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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

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

2. Which name prefix did the Scots originate?
(a) Ross.
(b) An.
(c) Boyd.
(d) Mc.

3. What is a simplified language that develops as a means of communication between two or more groups that do not have a language in common?
(a) Simple.
(b) Average.
(c) Common.
(d) Pidgin.

4. Who is Scotland's most celebrated poet?
(a) Robert Burns.
(b) Sylvia Plath.
(c) Samuel Beckett.
(d) Walt Whitman.

5. What do the authors claim denote information about a speaker's life and career and explain community values?
(a) Accents.
(b) Vocabularies.
(c) Styles.
(d) Languages.

Short Answer Questions

1. In what year did the English Reformation begin?

2. When did James I die?

3. When was the original edition of The Story of English published?

4. When was Jonathan Swift born?

5. When was the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is the difficulty of explaining sounds of language, according to the authors? What resources can help the reader in grasping dialect?

2. What time frame is embodied by the Elizabethan period? What advances took place in English during this time?

3. What became of the Germanic tribes described in Chapter 2, The Mother Tongue? Where did they spread?

4. What cultural wars and battles helped to create the English language, according to the authors in Chapter 2, The Mother Tongue?

5. What impact did the printing press and the scientific revolution have on the English language?

6. What myths do the authors dispel about the English language in Chapter 1, An English-Speaking World?

7. When did Julius Caesar invade the Celts? What was the result?

8. What impact did the invasion of the Anglo-Saxons have on the Celtic language? Why?

9. How many definitions were in the original Johnson's dictionary? What was it drawn from?

10. What managed to diminish the number of dialects in Great Britain?

(see the answer keys)

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