Comprehensive Examination ENGLISH Monday, September 18 9:00 a. m.-12:00 m. However accurate in subject-matter, no paper will be considered satisfactory if seriously defective in punctuation, spelling, or other essentials of good usage. Allow about one hour for each of the three parts of the paper. PART I (Choose two questions from Part I.) 1. Select a famous character in drama or prose fiction; mention three or four qualities that distinguish him, and refer to incidents in the plot that bring each of these characteristics into prominence. 2. a) Select two of the following literary types-drama, lyric, novel, allegory, essay. b) Comment fully upon the distinguishing features of these two types. 3. Choose either (a) or (b). a) In what particulars did the performance of some play that you had previously read change your idea of the play? b) What play that you have read but not seen should you most like to see? Why? 4. What are the essential qualities of a good oration ? Use specific illustrations drawn from ancient or modern orations. PART II Write in several paragraphs a composition of about four hundred words upon one of the following subjects. Choose such aspects of the subject as you can well discuss according to an orderly, consecutive plan in which each paragraph shall be one stage. 1. School-life as you know it contrasted with school-life as it is represented in stories. 2. What you would do with a million dollars. 3. The question of "preparedness.' 4. Your father's occupation, or some other occupation which you know equally well. 5. The work you have done in manual training or domestic science in your school. 6. Impressions which your town makes (1) upon you; and (2) upon some friend who has come to visit you. 7. Summer military training camps. 8. Your hobby-such as stamp collecting, amateur photography, wireless telegraphy, etc. 9. Why and how should students share in the government of your school? 10. How participation in school activities has proved beneficial to you. (SEE NEXT PAGE) (Of the following questions answer No. 1 and either No. 2 or No. 3.) 1. Paraphrase the following lines from Tennyson's In Memoriam, restating each idea in simple prose: "I wage not any feud with Death For changes wrought on form and face; No lower life that earth's embrace "Eternal process moving on, From state to state the spirit walks; "Nor blame I Death, because he bare "For this alone on Death I wreak The wrath that garners in my heart; He put our lives so far apart We cannot hear each other speak." 2. Select from the following list (a) the novelists; (b) the eighteenth-century writers; and (c) the American writers: Steele, Charles Reade, Walt Whitman, Lowell, Boswell, Emerson, Thoreau, Gray, H. G. Wells, George Eliot, Thackeray, Parkman, Burns. 3. Define six of the following words and write sentences illustrating their proper use: platitude jocund extraneous sententious naïve captious Comprehensive Examination ENGLISH Tuesday, June 19 9 a.m.-12 m. However accurate in subject-matter, no paper will be considered satisfactory if seriously defective in spelling, punctuation, or other essentials of good usage. Allow fully one hour for Part II. PART I (Choose two questions from Part I) 1. Show how a minor character in some novel that you have read vitally influences the course of the story. 2. Mention certain poems or dramas in which the supernatural plays a significant part. Comment specifically on the influence of this element upon character and plot. 3. Show by specific illustrations from books that you have read how biographies and historical novels have increased your interest in history. 4. Select an American author of note and tell what his special contribution was to American literature. PART II Write in several paragraphs a composition of about four hundred words upon one of the following subjects. Choose such aspects of the subject as you can well discuss according to an orderly, consecutive plan in which each paragraph shall be one stage. 1. Summer work on the farm. 2. The building of an inexpensive garage, or the equipment of a shop, laboratory, or gymnasium at home. 3. The best section of the United States. 4. How I furnished my room. 5. The relations between the United States and Mexico. 6. The mining of coal (or any other important industrial process, such as the milling of lumber or the production of steel). 7. The equipment and training of a military officer. 8. Lectures: their influence and their value to the school or to the community. 9. Changes I should like to make in the organization of some school activity. 10. Books that I shall not make my children read. 11. A project for world-peace. 12. The "movie habit." 13. A contemporary writer whose works might well be read in school. 14. An argument for (or against) national prohibition by federal enactment. 15. Democracy in the European War. (SEE NEXT PAGE) (Answer both a and b.) a) Paraphrase the following lines from Matthew Arnold, restating each idea in simple prose: Quiet Work One lesson, Nature, let me learn of thee, Though the loud world proclaim their enmity-. Of labor, that in lasting fruit outgrows b) What is the lesson which Arnold finds in nature? PART IV (Answer either 1 or 2.) 1. Define four of the following terms, and illustrate each by at least one example or title: 2. Define five of the following words, and write sentences illustrating their Comprehensive Examination ENGLISH Monday, September 17 9 a.m.-12 m. However accurate in subject-matter, no paper will be considered satisfactory if seriously defective in spelling, punctuation, or other essentials of good usage. Allow fully one hour for Part II. PART I (Choose two questions from Part I.) 1. In any play of Shakespeare show how the hero's conscience or sense of duty influences his career. 2. A good novel tells a story, draws characters, and depicts scenes. Show how this is true of some novel which you have read in school. Show in which one of these three elements the writer's skill is best revealed. 3. Do you prefer to read the biography of a real person or the life of an imaginary person in a novel? Choose an example of each, and tell why one interests you more than the other. 4. From some essay that you have read, reproduce in your own words a description of an interesting character, custom, or place. PART II Write in several paragraphs a composition of about four hundred words upon one of the following subjects. Choose such aspects of the subject as you can well discuss according to an orderly, consecutive plan in which each paragraph shall be one stage. 1. In the trenches. 2. The Sunday newspaper. 3. How to secure more general participation in school athletics. 4. Modern dancing. 5. How to educate one's parents. 6. A letter to Julius Caesar explaining the methods of modern warfare. 7. Dormitory life at school. 8. The advantages of school dramatics. 9. The preparation of oxygen (or carbon dioxide) in the laboratory, its physical and chemical properties, and its relation to life. 10. Modern methods of fighting disease. 11. Popular superstitions. 12. Modern advertising. 13. The advantages of a city school (or of a country school). 14. "Safety First." (SEE NEXT PAGE) |
