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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Who welcomed St. Augustine in England?
(a) King Skaronn.
(b) King Ferdinand.
(c) King Charles.
(d) King Aethelbert.

2. Who initiated the English Reformation?
(a) Queen Elizabeth.
(b) King Leopold I.
(c) King Henry VIII.
(d) King George II.

3. The Scots of the Lowlands first spoke a form of English brought by the Angles of Northumbria mixed with four ethnic groups that invaded during what period?
(a) The Dark Ages.
(b) The Rensaissance.
(c) The Inquisition.
(d) The Restoration.

4. In what year did the English Reformation begin?
(a) 1555.
(b) 1598.
(c) 1601.
(d) 1534.

5. The establishment of what was an important moment for English as word choices had to be made for standard broadcasting?
(a) CBS.
(b) PBS.
(c) BBC.
(d) NBC.

6. What does "RP" stand for?
(a) Royal Pronunciation.
(b) Royal Phonetics.
(c) Received Pronunciation.
(d) Recieved Phonetics.

7. Scots is one of the oldest and most interesting varieties of English dating back to which centuries?
(a) Eighth and ninth.
(b) Sixth and seventh.
(c) First and second.
(d) Third and fourth.

8. The Renaissance added over how many words to the English language?
(a) 20,000.
(b) 30,000.
(c) 10,000.
(d) 5,000.

9. How many quotations were in the original Dictionary of the English Language?
(a) 120,000.
(b) 114,000.
(c) 100,000.
(d) 300,000.

10. Where was the Archduke Ferdinand assassinated?
(a) Sarajevo.
(b) London.
(c) Paris.
(d) New York.

11. What is the traditional site of disembarkation of William Bradford and the Mayflower Pilgrims?
(a) Philadelphia.
(b) Plymouth Rock.
(c) Nina Maria.
(d) Ellis Island.

12. Linguists know that languages spoken by around how much of humanity came from a common Indo-European source?
(a) One third.
(b) One fifth.
(c) One fourth.
(d) One half.

13. Who is the author of Ivanhoe?
(a) Sir Walter Scott.
(b) Samuel Johnson.
(c) Andrew Webster.
(d) Robert Burns.

14. Who were among the first English-speaking migrants to the west and their descendants live in Cornwall, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, and Brittany?
(a) The Indians.
(b) The Celts.
(c) The Romans.
(d) The Germans.

15. Who is quoted from his Preface to A Dictionary of the English Language in the Introduction?
(a) Dr. Samuel Johnson.
(b) William Cran.
(c) Daniel Webster.
(d) Anderson Williams.

Short Answer Questions

1. What great-grandfather of rap does Robert McCrum write is largely forgotten?

2. Where was Shakespeare born and raised?

3. Who remain the most direct descendants of the Celts?

4. Johnson took on the established dictionaries of European language and decisively exceeded them through how many years of work?

5. When did the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes sail from Denmark and the German Coast into Britain?

(see the answer keys)

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