Norton Anthology Quiz

[slemslempike]

Quiz here, taken from Bookish. Having taken all of them in a fit of boredom, I find that I am a sorry excuse for an English graduate. Some of the questions were quite easy to guess at though.

72% - Twentieth Century
64% - Victorians
66% - Romatic Period
64% - Restoration & Eighteenth Century
60% - Early 17th Century
60% - 16th Century
20% - Middle Ages

In my defense, the last category was never included in any of my courses, so it was completely guesswork.

To assuage my feelings of inadequacy, I'm going to pretend that they're being graded on an average UK university scale. Woo-hoo! Discard the lowest marked module and I get an upper second overall. (Of course, if we're grading on American terms, I failed. Not even scraping a D. Let's not grade on American terms.) It's a very American style quiz. Quite a few of the things in the questions were mentioned in passing in my literature lectures, but we weren't marked on them. All English assesment was through essay questions, 3 essays in three hours.

Go on then. Take the quiz, ace every cateogry and then post about it here to make sure I feel really dumb. Or, better yet, take it, fail even more dismally and then make me feel better!

Comments

[biascut.livejournal.com]

93% on Romantics (14/15) - I didn't know who was the first to describe the period as "Romantic". But the Romantic one was dead easy - about 12/15 were "e) all of the above"! I gave up Middle English after three questions on the grounds that it was history, not literary knowledge, and I'm scared to try 20th century, because that's supposed to be my field...

[biascut.livejournal.com]

60% on 20th century! Oh, I am bollocks!

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

I did the 25 question quiz for each of them, so I'm going to pretend that you happened to get the easy questions for the 15. (Only you didn't. Clever clogs.) 20th Century wasn't too bad. My sister (histroy grad) always dismisses any ignorance on her part with "not my period". I think her period covers about three years in the middle of the American civil rights movement.

My new excuse is that I'm only half an English graduate. Yes. (No-one drag up a women's studies quiz to shame me further, okay?)

[starfishchick]

I did pretty badly, but then, I wasn't an English major. :)

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

Well, I only did it as a joint major, and none of these cover my specialism! And the quiz is really a test on how well you remember what you read in the Norton anthology, which I haven't read at all, and did I mention not my specialism?

[coconutswirl.livejournal.com]

Middle Ages: a whopping 65 per cent. WTF?
16th Century: 57 per cent. Ack. The shame.
Early 17th C: 67 per cent
Restoration & 18th C: 70 per cent
Romantic Period: 89 per cent - again, WTF?
Victorians: 63 per cent
20th C: 93 per cent, but that was my second time taking the test so.. first time I got 75 per cent.

How did you find Bookish?

[coconutswirl.livejournal.com]

Oh, and I took the "as many questions as possible" option.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

I used to read the lj feed of the previous site, and the new address was linked to when it changed, I think. I, uh, kind of know the writer...

And how did you score that highly in Middle Ages? I can take the shame of being beaten by an acknowleged lit geek on everything, but by 45 PER CENT?

[coconutswirl.livejournal.com]

I have no idea where the Middle English score came from. I've never studied ME lit! I have, however, watched "A Knight's Tale" a couple of times ;)

And, ah. I see. I think it has a LJ feed too.

[stellanova.livejournal.com]

I got 80% on 20th century, 90% on the Victorian one, and a vaguely astounding (to me) 70% in the 18th/Restoration one. I should add that I guessed a few answers in all the quizzes - apart from the 19th century one. Apparently, despite never seriously studying 19th century English literature, I have a vast amount of knowledge on the subject.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

I was surprised at my Restoration knowledge too - I didn't know I knew anything about it.

[terriem.livejournal.com]

With lots of guessing and lots of use of my history degree, I got:

81% - Twentieth Century
67% - Victorians
75% - Romantic Period
87% - Restoration & Eighteenth Century
73% - Early 17th Century
86% - 16th Century
52% - Middle Ages

I must stress: lots and lots of guessing!

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

Huh. Stress it harder! That's bloody good, although I think that history is possibly more help than lit for a lot of the questions.

[terriem.livejournal.com]

Yes, it's definitely the History - I briefly specialised in 17th century, so that really helped! I also spotted the trick that if an answer says "all of the above" and I couldn't see anything glaringly stupid, then that was the right option. Not enough Jane Austen questions though. :(

[coconutswirl.livejournal.com]

A LOT of history questions. I was all "ask me rhetorical terms, dammit!!!"

[paranoidkitten.livejournal.com]

I console myself with the thought that it is okay for me not to know these things now and in 4.5 years I will know all. Yes. Oooh, 75% on the romantic period, though. Yay.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

If you have 75% before you even start your english degree, then you are already on a good thing. It is entirely okay for you to not know things, as long as it is entirely okay for me to have forgotten them. Yes?

[paranoidkitten.livejournal.com]

Yes! Mutual forgiveness and understanding! *grin*

[goovie.livejournal.com]

middle ages: 48%
16th century: 57%
early 17th century: 47%
restoration: 47%
romantic: 75%
victorian: 73%
20th century: 63%

now i remember all the historical blurbs in the norton anthologies. i tended to just skim them.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

I never really used the norton anthologies - we had the poetry one for first year, but we only used it for the actual poems, and although I had one volume when I did my year abroad, I never actually did the reading for that class, so I never read the historical blurbs. Maybe I'd be a better english graduate if I'd been a more diligent english undergraduate.

[br0k3nsoul.livejournal.com]

I've got the GRE (Graduate Record Examination) coming now, so this is probably something I should fiddle around with at great length. If I want to go on to the graduate school of my choice here in America I'll need a good score in...uh...all of those categories. >.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

What program are you looking at? Hope the tests are useful - they seem fairly wide-ranging.

[coughingbear]

100% on Victorians (but I am doing a C19th history thesis, so very much my period)
87% on 20th century
80% on Restoration and 18th century
(only did the 15-question versions - might try the full thing later).

Am going to quit there before exploring my ignorance of literature in the Middle Ages!