25 questions · about 30 minutes. Press End Mock any time to see your score and the correct answers.
Which of the following texts are NOT by an Indian diaspora novelist?
Correct answer: C. (B) and (D) only
Moth Smoke (2000) and The Reluctant Fundamentalist (2007) are by the Pakistani writer Mohsin Hamid. Darkness (Bharati Mukherjee) and Whereabouts (Jhumpa Lahiri) are by Indian-diaspora writers; the key also places Anita Desai on the Indian/diasporic side.
Which of the following assumptions about diasporic identities are NOT true?
Correct answer: D. (C) and (D) only
In John McLeod's account (Beginning Postcolonialism), migrancy reshapes identity long after the journey and makes 'home' problematic. Dominant narratives of belonging tend to exclude 'in-between' people, and that condition is marked by anxiety rather than pleasure.
Match List I with List II:
Correct answer: D. A-II, B-IV, C-I, D-III
Ghosh's The Nutmeg's Curse (2021); Rushdie's Victory City (2023); Amitava Kumar's A Time Outside This Time (2021); Lahiri's essays Translating Myself and Others (2022).
Correct answer: D. A-IV, B-I, C-II, D-III
Mohan Rakesh's 'Malbe ka Malik' (an old man returns to his ruined Amritsar house); Sahni's train story 'Amritsar Aa Gaya Hai'; Chughtai's 'Jadein'; Bedi's 'Lajwanti', on a recovered abducted wife.
Arrange V. S. Naipaul's works chronologically:
Correct answer: C. C, A, B, D, E
The Mystic Masseur (1957) → A House for Mr Biswas (1961) → The Mimic Men (1967) → Half a Life (2001) → Magic Seeds (2004).
Arrange the following Indian poeticians chronologically:
Correct answer: B. E, D, C, B, A
Bhamaha (c. 7th c., Kavyalankara) → Dandin (7th–8th c., Kavyadarsha) → Udbhata (late 8th c.) → Bhatta Lollata (9th c., first commentator on rasa-sutra) → Bhoja (11th c., Sringaraprakasha).
Correct answer: B. A-IV, B-III, C-II, D-I
Former Law Minister Shanti Bhushan's My Second Innings; former CJI Ranjan Gogoi's Justice for the Judge (2021); L. K. Advani's My Country My Life (2008); former CEC T. N. Seshan's Through the Broken Glass (2023).
Note: Option 3 is misprinted in the source (a number repeated); normalised here.
Correct answer: C. A-II, B-IV, C-I, D-III
Raza's Aadha Gaon (1966) on the Shia village of Gangauli; Hyder's River of Fire (1959); Attia Hosain's Lucknow novel Sunlight on a Broken Column (1961); Intizar Husain's Basti (1979).
Which of the following texts is NOT based on transgender issues?
Correct answer: C. The Beast with Nine Billion Feet
Anil Menon's The Beast with Nine Billion Feet (2009) is young-adult science fiction. Dayanita Singh's photobook on the hijra Mona Ahmed, Roy's Anjum, and J. Michael Bailey's book on gender variance all deal with transgender lives.
Note: The source attributes The Man Who Would Be Queen to Hoshang Merchant; it is by J. Michael Bailey (2003).
Correct answer: C. A-III, B-IV, C-I, D-II
Kai Po Che! (2013) adapts Chetan Bhagat's novel; Slumdog Millionaire (2008) adapts Vikas Swarup's Q & A; Vishal Bhardwaj's Maqbool (2003) sets Macbeth in the Mumbai underworld; Ishaqzaade (2012) is a Romeo-and-Juliet feud story.
Which of the following statements is NOT true about NEP 2020?
Correct answer: C. It recommends that English should be the only medium of instruction at the elementary level.
NEP 2020 recommends the mother tongue/home language/regional language as the medium of instruction 'wherever possible, until at least Grade 5', the three-language formula, and better materials in Indian languages. It does not make English the only medium.
Correct answer: A. A-II, B-I, C-IV, D-III
Narayan's Waiting for the Mahatma (1955); Bhattacharya's Bengal-famine novel So Many Hungers! (1947); Anand's The Sword and the Sickle (1942, third of the Lalu trilogy); Malgonkar's army novel Distant Drum (1960).
Kamala Das's 'An Introduction' is:
Correct answer: C. A poem of resistance and protest
'An Introduction' (Summer in Calcutta, 1965) is a confessional poem that defies those who tell her what language to write in and how to behave as a woman — 'I am Indian, very brown, born in Malabar…'.
The Calcutta Chromosome (1995), a novel exploring past and future, was written by:
Correct answer: B. Amitav Ghosh
Amitav Ghosh's The Calcutta Chromosome: A Novel of Fevers, Delirium and Discovery (1995) reworks Ronald Ross's malaria research as a science-fiction mystery; it won the Arthur C. Clarke Award (1997).
What is the correct chronological order of publication of the following texts?
Correct answer: C. (C), (A), (B), (D), (E)
Kanthapura (1938) → The Financial Expert (1952) → A Bend in the Ganges (1964) → The Great Indian Novel (1989) → The God of Small Things (1997).
Which among the following is not written by a sportsperson?
Correct answer: D. A Country Called Childhood: A Memoir
Open is Andre Agassi's, Unbreakable Mary Kom's, and Playing It My Way Sachin Tendulkar's autobiography. A Country Called Childhood is Ruskin Bond's memoir.
Which among the following writers are known for partition narratives?
Correct answer: C. (A), (C) and (E) only
Krishna Sobti (Zindaginama; 'Sikka Badal Gaya'), Rahi Masoom Raza (Aadha Gaon, 1966) and Saros Cowasjee (editor of the anthologies Orphans of the Storm and Stories about the Partition of India) are partition writers. Deshpande writes of middle-class women, Mukherjee of the diaspora.
Correct answer: A. A-IV, B-III, C-I, D-II
Kashmir and Punjab conflict fiction: Mirza Waheed's The Collaborator (2011); Siddhartha Gigoo's Pandit-exodus novel The Garden of Solitude (2011); Amandeep Sandhu's Roll of Honour (2012), set in 1984 Punjab; Shahnaz Bashir's The Half Mother (2014).
Note: Options 2 and 4 are misprinted in the source (a list number repeated); normalised here.
Macaulay's 1835 Minute on Indian Education aimed to create a class of persons who were:
Correct answer: B. Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste
The Minute calls for 'a class of persons, Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect' to act as interpreters between the rulers and the governed.
Arrange the following collections of Nissim Ezekiel in chronological order:
Correct answer: B. E, C, D, A, B
A Time to Change (1952) → Sixty Poems (1953) → The Unfinished Man (1960) → The Exact Name (1965) → Latter-Day Psalms (1982, Sahitya Akademi Award).
Who wrote A Sketch of Anglo-Indian Literature?
Correct answer: C. E. F. Oaten
Edward Farley Oaten's Le Bas Prize essay (1908) was one of the first surveys of Indian writing in English. Oaten later taught at Presidency College, Calcutta.
Which playwright shows the influence of the Yakshagana folk tradition in his plays?
Correct answer: B. Girish Karnad
Karnad's Hayavadana (1971), from Mann's The Transposed Heads and the Kathasaritsagara, uses Yakshagana conventions such as the Bhagavata narrator, half-curtain and masks.
In which poem does Kamala Das describe her husband and sons, and herself as wife and mother 'insignificant as a fly'?
Correct answer: D. 'A Widow's Lament'
'A Widow's Lament' (Only the Soul Knows How to Sing, 1996) records the widow's sense of her diminished place.
In Indian English Literature 1980–2000: A Critical Survey, what do M. K. Naik and Shyamala Narayan claim about Indian English drama?
Correct answer: B. It is the 'sick man' of Indian English literature
Naik and Narayan (2001) describe drama as the weakest, 'sick' genre of Indian English writing, eclipsed by fiction and poetry despite Dattani's emergence.
Arrange the following plays in chronological order:
Correct answer: C. E, C, D, B, A
The Dumb Dancer (1961) → Goa (1964) → Marriage Poem (Three Plays, 1969) → Mister Behram (staged 1987, pub. 1988) → Tara (staged 1990, pub. 1995).
Note: Option 3 is garbled in the source and its printed key ('D, E, C, B, A') cannot be right, since Marriage Poem (1969) postdates The Dumb Dancer (1961). Option 3 is given here in its correct order.
