Could You Pass?

Following is the British Columbia high school exit exam: literary section. There is an equally rigorous section for history. This information is taken from the Common Core report, Why We’re Behind, What Top Nations Teach Their Students That We Don’t (2009).
A real example helps to illuminate the difference between our educational approach and that of the competitor nations whose students consistently score better, much better, than ours on international tests. This provides more information on the topic started in A Sick Patient and Human Nature.
Please take a look at the exam and ponder the question, “Can we continue to ignore our dumbed down approach in K-12 education?”
 
British Columbia High School Exit Exam

Literary Selections

1. In Beowulf, which Anglo-Saxon value is represented by Herot?
A. power
B. heroism
C. boasting
D. community

2. In “The Prologue” to The Canterbury Tales, how is the Parson described?
A. “a very festive fellow”
B. “a fat and personable priest”
C. “rich in holy thought and work”
D. “an easy man in penance-giving”

3. In Shakespeare’s Sonnet 130 (“My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun”), why does the speaker state that his mistress “treads on the ground”?
A. She is a sensible woman.
B. She is beautiful and attainable.
C. He is praising her as a real woman.
D. He is disappointed by her plainness.

4. Which quotation contains personification?
A. “Noli me tangere, for Caesar’s I am”
B. “No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move”
C. “Nor what the potent Victor in his rage / Can else inflict”
D. “and wanton fields / To wayward Winter reckoning yields”

5. In “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning,” on what does “dull sublunary" love depend?
A. spiritual union
B. physical presence
C. common attitudes
D. shared experience

6. In “On His Blindness,” which metaphor does Milton use to represent his literary powers?
A. a talent
B. a yoke
C. a kingly state
D. the dark world

7. In The Rape of the Lock, when Pope writes “So ladies in romance assist their knight, / Present the spear, and arm him for the fight,” what has just happened?
A. Belinda has just pulled out a “deadly bodkin.”
B. Chloe and Sir Plume have just confronted each other.
C. Clarissa has just offered a “two-edged weapon” to the Baron.
D. The Baron’s queen of spades defeats Belinda’s king of clubs.

8. Which characteristic of “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” can be seen as Romantic?
A. It celebrates the supernatural.
B. It is written in iambic pentameter.
C. It emphasizes reason over emotion.
D. It deals with the lives of common people.

9. “The guests are met, the feast is set”
Which literary technique is used in the above quotation?
A. aside
B. caesura
C. apostrophe
D. cacophony

10. In “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” how do the sailors feel when the albatross first appears?
A. joyful
B. fearful
C. enraged
D. indifferent

11. According to the speaker in “Apostrophe to the Ocean,” with what attitude does the ocean
treat humanity?
A. anger
B. respect
C. disdain
D. generosity

12. In Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnet 43 (“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways”), what does the speaker reveal about herself?
A. her desire to be loved
B. her love for her beloved
C. her love for her dying father
D. her need to be with her beloved

13. “And this gray spirit yearning in desire To follow knowledge like a sinking star” In “Ulysses,” to whom does “this gray spirit” refer?
A. Achilles
B. Ulysses
C. Tennyson
D. Telemachus

14. What does Arnold lament in “Dover Beach”?
A. the loss of religious faith
B. the loss of romantic love
C. the loss of military strength
D. the loss of respect for nature

15. In “The Hollow Men,” how does the speaker suggest that the world will end?
A. violently
B. gloriously
C. ominously
D. anticlimactically

16. In “Disembarking at Quebec,” which article suggests the speaker’s alienation from her surroundings?
A. her pink shawl
B. her fine bonnet
C. her coral brooch
D. her red stockings

Recognition of Authors and Titles

INSTRUCTIONS: Select the author of the quotation or the title of the selection from which the quotation is taken.

17. “For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings That then I scorn to change my state with kings”
A. Wyatt
B. Donne
C. Chaucer
D. Shakespeare

18. “And through the drifts the snowy clifts Did send a dismal sheen:
Nor shapes of men nor beasts we ken —The ice was all between”
A. “Ulysses”
B. “The Hollow Men”
C. “Disembarking at Quebec”
D. “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”

19. “Dim, through the misty green panes and thick green light, As under a green sea, I saw him drowning”
A. “Dover Beach”
B. “Ode to the West Wind”
C. “Dulce et Decorum Est”
D. “Apostrophe to the Ocean”

20. “So be it when I shall grow old, Or let me die!”
A. Keats
B. Shelley
C. Browning
D. Wordsworth

21. “Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men”
A. Pope
B. Donne
C. Milton
D. Raleigh

22. “The land’s sharp features seemed to be
The Century’s corpse outleant”
A. “The Hollow Men”
B. “The Darkling Thrush”
C. “The Second Coming”
D. “Because I Could Not Stop for Death”

23. “He wore a fustian tunic stained and dark
With smudges where his armor had left mark”
A. Beowulf
B. The Rape of the Lock
C. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
D. “The Prologue” to The Canterbury Tales

PART C: SHAKESPEAREAN DRAMA

1 written-response question

Value: 20% Suggested Time: 25 minutes

INSTRUCTIONS: Choose one of the three passages on pages 14 to 17 in the Examination Booklet.

With specific reference to the drama, respond to one of the following statements in at least 200 words in paragraph form. Write your answer in ink in the Response Booklet. Place a checkmark in Instruction 4 on the front cover of the Response Booklet.

Hamlet (See passage on page 14.)

2. Show the significance of this exchange between Hamlet and Gertrude.
Refer both to this passage and to elsewhere in the play.

OR

The Tempest (See passage on page 15.)

3. With reference both to this passage and to elsewhere in the play, show that this passage contributes to theme.

OR

King Lear (See passage on page 17.)

4. Discuss the parallels between the father–child relationship found both in these passages and elsewhere in the play.

2. Hamlet (1600 –1601)
Hamlet: Now, Mother, what’s the matter?
Queen: Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.
Hamlet: Mother, you have my father much offended.
Queen: Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue.
Hamlet: Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue.
Queen: Why, how now, Hamlet?
Hamlet: What’s the matter now?
Queen: Have you forgot me?
Hamlet: No, by the rood,1 not so!
You are the Queen, your husband’s brother’s wife,
And, would it were not so, you are my mother.
Queen: Nay, then I’ll set those to you that can speak.
Hamlet: Come, come, and sit you down. You shall not budge.
You go not till I set you up a glass2
Where you may see the inmost part of you!
1 rood: cross
2 glass: mirror

OR

3. The Tempest (1611)
Gonzalo: I have inly wept,
Or should have spoke ere this. Look down, you gods,
And on this couple drop a blessèd crown!
For it is you that have chalked forth the way
Which brought us hither.
Alonso: I say amen, Gonzalo.
Gonzalo: Was Milan thrust from Milan that his issue
Should become kings of Naples? O, rejoice
Beyond a common joy, and set it down
With gold on lasting pillars. In one voyage
Did Claribel her husband find at Tunis,
And Ferdinand her brother found a wife
Where he himself was lost; Prospero his dukedom
In a poor isle; and all of us ourselves
When no man was his own.
Alonso: [To Ferdinand and Miranda] Give me your hands.
Let grief and sorrow still embrace his heart
That doth not wish you joy.
Gonzalo: Be it so! Amen!

OR

4. King Lear (1603)
In her response to Lear’s question as to how much she loves him,
Cordelia answers truthfully.
Lear: But goes thy heart with this?
Cordelia: Ay, my good lord.
Lear: So young, and so untender?
Cordelia: So young, my lord, and true.
Lear: Let it be so, thy truth then be thy dower!
For, by the sacred radiance of the sun,
The mysteries of Hecate and the night,
By all the operation of the orbs
From whom we do exist and cease to be,
Here I disclaim all my paternal care,
Propinquity and property of blood,
And as a stranger to my heart and me
Hold thee from this for ever. The barbarous Scythian,
Or he that makes his generation messes
To gorge his appetite, shall to my bosom
Be as well neighbored, pitied, and relieved,
As thou my sometime daughter.

AND

4. King Lear (1603)
Gloucester has just read a letter forged by Edmund.
Gloucester: You know the character to be your brother’s?
Edmund: If the matter were good, my lord, I durst
swear it were his; but in respect of that, I would
fain think it were not.
Gloucester: It is his.
Edmund: It is his hand, my lord; but I hope his heart is
not in the contents.
Gloucester: Has he never before sounded you in this
business?
Edmund: Never, my lord. But I have heard him
oft maintain it to be fit that, sons at perfect age,
and fathers declined, the father should be as ward
to the son, and the son manage his revenue.
Gloucester: O villain, villain! His very opinion in the
letter. Abhorred villain, unnatural, detested,
brutish villain; worse than brutish! Go, sirrah, seek
him. I’ll apprehend him. Abominable villain!
Where is he?

1 written-response question

Value: 30% Suggested Time: 40 minutes

INSTRUCTIONS: Choose one of the following topics. Write a multi-paragraph essay (at least three paragraphs) of approximately 400 words. Develop a concise, focused answer to show your knowledge and understanding of the topic. Include specific references to the works you discuss. You may not need all the space provided for your answer. You must refer to at least one work from the Specified Readings List (see page 20 in the Examination Booklet). The only translated works you may use are those from Anglo-Saxon and Medieval English. Write your answer in ink in the Response Booklet. Place a checkmark 􀀁in Instruction 4 on the front cover of the Response Booklet.

Topic 5 The presence or absence of loyalty is often a theme in literature.
Support this statement with reference to at least three literary works.

OR

Topic 6 A journey of some kind is important to many works of literature.
Support this statement with reference to at least three literary works.

OR

Topic 7 The meaning of a literary work may be enhanced by its reference to another work of art or literature. Support this statement with reference to at least three literary works.

Note: On the following page is the reading list from which students must select one work to reference.

Specified Readings List

Anglo-Saxon and Medieval
• from Beowulf
• Geoffrey Chaucer, from The Canterbury Tales, “The Prologue”
• “Bonny Barbara Allan”
• from Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

Renaissance and 17th Century
• Sir Thomas Wyatt, “Whoso List to Hunt”
• Christopher Marlowe, “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love”
• Sir Walter Raleigh, “The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd”
• William Shakespeare,
Sonnet 29 (“When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes”)
Sonnet 116 (“Let me not to the marriage of true minds”)
Sonnet 130 (“My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun”)
Hamlet, King Lear or The Tempest
• John Donne,
“A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning”;
“Death, Be Not Proud”
• Robert Herrick, “To the Virgins”
• John Milton, “On His Blindness”; from Paradise Lost
• from The Diary of Samuel Pepys

18th Century and Romantic
• Lady Mary Chudleigh, “To the Ladies”
• Alexander Pope, from The Rape of the Lock
• Jonathan Swift, “A Modest Proposal”
• Robert Burns, “To a Mouse”
• William Blake, “The Tiger”; “The Lamb”
• Thomas Gray, “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard”
• William Wordsworth, “My Heart Leaps Up”; “The World Is
Too Much with Us”
• Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”
• George Gordon, Lord Byron, “Apostrophe to the Ocean”
• Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Ode to the West Wind”
• John Keats, “Ode to a Nightingale”; “When I Have Fears That I May
Cease to Be”

Victorian and 20th Century
• Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “Ulysses”
• Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Sonnet 43
(“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways”)
• Robert Browning,
“My Last Duchess”
• Emily Brontë, “Song”
• Matthew Arnold, “Dover Beach”
• Thomas Hardy, “The Darkling Thrush”
• Emily Dickinson, “Because I Could Not Stop for Death”
• Wilfred Owen, “Dulce et Decorum Est ”
• William Butler Yeats, “The Second Coming”
• T.S. Eliot, “The Hollow Men”
• Dylan Thomas, “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night”
• Stevie Smith, “Pretty”
• Margaret Atwood, “Disembarking at Quebec”