25 questions · about 30 minutes. Press End Mock any time to see your score and the correct answers.
Match List I with List II:
Correct answer: D. A-III, B-IV, C-II, D-I
Partap Sharma's banned A Touch of Brightness (1965); Currimbhoy's The Hungry Ones (1965); Gurcharan Das's Mira (1970); Ezekiel's satire The Sleepwalkers (1969).
Correct answer: D. A-II, B-IV, C-I, D-III
P. Lal, founder of Writers Workshop (The Man of Dharma and the Rasa of Silence, 1974); Jussawalla's Missing Person (1976); Ramanujan's Kannada vachana translations Speaking of Siva (1973); Parthasarathy's Rough Passage (1977).
Which of the following plays contain the rehearsal of a play within the play?
Correct answer: B. B and E only
Pirandello's play (1921) opens with a rehearsal interrupted by six unfinished characters. In Tendulkar's play (1967) an amateur troupe rehearses a mock trial that turns on Leela Benare.
Correct answer: B. A-II, B-I, C-III, D-IV
Leavis and Thompson's Culture and Environment (1933); Spivak's In Other Worlds (1987); Jameson's The Cultural Turn (1998); Hoggart's The Uses of Literacy (1957).
Note: Option 4 is misprinted in the source (a number repeated); normalised here.
What did the Kothari Commission suggest about English?
Correct answer: B. That English be studied as a library language, to give access to knowledge in science, technology, commerce and trade
The Education Commission (1964–66, chaired by D. S. Kothari) endorsed the three-language formula and saw English chiefly as a 'library language' and window on world knowledge.
Note: Question number inferred; the source page leaves it unnumbered.
Which of the following form Mulk Raj Anand's trilogy?
Correct answer: B. A, C and D only
The Lalu trilogy follows Lal Singh: The Village (1939), Across the Black Waters (1939; Flanders, WWI) and The Sword and the Sickle (1942).
What is the name of the goddess in Raja Rao's Kanthapura?
Correct answer: A. Kenchamma
Kenchamma, the hill-goddess who protects the village; the narrator Achakka tells the story as a sthala-purana. Tiruchengode is the site of Gandhi's ashram mentioned in the novel.
Arrange the following books of poetry in chronological order:
Correct answer: B. D, C, A, B, E
The Golden Threshold (1905) → Savitri (1950–51) → A Time to Change (1952) → Banaras and Other Poems (tr. 2015) → Anthropocene (2021–22).
Purdah is a collection of poems by:
Correct answer: B. Imtiaz Dharker
Imtiaz Dharker's debut, Purdah and Other Poems (1989).
Arrange the following playwrights in order of birth:
Correct answer: C. C, A, D, B, E
Ezekiel (1924) → Currimbhoy (1928) → Patel (1940) → Das (1943) → Cyrus Mistry (1956).
Correct answer: D. A-II, B-I, C-III, D-IV
Kabir's Men and Rivers (1945); Bhattacharya's satire A Goddess Named Gold (1960); Malgonkar's Assam tea-garden novel Combat of Shadows (1962); Markandaya's Possession (1963).
A. K. Ramanujan was also a:
Correct answer: D. B and E only
Ramanujan translated Tamil Sangam poetry (The Interior Landscape), Kannada vachanas (Speaking of Siva) and Nammalvar (Hymns for the Drowning), and taught at the University of Chicago from 1962.
Which three of the following plays were written by Nissim Ezekiel?
Correct answer: D. B, C and E only
Ezekiel's Three Plays (Writers Workshop, 1969) contains Nalini, Marriage Poem and The Sleepwalkers. Savaksa and Mister Behram are Gieve Patel's.
Correct answer: C. A-III, B-IV, C-II, D-I
Harindranath's The Feast of Youth (1918); Mahapatra's 'Hunger' (A Rain of Rites, 1976); Writers Workshop, founded by P. Lal in Calcutta (1958); Kandasamy's first collection Touch (2006).
Arrange the following texts in chronological order of publication:
Correct answer: C. E, D, C, A, B
To Whom She Will (1955) → A Bend in the Ganges (1964) → Shadow from Ladakh (1966) → Two Virgins (1973) → The Painter of Signs (1976).
Which three of the following plays were written by Bhasa?
Correct answer: B. A, C and E only
The 'Trivandrum plays' recovered by Ganapati Sastri (1912) include Charudatta (source of Shudraka's Mrichchhakatika), Urubhanga and Karnabharam. Ratnavali is Harsha's and Malavikagnimitram Kalidasa's.
In which year did the Education Commission chaired by D. S. Kothari (the sixth commission in the history of Indian education) submit its report?
Correct answer: B. 1966
Appointed in 1964, the Commission reported on 29 June 1966. Its 'Education and National Development' shaped the National Policy on Education (1968) and the 10+2+3 pattern.
Who chaired the University Education Commission of 1948?
Correct answer: D. S. Radhakrishnan
The Radhakrishnan Commission (1948–49) was independent India's first education commission; Azad was Education Minister.
Which of the following was the first newspaper of India?
Correct answer: A. Hicky's Bengal Gazette
James Augustus Hicky's Bengal Gazette, or Calcutta General Advertiser (1780), suppressed after it attacked Warren Hastings.
'The great object of the British Government ought to be the promotion of European literature and science among the natives of India; and all the funds appropriated for the purpose of education would be best employed on English education alone.' Who made this comment?
Correct answer: C. Lord William Bentinck
These are the words of Lord William Bentinck's Resolution of 7 March 1835, which put Macaulay's Minute into effect.
Note: The source key gives option 1 (Macaulay), but the quoted sentence is from Bentinck's Resolution; Macaulay's Minute argues the same case in different words.
Which of the following are leading characters in Mulk Raj Anand's novels?
Correct answer: D. A, B and D only
Munoo (Coolie, 1936), Bakha (Untouchable, 1935) and Gangu (Two Leaves and a Bud, 1937) are Anand's. Sampath is Narayan's and Dopdi is Mahasweta Devi's 'Draupadi'.
Correct answer: C. A-II, B-IV, C-I, D-III
Early Indian women's fiction in English: Nikambe's Ratanbai (1895); Raj Lakshmi Debi's The Hindoo Wife (1876); Krupabai Satthianadhan's Kamala (1894); Toru Dutt's unfinished Bianca (serialised 1878).
Tagore's The Child (written in English, 1931); Iqbal's Asrar-i-Khudi (tr. Nicholson as The Secrets of the Self, 1920); Ezekiel's The Unfinished Man (1960); Dharker's Purdah (1989).
Arrange the following works in chronological order of publication:
Correct answer: C. A, D, C, B, E
Rajmohan's Wife (1864) → Untouchable (1935) → Kanthapura (1938). After these, by first editions, Distant Drum (1960) precedes A Bend in the Ganges (1964), giving A, D, C, E, B, which no option offers.
Note: Key doubtful: no option gives the order by first publication (same question as Dec 2022 Shift 1, Q32).
Who wrote Larins Sahib?
Correct answer: C. Gurcharan Das
Gurcharan Das's historical play (1970) on Henry Lawrence, British Resident in the Punjab after the first Anglo-Sikh war.
