CLEP American Literature Readiness Test

10 questions, balanced across the exam's topics. Answer each one, then submit for your practice readiness estimate and per-topic breakdown. This is a practice estimate — not a prediction or guarantee of your official exam result.

Question 1

Which concept is best illustrated by the following? "His 'Rip Van Winkle' and 'The Legend of Sleepy Hollow'"

the Connecticut Wits the epic impulse in early America Thomas Paine's Common Sense Washington Irving

Question 2

Which of the following statements about Emerson's 'The American Scholar' is NOT accurate?

a poem about nature the address calling for intellectual independence his call for the scholar to be 'man thinking' Holmes called it America's intellectual Declaration of Independence

Question 3

All of the following are accurate statements about Mary E. Wilkins Freeman EXCEPT:

a writer of westerns the chronicler of repressed New England women her 'A New England Nun' her stories show women's quiet rebellions

Question 4

All of the following are accurate statements about E.E. Cummings EXCEPT:

the playful typographical innovator a realist novelist his scattered lowercase lyrics his experiments served lyric feeling

Question 5

Which of the following best defines Maxine Hong Kingston?

a white Southern novelist a beat poet a modernist the memoirist of Chinese American identity

Question 6

Which concept is best illustrated by the following? "His patriotic verses against the British"

Philip Freneau Franklin's Poor Richard's Almanack the diary as colonial literature neoclassicism in early American literature

Question 7

Which of the following best defines James Russell Lowell?

a frontier humorist a beat poet the poet, critic, and diplomat of the Brahmin tradition a Southern agrarian

Question 8

All of the following are accurate statements about Kate Chopin EXCEPT:

a transcendentalist lecturer the chronicler of women's desire and constraint her novel The Awakening her stories explored female sexuality frankly

Question 9

Which of the following best illustrates Flannery O'Connor?

Steinbeck's and Dos Passos's radical sympathies his 'The Road Not Taken' and 'Mending Wall' her 'A Good Man Is Hard to Find' Gatsby's green light and Willy Loman's delusions

Question 10

Which of the following best defines Hunter S. Thompson?

an objective reporter a formalist poet the gonzo journalist a Southern agrarian

Unanswered questions count as incorrect. Your answers are graded on the server; no answer key is sent to your browser.

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