su Tong is the author of Binu and the Great Wall of China (2009). Yu Hua is a short story writer and novelist whose works include To Live (2003) and Brothers (2009).

Example Question #22 : Identification Of World Prose

Which of the following is a memoir by Chinese-American author Maxine Hong Kingston? 

Possible Answers:

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down

The Joy Luck Club

The Woman Warrior

Red Sorghum

To Live

Correct answer:

The Woman Warrior

Explanation:

The correct answer is The Woman Warrior (1976), a memoir that mixes autobiographical passages with Chinese folktales in order to investigate issues of immigration, gender, culture, and ethnicity.

Anne Fadiman's The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down (1997), Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club (1989), Mo Yan's Red Sorghum (1986), Yu Hua's To Live (1993) were used as alternative answer choices

Example Question #213 : Identification

In this ancient Greek play, a man abandoned as a child fulfills a prophecy by becoming the king of Thebes, murdering his father Laius and marrying his mother Jocasta in the process. Which play is it?

Possible Answers:

Lysistrata

Julius Caesar

The Oresteia

The Frogs

Oedipus Rex

Correct answer:

Oedipus Rex

Explanation:

The play described is Oedipus Rex, an iconic tragedy written around the 420s BCE by the Greek playwright Sophocles. The play, which belongs to a trilogy including Oedipus at Colonus and Antigone, gave rise to numerous other works and to the Freudian concept of an oedipal complex.

Example Question #214 : Identification

Which tragedy by the Greek playwright Euripides features the story of Jason’s wife, a woman who is abandoned for a Corinthian princess and subsequently seeks a bloody revenge?

Possible Answers:

The Bacchae

Achilles the Great

Agamemnon

Orestes

Medea

Correct answer:

Medea

Explanation:

This is Euripides’ Medea, named after the heroine of the play. In the drama, Medea murders Jason’s new wife and her children and escapes to Athens to begin a new life. A controversial work at the time, Medea, like many of Euripides’ works, is remarkable for its complex and nuanced portrayal of a victim’s struggle for autonomy in an unsympathetic society.

Example Question #215 : Identification

This Athenian playwright is known for comedies such as The Frogs, The Clouds, and Peace. Who is it?

Possible Answers:

Euripides

Aristophanes

Aeschylus

Sappho

Sophocles

Correct answer:

Aristophanes

Explanation:

The comic genius Aristophanes is responsible for these plays and for nearly two dozen more, some of which are now lost. The playwright was known especially for lambasting society with his scathing wit, a skill that contributed to the condemnation and death of Socrates.

Example Question #216 : Identification

This trilogy of Greek tragedies was written by Aeschylus and follows the story of the doomed House of Atreus. What is it?

Possible Answers:

Iphigenia

Oedipus the King

The Oresteia

Antigone

The Bacchae

Correct answer:

The Oresteia

Explanation:

The Oresteia, composed of Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, and The Eumenides, concerns a curse placed on the House of Atreus after the murder of Agamemnon by his wife, Clytemnestra. The works include the reunion of Agamemnon’s children Electra and Orestes, who murder their mother to avenge their father’s death, and the pursuit and torture of Orestes by the Erinyes, or Greek furies responsible for justice.

All GRE Subject Test: Literature in English Resources

1 Diagnostic Test 158 Practice Tests Question of the Day Flashcards Learn by Concept
Learning Tools by Varsity Tutors