based on Charles Lamb's DICTION in his essays "Elia, and the Last Essays of Elia".
This Multiple Choice Question Quiz contains 10 questions relating to English Literature and VOCABULARY. Pl. try to answer them by noting answers on a piece of paper. Then compare your answers to standard answers and explanations by clicking the following link.
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THE AIM OF PREPARING AND PRESENTING THIS TEST
The Essays of Elia were written in 1823 (before the commencement of Victorian Age. The place of action was London. The idea is to find whether writers of today select the same words, which Mr. Charles Lamb selected in his days. If you answer this test before reading the essays of Elia, and the words chosen by you coincide with those used by Lamb, you will have your diction similar to that of Lamb.
If you have answered this test with remembrance of the vocabulary of Essays of Elia, then it will help you to assess yourselves to what extent you have understood Lamb's style in his essays.
851. Supply the missing word in the following quote:
Layers of dust have accumulated (a _____ of dirt!) upon the old layers.
a) build up b) cascading c)pile d)superfetation.
852. Supply the missing word in the following quote:
With what reverence have I paced thy great bare rooms and courts at eventide! They spoke of the past:-- the shade of some dead accountant, with visionary pen in ear, would _____ by me, stiff as in life.
a)dart b)flit c)hasten d)run.
853. Supply the missing word in the following quote:
His intellect was of the shallowest order. It did not reach to a ____ or a proverb.
a) aphorism b)axiom c)maxim d)saw.
854. Supply the missing word in the following quote:
She had a neat _____ person, which it was evident she had not sinned in over-pampering; but in its veins was noble blood.
a)bony b)emaciated c)meager d)thin.
855. Supply the missing word in the following quote:
A little less facetious, and a great deal more ______, was fine rattling, rattleheaded Plumer.
a) boisterous b) clamorous c) noisy d) obstreperous.
856. Supply the missing word in the following quote:
"Nothing can be more unlike than the inflated _____ rhapsodies of Shaftesbury, and the plain natural chit-chat of Temple."
a)fastidious b)finical c) fussy c) meticulous.
857. Supply the missing word in the following quote:
This noble benefit--gratitude forbids me to conceal their names--I owe to the kindness of the most munificent firm in the world--the house of Boldero, Merryweather, Bosanquet, and Lacy. ____ ________(Context: The writer was granted a pension of 2/3 of his accustomed salary on his retirement. He was expressing his gratitude to the employer).
a)Be thou forever b)Esto perpetua c)Mayest thou endure forever d)Let it be perpetual.
858. Supply the missing word in the following quote:
"Still the prospect of its coming threw something of an illumination upon the darker side of my captivity. Without it, as I(Context: The writer was referring to his working conditions in his 36 years of job which was like a jail).
have said, I could scarcely have sustained my _______."
a)bondage b)slavery c)serfdom d)thraldom.
859. Supply the missing word in the following quote:
"_______ was the transition at fourteen from the abundant play-time, and the frequently-intervening vacations of school days, to the eight, nine, and sometimes ten hours' a-day attendance at a counting-house."
a)Dejection b)gloom c)deperession d)melancholy.
860. Supply the missing word in the following quote:
"If ________, Reader, it has been thy lot to waste the golden years of thy life--thy shining youth--in the irksome confinement of an office; to have thy prison days prolonged through middle age down to decrepitude and silver hairs, without hope of release or respite; to have lived to forget that there are such things as holidays, or to remember them but as the prerogatives of childhood; then, and then only, will you be able to appreciate my deliverance."
a)by chance b)peradventure c)perhaps d)surmise.
