56 Candidate's Name SUPPLEMENTARY SHEET English-Comprehensive Examination the usual services of the choir were managed tolerably well the vocal parts generally lagging a little behind the instrumental and some loitering fiddler now and then making up for lost time by travelling over a passage with prodigious celerity and clearing more bars than the keenest fox hunter to be in at the death but the great trial was an anthem that had been prepared and arranged by master simon and on which he had founded great expectation unluckily there was a blunder at the very outset the musicians became flurried master simon was in a fever everything went on lamely and irregularly until they came to a chorus beginning now let us sing with one accord which seemed to be a signal for parting company all became discord and confusion each shifted for himself and got to the end as well or rather as soon as he could excepting one old chorister in a pair of horn spectacles bestriding and pinching a long sonorous nose who happened to stand a little apart and being wrapped up in his own melody kept on a quavering course wriggling his head ogling his book and winding all up by a nasal solo of at least three bars duration Comprehensive Examination ENGLISH 1919 Tuesday, June 17 9 a.m.-12 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 a full hour for Part II. PART I (Answer 1, and either 2 or 3.) 1. Make a list of not more than thirty books that you have read and consider to be good literature. Include, if possible, a variety of types of literature, such as plays, essays, novels, long poems, or collections of poetry, short stories. 2. State four or five important ideas that you have gained from this reading. From what book was each derived? 3. What customs of life strikingly different from those familiar to you in your own place and time did you encounter in these books? 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. You feel that some aspect of the situation in Europe requires public attention in America. Write to your local paper about it. 2. A reporter from a country newspaper was in some large city at the time of the last Liberty Loan campaign, or some other great public celebration. Write the article that he would send to his paper. 3. Describe the changes in appearance or character that have come to some city or town or country district with which you are familiar, since the entrance of America into the war. 4. Explain to an older person how the war has changed your plans for the future. 5. Explain to a civilian what are the distinguishing characteristics of the infantry, the marine corps, the coast artillery, or the signal corps. 6. If you had an opportunity to join some relief organization in Europe, which one should you wish to enter and why? 7. Write a letter to a friend describing a town that you have recently visited. (THIS EXAMINATION IS CONTINUED ON PAGE 2) PART III Write very brief explanatory notes for ten of the following fifteen names and 1. Express the general thought of the following passage in one good sentence: In mediaeval and early modern times those articles only could be transported for any considerable distance which had great value in small bulk. Such were drugs, spices, fine cloths, rare silks and cottons, choice weapons, and armor. These were used chiefly by the small circle of the rich; trade in them did not affect the mass of the population. Where water transportation could be used there was indeed some possibility of trade and exchange in the bulkier commodities. For this reason England, with her insular position and much-indented seacoast, was able at a comparatively early stage to export such commodities as wool, copper, and tin, and to develop in some degree the geographical division of labor. With the improvement and enlargement of vessels, the greater security of the seas, and the use of the mariner's compass, trade by water gradually grew to greater and greater dimensions. A still further extension came in the latter part of the eighteenth century, when parts of the interior of the civilized countries were tapped by canals. But the most far-reaching development of the geographical division of labor came with the railway; for the railway can reach all parts of the land. The industry of almost every part of the world has been transformed by this mighty solvent.-F. W. TAUSSIG, The Principles of Economics. 2. Using as far as possible your own words, give the meaning of each sentence in the following sonnet. Be sure that your own sentences are clear, natural, and idiomatic. When I consider how my light is spent Ere half my days in this dark world and wide, And that one talent which is death to hide Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent To serve therewith my Maker, and present My true account, lest He returning chide; That murmur, soon replies, "God doth not need Who best Bear His mild yoke, they serve Him best. His state -JOHN MILTON, On His Blindness. ENGLISH 1919 Monday, September 15 9 a.m.-12 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 a full hour for Part II. PART I (Write on 1 or 2, and 3 or 4.) 1. It has been said by a recent American critic that the plays of Shakespeare "unfold primarily not character but events, and at the end, except for casual conversions, his characters are pretty much what they were at the beginning." In the plays you have read do you find this to be the case? Explain your answer by definite references. 2. State some of the features in the plays of Shakespeare that would not appear in the drama of today. 3. Quote ten or twelve lines of poetry. Describe the meter and the rhyme scheme. Point out the particularly effective words, and give reasons for your selection of these words. 4. Some novels are interesting because of their plot, some because of their characters, some because of their setting. Illustrate this statement, as far as you are able, from the novels you have read in preparation for this examination. 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. A brief paper is to be read before the science club of a school explaining the working of some interesting mechanism. Write the paper. 2. Before selecting the magazines for the coming year the school librarian has asked each member of last year's senior class to make a report on three or four magazines that he thinks are most valuable for the school library. Write a report in which you try to persuade the librarian to accept your choice. 3. Rosalind in As You Like It is still young at the end of the play, and Shylock in The Merchant of Venice has presumably many years to live. Sketch the probable later history of one of these, or of some other character in a book you have read in preparation for this examination. 4. Write a letter to a friend about a current event that is interesting you. 5. "Why I am Proud to be an American." Choose a fitting occasion and audience for a speech on this subject, and write the speech. 6. Write a letter to a London newspaper explaining what, in your opinion, has been the most important effect of the war upon America. 7. Write a paper to be read before your school literary or debating society on "What Makes a Good Soldier." (THIS EXAMINATION IS COntinued on PAGE 2) PART III 1. Use in a sentence each word in the following pairs of words so as to bring out unmistakably differences in meaning: 1. Express the general thought of the following passage in one good sentence: It is commonly supposed that when a man seeks literary power he goes to his room and plans an article for the press. But this is to begin literary culture at the wrong end. We speak a hundred times for every once we write. The busiest writer produces little more than a volume a year, not so much as his talk would amount to in a week. Consequently, through speech it is usually decided whether a man is to have command of his language or not. If he is slovenly in his ninetynine cases of talking, he can seldom pull himself up to strength and exactitude in the hundredth case of writing. A person is made in one piece, and the same being runs through a multitude of performances. Whether words are uttered on paper or to the air, the effect on the utterer is the same. Vigor or feebleness results according as energy or slackness has been in command. I know that certain adaptations to a new field are often necessary. A good speaker may find awkwardness in himself, when he comes to write; a good writer, when he speaks. And certainly cases occur where a man exhibits distinct strength in one of the two, speaking or writing, and not in the other. But such cases are rare. As a rule, language once within our control can be employed for oral or for written purposes. And since the opportunities for oral practice enormously outbalance those for written, it is the oral which is chiefly significant in the development of literary power. We rightly say of the accomplished writer that he shows a mastery of his own tongue.-G. H. PALMER, Self-Cultivation in English. 2. Using as far as possible your own words, give the meaning of each sentence in the following sonnet. Be sure that your own sentences are clear, natural, and idiomatic. Much have I traveled in the realms of gold, Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold: He stared at the Pacific-and all his men Looked at each other with a wild surmise- -JOHN KEATS, On First Looking into Chapman's Homer. |