View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. At which newspaper did H.L. Mencken work?

2. Who wrote "Walking"?

3. Who wrote "On Being an American?"

4. Who wrote "The Death of the Moth?"

5. Who wrote "Beside the Nore?"

Short Essay Questions

1. Describe the important events in Lu Hsun's life that impacted his personal essays.

2. What is Ivan Turgenev's opinion of capital punishment? How did Turgenev believe servants should be treated?

3. What level of literary output did G. K. Chesterton achieve in his lifetime?

4. What is Robert Louis Stevenson best known for today?

5. Under what circumstances are Lu Hsun's "This Tool is Life" and "Death" written? What are the subjects of these essays?

6. What style is James Thurber known for? What was a common theme in Thurber's writing?

7. What views is Henry David Thoreau well known for? How did he believe one should live one's life?

8. What kind of literature did Virginia Woolf write? What was a common focus that united her work?

9. What is the subject of E.B. White's "Once More to the Lake"? What is the message White relays about the state of the lake?

10. What is Jose Luis Borges' perspective on his own increasing blindness, as revealed in his essay "Blindness?"

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

"The Fight" by William Hazlitt and "The Execution of Tropmann" by Ivan Turgenev are examples of sub-genres of the personal essay, reportage.

A) What makes each essay an example of reportage?

B) What is each author's opinion on what they are reporting? Are they intrigued, disgusted, objective, etc.?

C) Compare and contrast the tones in both pieces. How does tone relate to reportage?

Essay Topic 2

Michel de Montaigne speaks about the nature of reading and writing in his essays "Of Books" and "On Some Verses of Virgil."

A) What is Montaigne's philosophy of education? What does it mean to acquire and have an education? How does level of education separate people?

B) What is Montaigne's philosophy in regards to borrowing from other sources, including classical authors. Why does he do this borrowing?

Essay Topic 3

Big events are the topic of James Baldwin's "Notes on a Native Son" and Richard Rodriguez's "Late Victorians."

A) How does each man relate the big events happening around them to his own personal experience? Compare each man's approach.

B) Compare and contrast the significance, as each man sees it, of the event taking place. Why do they believe they are witnessing events that are important to document?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 869 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample