Part #1: an In-Class Essay (1 Hour 60 Minutes)

ENG2D1/2DB Final Exam Review

Part #1: An In-Class Essay (1 hour – 60 minutes)

In-class Essay Final Exam Day: Wednesday January 21, 2015

Exam Time: 1 hour during your regular class time and room (A308)

Instructions for this Section:

 Review the literary essay topics provided below, and consider how you might approach each topic in an essay format. Complete a brainstorm/organizer for each.  Write a well-structured, four paragraph, and formal literary essay based on each of these topics, using the texts studied this year (The Great Gatsby and Romeo and Juliet).

 This part of the exam will be worth 80 marks in total (20 marks for each of the 4 categories – knowledge, thinking, communication, application)

 Your essay should adhere to the following formal structure:

- An introduction with a clearly developed thesis

- Body paragraph #1 must focus on your first supporting argument (2 point/proof/analysis are required in body paragraph #1)

- Body paragraph #2 must focus on your second supporting argument (2 point/proof/analysis are required in body paragraph #2)

- A clear concluding paragraph (review your thesis and arguments)

 In your body paragraphs, you must make reference to two specific examples from each of the core texts in the form of accurate paraphrasing or direct quotations as proof for your points (you should include two point/proof/analysis per body paragraph) – Please note that direct quotations are not required.

1 Practice Essay Topics:

1. Choose a minor character in each of the core texts studied this year and explain how this minor character contributes significantly to the plot, theme, or the development of other characters.

2. Assess the significance of setting. You may consider the importance of the setting in such elements as atmosphere, mood, character development and theme.

3. The success of a story depends on the intensity of the crisis. Discuss the truth of this statement with reference to the two core texts studied this semester (

4. A close relationship or the lack of a close relationship may change a person’s life. Discuss the truth of this statement with reference to the core texts studied this year.

5. A wise character learns to see his/her faults and to act accordingly. Discuss the truth of this statement with reference to the core texts studied this year.

6. A character’s real personality appears when this person faces a crisis. Discuss the truth of this statement with reference to the core texts studied this year.

7. Caring about what others think can be harmful to an individual or it can guide him/her to develop a conscience. Discuss the truth of this statement with reference to the core texts studied this year.

Part B: A Sight Passage with Multiple-Choice Questions (½ hour – 30 minutes)

Exam Day: Wednesday January 28, 2015

Exam Time: 8:30AM - 9:00AM

Exam Room for ENG2DB-02 (my period #1 class): A310

Exam Room for ENG2D1-02 (my period #4 class): A306

Instructions for this Section:

 Read the multiple choice questions before reading the sight passage, so that you know what you are looking as you read the text  Read the short story provided (referred to as “the sight passage”)  As you read, underline or highlight all relevant literary devices, figurative language, inferences and textual connections that you can easily spot within the text.  Once you have finished reading the sight passage, re-read each multiple choice question, and circle the best answer for each. Be sure to only choose one answer per question. If you circle two answers, you will not be given a mark for that question, even if one of the answers that you circle is the correct answer. You must choose! Also, do not leave any question unanswered.

2  Please note that there will be 20 multiple choice questions on the actual final exam on Wednesday January 28th (this part of the exam will be worth 20 marks in total)

Practice Sight Passage:

“THE WHITE KNIGHT” By Eric Nicol

Once upon a time there was this knight who lived in a little castle on the edge of the Forest of Life. One day this knight looked in the mirror and saw that he was a White Knight. “Lo!” he cried. “I am a White Knight and therefore represent good. I am the champion of virtue and honour and justice, and I must ride into the forest and slay the black Knight, who is evil.” So the White Knight mounted his snow-white horse and rode into the forest to find the Black Knight and slay him in single combat. Many miles he rode the first day, without so much as a glimpse of the Black Knight. The second day, he rode even farther, still without sighting the ebony armour of mischief. Day after day he rode, deeper and deeper into the Forest of Life, searching thicket and gully and even the treetops. The Black Knight was nowhere to be seen. Yet the White Knight found many signs of the Black Knight’s presence. Again and again he passed a village in which the Black Knight had struck – a baker’s shop robbed, a horse stolen, an innkeeper’s daughter ravished. But always he just missed catching the doer of these deeds. At last the White Knight had spent all his gold in the cause of his search. He was tired and hungry. Feeling his strength ebbing, he was forced to steal some buns from a bakeshop. His horse went lame, so that he was forced to replace it, silently and by darkness, with another white horse in somebody’s stable. And when he stumbled, faint and exhausted, into an inn, the innkeeper’s daughter gave him her bed, and because he was the White Knight in shining armour, she gave him her love, and when he was strong enough to leave the inn she cried bitterly because she could not understand that he had to go and find the Black Knight and slay him. Through many months, under hot sun, over frosty paths, the White Knight pressed on his search, yet all the knights he met in the forest were like himself, fairly white. They were knights of varying shades of white depending on how long they, too, had been hunting the Black Knight. Some were sparkling white. These had just started hunting that day and irritated the White Knight by innocently asking directions to the nearest Black Knight. Others were tattletale grey. And still others were so grubby, horse and rider, that the mirror in their castle would never have recognized them. Yet, the White Knight was shocked the day a knight of gleaming whiteness confronted him suddenly in the forest and with a wild whoop thundered towards him with leveled lance. The White Knight barely had time to draw his sword and, ducking under the deadly steel, plunge it into the attacker’s breast. The White Knight dismounted and kneeled beside his mortally wounded assailant, whose visor had fallen back to reveal blond curls and a youthful face. He heard the words, whispered in anguish: “Is evil then triumphant?” And holding the dead knight in his arms he saw that beside the bright armour of the youth his own, besmirched by the long quest, looked black in the darkness of the forest.

3 His heart heavy with horror and grief, the White Knight who was white no more, buried the boy, then slowly stripped off his own soiled mail, turned his grimy horse free to the forest, and stood naked and alone in the quiet dusk. Before him lay a path which he slowly took, which led him to his castle on the edge of the forest. He went into the castle and closed the door behind him. He went to the mirror and saw that it no more gave back the White Knight, but only a middle-aged, naked man, a man who had stolen and ravished and killed in pursuit of evil. Thereafter, when he walked abroad from his castle he wore a coat of simple colours, a cheerful motley, and never looked for more than he could see. And his hair grew slowly white, as did his fine, full beard, and the people all around called him the Good White Knight.

Short Answer Questions: Brainstorm for success!

 Brainstorm the answers to the following questions in order to help you respond accurately to the multiple choice questions provided.

1. What is the name of the forest where this story is set, and why is this significant?

2. As the White Knight rides “deeper and deeper into the forest”, what THREE things is he “forced” to do? And why do you think the author uses the word “forced”?

3. Explain why the knights in the forest are of “varying shades of whiteness”?

4. Label a traditional plot graph using correct literary terminology and provide an example of each stage of the story’s plot development.

1. ______- ______2. ______- ______3. ______- ______4. ______- ______5. ______- ______6. ______- ______

 Please note that there will not be a mandatory brainstorming portion on the final exam. This is purely for review purposes.

Multiple Choice Questions:

 Circle the best answer for each question with reference to the short story (the sight passage), “The White Knight”.

4 1. What piece of figurative language is used in the following passage: “He rode even farther, still without sighting the ebony armour of mischief”? 1. metaphor 2. simile 3. personification 4. irony

2. What three bad deeds does the White Knight commit in the village on his quest to kill the Black Knight? 1. Robs the baker, steals a horse, and ravages a woman 2. Robs the butcher, sleeps in an empty barn, and breaks a woman’s heart 3. He does not do any bad deeds because he is the White Knight 4. Kills another knight, takes his clothes, and steals his horse

3. What is the main setting of the story? 1. The Village 2. The White Knights Castle 3. An Inn 4. The Forest of Life

4. “Feeling his strength ebbing, he was forced….” Why do you think the author uses the word “forced” in the story? 1. To show that the Black Knight makes the White Knight perform these bad deeds 2. To demonstrate that the White Knight has no other choice 3. To blur the lines between good and evil deeds 4. Both b and c

5. What literary device is developed in the following passage of the story: “The White Knight dismounted and kneeled beside his mortally wounded assailant, whose visor had fallen back to reveal blond curls and a youthful face. He heard the words, whispered in anguish: ‘Is evil then triumphant?’”? 1. verbal irony 2. pathetic fallacy 3. foreshadowing 4. situational irony

6. Without looking at a dictionary, what does the word “besmirch” mean within the context of the story? 1. to soil or make dirty 2. something that is tarnished or discoloured 3. to detract from one’s honour 4. all of the above

7. Without looking at a dictionary, what does the word “motley” mean in the story? 1. a filthy piece of clothing 2. a colourful garment 3. implies happiness

5 4. none of the above

8. What is the “climax” of the story? 1. When the White Knight is forced to do bad deeds 2. When the White Knight leaves the forest 3. When the White Knights kills the younger knight 4. When the White Knight departs for his quest

9. What is the “rising action” of the story? 1. When the White Knight is forced to do bad deeds 2. When the White Knight leaves the Forest of Life 3. When the White Knight kills the younger knight 4. When White Knight departs for his quest

10. What is the “introduction” of the story? 1. When the White Knight is forced to do bad deeds 2. When the White Knight leaves the Forest of Life 3. When the White Knight kills the younger knight 4. When White Knight departs for his quest