English Lecturer 10+2
Question Paper
1. Which of the following statements accurately reflects the historical development and literary significance of the English Bible?
Asked in JKPSC 9 nov 2025
A) The King James Version (1611) was the first complete English translation of the Bible, directly translated from Hebrew and Greek manuscripts without reliance on previous English translations.
B) The Geneva Bible (1560), unlike Tyndale's work, deliberately avoided marginal notes or commentary, focusing solely on literal translation of the text.
C) The English Bible's literary influence is largely limited to religious contexts, with minimal impact on English prose, poetry, and idiomatic expression.
D) William Tyndale’s translations in the 16th century were pivotal for introducing vernacular English and idiomatic expression to biblical texts, influencing later translations including The King James Version.
2. Which of the following statements most precisely characterizes the modernist innovations and thematic preoccupations in T.S. Eliot's poetry?
Asked in JKPSC 9 nov 2025
A) In The Waste Land (1922) and "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" (1915), Eliot prioritizes unified narrative and personal confessional lyric, avoiding mythic allusions or historical fragmentation.
B) Eliot consistently employs strictly metrical iambic pentameter, favouring conventional rhyme schemes and avoiding free verse, irregular syntax, or irony.
C) Eliot's modernist style is defined by intertextual density, polyphonic voices, historical and literary juxtapositions, and fragmentation, reflecting cultural dislocation, spiritual crisis, and existential anxiety in post-World War I Europe.
D) In his early poetry, Eliot's primary concern is political satire and social commentary, rather than explorations of myth, culture, or spiritual malaise.
3. In poetic technique, a simile is employed to create a comparison using “like” or “as,” often to illuminate complex or abstract ideas. Which of the following lines most precisely demonstrates a simile that conveys both intellectual subtlety and emotional depth?
Asked in JKPSC 9 nov 2025
A) "Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul."
B) "Life is like a broken-winged bird that cannot fly."
C) "All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players."
D) "My love is a red, red rose, newly sprung in June."
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4. In "Adonais," Shelley uses imagery of natural and cosmic forces to depict the poet's death and immortality. Which of the following lines most precisely illustrates Shelley’s belief in the transcendence of the poet beyond mortal limitations?
Asked in JKPSC 9 nov 2025
A) "He has outsoared the shadow of our night; / Envy and calumny and hate and pain / And that unrest which men miscall delight / Can touch him not and torture not again."
B) "Peace, peace! he is not dead, he doth not sleep / He hath awakened from the dream of life."
C) "Thy spirit, by the Eternal fountains fed, / Shall rise like flame, in beauty uncon-sumed."
D) "The one remains, the many change and pass; / Heaven's light forever shines, Earth's shadows fly."
5.
In "Extract from Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven" (1907), which of the following statements are correct?
Asked in JKPSC 9 nov 2025
I. Twain began drafting the tale in the 1860s, but it remained unpublished until after his death, when Harper's Magazine printed it in December 1907, followed by book form in 1909.
II. Unlike conventional depictions of Heaven, Twain's text portrays it as a vast, bureaucratically organized cosmos where souls arrive from diverse planets and are sorted by language, culture, and talent.
III. A central satire in the text is directed at the popular notion of "singing psalms eternally," which Twain ridicules by describing choirs of angels rehearsing without end.
IV. The narrative closes with Stormfield's affirmation of the orthodox Christian Heaven, emphasizing eternal worship and blissful monotony as the highest truth.
Options:
A) I and III only
B) III and IV only
C) I and IV only
D) I, II, and III
6.
Match the following Romantic poets with their birth year and death year and select the correct code:
Asked in JKPSC 9 nov 2025
Column – I Poets
(a) William Blake
(b) William Wordsworth
(c) Samuel Taylor Coleridge
(d) Lord Byron
(e) Percy Bysshe Shelley
(f) John Keats
Column – II Birth Year
(1) 1757
(2) 1770
(3) 1772
(4) 1788
(5) 1792
(6) 1795
Column – III Death Year
(i) 1827
(ii) 1850
(iii) 1834
(iv) 1824
(v) 1822
(vi) 1821
Options:
A) a-1-i; b-2-ii; c-3-iii; d-4-iv; e-5-v; f-6-vi
B) a-1-ii; b-2-i; c-3-iii; d-4-iv; e-6-v; f-5-vi
C) a-1-iii; b-2-ii; c-3-iii; d-4-iv; e-5-vi; f-6-v
D) a-2-i; b-1-ii; c-3-iii; d-4-iv; e-5-v; f-6-vi
7.
Joseph Conrad's narrative strategies and thematic concerns in works like Heart of Darkness (1899) exemplify a complex engagement with colonialism, human psychology, and moral ambiguity. Which of the following statements accurately reflect his innovations in narrative form and ideological critique?
Asked in JKPSC 9 nov 2025
I. Conrad employs frame narration and an unreliable narrator (Marlow in Heart of Darkness) to foreground subjectivity, destabilizing traditional notions of omniscient storytelling.
II. The novella presents colonial exploitation as merely a backdrop for psychological exploration, deliberately avoiding critique of systemic imperial power.
III. The depiction of Africa and its inhabitants is often mediated through European perception, illustrating Conrad's interrogation of epistemic limitation and Eurocentric bias.
IV. Conrad's moral universe is characterized by ambivalence and ethical complexity, refusing simplistic binaries of good versus evil, thus challenging Victorian moral certainty.
Options:
A) I, II, and III only
B) I, III, and IV only
C) II and IV only
D) I, II, III, and IV
8.
George Eliot's novels, such as Middlemarch (1871–72), are celebrated for their psychological insight, narrative complexity, and moral realism. Which of the following statements accurately reflect Eliot's literary techniques and philosophical concerns?
Asked in JKPSC 9 nov 2025
I. Eliot employs omniscient narration with moral commentary, enabling the author to guide reader judgment while exploring ethical complexity.
II. The narrative structure prioritizes plot-driven action over character psychology, emphasizing social events rather than individual moral consciousness.
III. Eliot integrates meticulous social observation with deep psychological insight, demonstrating how societal structures and personal choices are interdependent.
IV. Characters' ethical dilemmas are often presented as internalized conflicts, highlighting the tensions between personal ambition, social expectation, and moral responsibility.
Options:
A) I, II, and III only
B) I, III, and IV only
C) II and IV only
D) I, II, III, and IV
9. Examine the following sentences carefully. Identify the correct answer — the only one that is grammatically correct in Standard British English usage, with precise adherence to tense and aspect rules:
Asked in JKPSC 9 nov 2025
I. She would have studied harder, she would have passed the exam.
II. If she would have studied harder, she would have passed the exam.
III. If she had known the answer to the problem earlier, she would have finished the preparations.
IV. I wish I would know the answer to this problem right now.
V. If she had informed me earlier, I could have taken part in the discussion.
Options:
A) Sentence I only
B) Sentence II only
C) Sentence III only
D) Sentence IV only
10. In “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” (1798; revised 1817), Coleridge employs the motif of the albatross as a central symbol. Which of the following interpretations most accurately reflects Coleridge’s symbolic/psychological outlook, and is critical commentary, without lapsing into reductive generalisation?
Asked in JKPSC 9 nov 2025
A) It embodies superstition and wishful thinking as a reinforcement of the cabin-crew’s delusional perceptions that manifest a trace of seafaring life.
B) The albatross represents the universal animal and natural being whose life (nearly human and mythical) depersonalises both heaven and earth.
C) Their original bias—the burden of original sin, itself part of a theological imagination—is the basis of what the mariners project, whose removal they see as the beginning of a spiritual rebirth.
D) It symbolises transformation of objective reality into a self-defining space of theological imagination, with significant symbolic weight in Coleridge’s imagination.
11. In James Joyce’s Ulysses (1922), the “Proteus” episode (Episode 3) exemplifies the radical limits of Joyce’s narrative technique. Which of the following statements most accurately captures Joyce’s manipulation of narrative discourse in this section?
Asked in JKPSC 9 nov 2025
I. Joyce begins with a scholarly consensus on the novel’s monologue of interiority (Stephen’s consciousness), but emphasizes this as an individual voice and that of literary and philosophical structuring.
II. Joyce abandons the internal structuring of theoretical interpretation of rational performance, making deliberately stylized prose that isolates images, and emphasizes phantasmagoria.
III. Joyce uses an entirely free form of stream of consciousness monologue in “Proteus,” shaped by perceptual and sensory images.
IV. Joyce employed a layered technique in which Stephen’s private thoughts intermingle with authorial narrative voices, producing a textured hybrid of the inward and solitary.
Options:
A) I and II only
B) II and III only
C) III and IV only
D) IV only
12. Henrik Ibsen’s Ghosts (1881) was notorious in its reception history and is often read as emblematic of his departure from conventional "well-made play" mechanics toward a new dramaturgical form. Which of the following statements most accurately and comprehensively identifies Ibsen’s technical innovation in Ghosts, in light of later scholarship?
Asked in JKPSC 9 nov 2025
I. Ibsen rejects Scribean exposition and introduces retrospective technique, where crucial past events are gradually revealed through dialogue, thereby reconfiguring causality in drama.
II. The play’s structural unity relies less on Aristotelian action than on an "epidemic of the past" (inheritance, repression, heredity), making memory itself the chief dramatic motor.
III. Contrary to earlier "well-made plays," Ghosts eliminates all coincidence, using chance encounters to drive the narrative while foregrounding the mechanics of fate.
IV. Ibsen’s dramaturgy anticipates Freud’s theory of repression, embedding psychological determinism within the social and moral critique, thereby expanding drama into the realm of proto-psychoanalysis.
Options:
A) I and II only
B) II and IV only
C) I, II, and IV only
D) I, III, and IV only
13. Match the following types of irony with their most precise, canonical examples:
Asked in JKPSC 9 nov 2025
Column – A (Type of Irony)
-
Dramatic Irony
-
Situational Irony
-
Verbal Irony
-
Cosmic Irony
Column – B (Example)
i. In Othello, the audience knows Iago’s manipulations long before Othello does.
ii. In The Gift of the Magi, a wife sells her hair to buy a chain for her husband’s watch, while he sells the watch to buy her hair combs.
iii. In A Modest Proposal, Jonathan Swift suggests eating Irish children to solve poverty, meaning the opposite.
iv. In Tess of the d’Urbervilles, Tess is relentlessly punished by fate despite her moral innocence.
Options:
A) 1-i, 2-ii, 3-iii, 4-iv
B) 1-ii, 2-ii, 3-ii, 4-iv
C) 1-iii, 2-ii, 3-i, 4-iv
D) 1-ii, 2-i, 3-iii, 4-iv
14. Which of the following statements accurately capture the theoretical divergences between Structuralism and Post-Structuralism?
Asked in JKPSC 9 nov 2025
I.
For Structuralists like Lévi-Strauss, myths reveal universal cognitive structures through binary oppositions; for Post-Structuralists like Derrida, such binaries are inherently unstable and deconstructible.
II.
Saussure’s principle that the relation between signifier and signified is arbitrary is accepted by both Structuralists and Post-Structuralists, but the latter deny the stability of the signified.
III.
Barthes’s essay “The Death of the Author” (1967) belongs firmly to Structuralism because it emphasizes textual codes as closed, self-contained systems.
IV.
Foucault’s Discipline and Punish (1975) exemplifies Post-Structuralism by shifting analysis from universal structures of language to historically contingent discursive formations tied to power.
V.
While Structuralism privileges synchronic analysis of language and culture, Post-Structuralism insists on the diachronic dimension as the only legitimate approach to meaning-making.
Options:
A) I – II – III
B) I – III – II
C) I – II – IV
D) I – IV – II
15. In Endgame, Beckett radicalizes his dramaturgy beyond Waiting for Godot, dismantling not just teleology but the very conditions of theatrical representation. Which of the following critical formulations most precisely capture the unique aesthetic and philosophical stakes of Endgame?
Asked in JKPSC 9 nov 2025
I.
The play dramatizes the impossibility of ending: its title ironizes closure, staging a perpetual stasis where “end” is both announced and endlessly deferred.
II.
Endgame enacts what Theodor Adorno terms “negative dialectics”: meaning does not emerge through synthesis but through the persistence of non-identity, exposing reconciliation as illusion.
III.
The characters’ immobilization (Hamm in the chair, Nagg and Nell in bins) embodies Beckett’s “poetics of exhaustion,” where theatrical action is reduced to minimal gestures that parody traditional stage dynamism.
IV.
Contrary to critical consensus, the play should be read as affirmative allegory: Hamm’s blindness and Clov’s servitude encode a theological drama of redemption, consistent with Beckett’s Catholic upbringing.
Options:
A) I, II, and III only
B) II and IV only
C) I and IV only
D) I, II, III, and IV
| ✔️ Answer Key with Brief Reasoning |
|---|
1. (D)
William Tyndale’s translation introduced simple, idiomatic English and heavily influenced later versions including the King James Bible.
2. (C)
T.S. Eliot’s poetry is known for fragmentation, intertextual references, polyphonic voices, and themes of spiritual crisis—hallmarks of modernism.
3. (B)
“Life is like a broken-winged bird that cannot fly.”
A direct simile using like that carries emotional depth and meaning.
4. (C)
“Thy spirit … shall rise like flame…”
This line expresses transcendence and immortality of the poet.
Answer to Question 5
The question asks which statements about "Extract from Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven" (1907) are correct.
Let’s evaluate each statement:
| Statement | Evaluation |
|---|---|
| I. Twain began drafting it in the 1860s; published in 1907 and as a book in 1909. | ✅ Correct (historically accurate) |
| II. Heaven is shown as a bureaucratic, organized cosmos. | ✅ Correct (Twain satirizes traditional Heaven by depicting it differently) |
| III. Satire on singing psalms eternally; angels rehearsing endlessly. | ✅ Correct (fits Twain’s satire) |
| IV. Stormfield affirms orthodox Christian Heaven and eternal worship as ultimate truth. | ❌ Incorrect (Twain mocks traditional Heaven rather than affirming it) |
➡️ Correct combination is: I, II, and III
✔ Correct option: D
Answer to Question 6
Match Romantic poets with their Birth Year (Column II) and Death Year (Column III):
| Poet (Column I) | Birth Year | Death Year |
|---|---|---|
| (a) William Blake | 1757 (1) | 1827 (i) |
| (b) William Wordsworth | 1770 (2) | 1850 (ii) |
| (c) Samuel Taylor Coleridge | 1772 (3) | 1834 (iii) |
| (d) Lord Byron | 1788 (4) | 1824 (iv) |
| (e) Percy Bysshe Shelley | 1792 (5) | 1822 (v) |
| (f) John Keats | 1795 (6) | 1821 (vi) |
This matches option:
✔ A) a-1-i; b-2-ii; c-3-iii; d-4-iv; e-5-v; f-6-vi
Question 7 (Joseph Conrad – Heart of Darkness)
Evaluate each statement:
| Statement | Correctness | Explanation |
|---|---|---|
| I. Conrad uses frame narration and unreliable narrator (Marlow). | ✅ Correct | This is a key narrative innovation in Heart of Darkness. |
| II. Colonial exploitation is only a backdrop, avoiding critique of imperial power. | ❌ Incorrect | Conrad directly critiques imperial violence and moral decay. |
| III. Africa is mediated through European perception, revealing Eurocentric bias. | ✅ Correct | Conrad problematizes the limits of Western perception. |
| IV. Conrad rejects simple moral binaries; presents moral ambiguity. | ✅ Correct | His works show complex ethical uncertainty. |
✔ Correct Answer: B) I, III, and IV only
Question 8 (George Eliot – Middlemarch)
Evaluate each statement:
| Statement | Correctness | Explanation |
|---|---|---|
| I. Omniscient narration + moral commentary. | ✅ Correct | Eliot is known for moral/psychological insight in narration. |
| II. Plot over psychology; social events over moral consciousness. | ❌ Incorrect | Eliot is character-driven, highly psychological. |
| III. Social observation + psychological insight. | ✅ Correct | This is Eliot’s hallmark. |
| IV. Ethical dilemmas as internal conflicts. | ✅ Correct | Characters struggle with personal vs. social expectations. |
✔ Correct Answer: B) I, III, and IV
10. In The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, the albatross symbolism that best fits Coleridge’s psychological–spiritual outlook:
✅ Correct answer: C
11. Joyce’s “Proteus” episode and narrative manipulation:
✅ Correct answer: C) III and IV only
12. Ibsen’s dramaturgical innovation in Ghosts:
✅ Correct answer: C) I, II, and IV only
13. Matching types of irony:
| Type of Irony (Column A) | Example (Column B) |
|---|---|
| Dramatic Irony | i (Othello – audience knows more than character) |
| Situational Irony | ii (The Gift of the Magi) |
| Verbal Irony | iii (A Modest Proposal) |
| Cosmic Irony | iv (Tess of the d’Urbervilles) |
✅ Correct answer: A) 1-i, 2-ii, 3-iii, 4-iv
14. Structuralism vs Post-Structuralism theoretical divergences:
Correct statements: I, II, IV
✅ Correct answer: C) I – II – IV
15. Critical formulations capturing Beckett’s Endgame:
Correct statements: I, II, III
✅ Correct answer: A) I, II, and III only