Why do we need to study Philippine literature?

Statement 1: Literature exists to make men forget their sorrows and disappointed hopes.

Statement 2: Literature provides pleasure derived from its craftsmanship.

Statement 1: Literature can change an imperfect society by changing human consciousness.

Statement 2: Literature never offers possible solutions to our problems or gives their possible causes.

Statement 1: Denotation refers to the associated meaning of a word.

Statement 2: Connotation refers to the dictionary meaning of a word.

Which of the following refers to writings exhibiting the common flow of conversation, that is in sentences and paragraphs?

Which of the genres under prose has animals and inanimate things which speak and act like humans for characters?

Which sub-division of poetry originally refers to poems intended to be sung to the accompaniment of a lyre?

Which of the following poems is composed of four lines having seven to nine syllables?

What narrative gives an account of the life of the writer himself?

What is this dramatic composition that induces laughter by using caricatures and exaggerated imitation of life?

What lyric poem celebrates on an object or a place by expressing noble feelings about it?

Which of the narrative poems is the simplest and shortest and tells a story about love in a single incident?

Which of the following sentences correctly uses “lion” and “ferocious” in a simile?

Which of the following sentences correctly uses “death” in an apostrophe?

Which of the following exemplifies a paradox?

Which of the following sentences exemplifies an antithesis?

Which of the following sentences exemplifies a litotes?

Which of the following is NOT a characteristic of epic?

What is implied by the Filipino proverb below? 

“Pag may isinuksok, may madudukot.”

There’s quick beauty in these quiet things

Time sitting lonely on a convent wall

An ancient church adrift with moss, the fall

Of tears from maiden’s eyes a vine that clings

To undiscovered ruins…

- Conrado S. Ramirez, My Wife’s Hand

Silent are the trails of Benguet hills,

When the mist veils the sun –

Even when the wind stirs the ferns

And the bamboo brakes sing

Their echoed murmurs,

And the laden Benguet women pass,

Beating their pakkongs

In cadenced monotones.

– Marcelo de Gracia Concepcion, Silent Trails

Brothers of mine were they, knights, who one day, mounted on colts of illusion, with none but their hearts for weapons, shields and money, ascended mountains and wearied the roads in search of adventure for the sake of the hapless races.

– Manuel Bernabe, Bataan! Corregidor!

Who surrendered during the Filipino-American war that put an end to it?

Literature during the American period is written in three languages. Which is not?

During the period of imitation, what is the former name of Philippine Collegian?

What is considered the first accepted masterpiece in Philippine literature in English?

He is known for the ideology of art for art’s sake.

John and Gina are blessed with three sons. No longer happy with her situation, Gina decided to go abroad to work as a domestic helper. She stayed there for ten years. When she went home, she learned that John is living with another woman. Her children have become juvenile delinquents.

Fredo comes from a poor family so he cannot go to college. When a rich man offered help in sending him to school, his father refused claiming that he will send Fredo to school with the fruit of his labor. Ten years later, Fredo is still a tambay.

Pedro always borrows the carabao of Berto to help him plow the field. The carabao is too slow to work that makes Pedro complain and scoff at it.

Susan is a rich and beautiful woman. One day, a poor relative died and the bereaved family cannot afford a decent burial. She offered five thousand pesos as a debt to be paid in five installments with a ten percent interest. It’s a slap on the face of the family since the person who died is her first cousin.

Andres is a man who is very fond of planting vegetables and fruit trees. During harvest, he sees to it that his siblings have a share of what he sows. One day, he won in the lottery. The rest were kept to his family after giving a million each to his siblings and shared an amount with his neighbors and friends.

Elizabeth has high standards when it comes to choosing her husband. She said that the man should be intelligent, handsome, rich, loving, and responsible. When she married Hector, she found the first three qualities she longed for in a man, but what of the other two? Hector possesses the first three and he shares them to all woman he meets and flings with.

Lorna is always fretting of what awaits her in the future. She’s afraid to become poorer, yet she does not have any work. She is afraid to get sick, but she is a chain smoker.

Juan is a prodigal son. Whatever he wants to do and say, he does it without asking any permission nor does he tell it to anyone, even his family. He always thinks that he can live without them. One day, he was imprisoned for stealing and the other day for carjacking. The things that had happened to him lacerated the family’s reputation.

Which is a direct address to someone absent, long dead, or an inanimate object?

Example: “Pack, clouds, away and welcome day!”

What sound device is exemplified by the underlined words in the following lines from The Raven?

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary,

Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,

While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,

As of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.

News travels as fast as the wind. What figure of speech is used in the foregoing sentence?

What is the substitution of a term considered inoffensive for one that might bring the reader or listener too close to an uncomfortable reality?

“He is the black sheep of the family.” Which figure of speech is used in this sentence? ^{***March 2012 LET}

What figure of speech is used in the term fake news?

I lay still and took another minute to smell: I smelled the warm, sweet, all-pervasive smell of silage, as well as the sour dirty laundry spilling over the basket in the hall. I could pick out the acrid smell of Claire's drenched diaper, her sweaty feet, and her hair crusted with sand. The heat compounded the smells, doubled the fragrance.

– Jane Hamilton, A Map of the World

Africa, my Africa

Africa of proud warriors in ancestral savannahs

Africa of whom my grandmother sings

On the banks of the distant river

I have never known you

But your blood flows in my veins.

– David Diop, Africa

Why does the sea sob so, Mother,

As it breaks on the rocky shore?

– Natividad Marquez, The Sea

Which represents the various social overtones, cultural implications, or emotional meanings associated with a sign or symbol?

Which of the following is NOT true about the novel and the short story?

What poem is characterized by a melancholic tone and explores the theme of life and death?

What function does literature fulfill when it offers possible solutions to societal dilemmas?

"The reading of literature is an act of engagement and participation. It is an act of clarification and discovery."

-Pickering & Hoeper, Concise Companion to Literature

"Literature exists to please-- to lighten the burden of men's lives; to make them for a short while forget their sorrows and their sins, their disappointed hopes, their grim futures."

-Augustine Birrell, Obiter Dicta

"Writing is not literature unless it gives to the reader a pleasure which arises not only from the things said, but from the way in which they are said."

-S.A. Brooke, Primer of English Literature

Florante at Laura is an example of ____.

Which of the following describes narrative poetry?