English 211 Sample Quizzes
Quizzes will be unannounced, at least once each week, and no makeups will be allowed. Their sheer number will make it likely that everyone will miss at least one, and designing makeup quizzes for such a large class would be impossible. If you miss class for an authorized absence (see Student Handbook), I will not count that quiz in your final average. Also, your lowest quiz grade will be dropped and quizzes will be graded on a curve so your average will be scored relative to the class's average.
These sample quizzes resemble those I give in class, but most also include a hyperlink to a page containing answers and rationales for why the questions could be considered important to understanding the works. The answers are usually more extensive than what I would require from a student writing an impromptu quiz. I want to be tough but not sadistic. The rationales for why I would ask the questions may be more important in the long run, because they explain what kinds of thinking I think will produce good readings, and this will give you a way to predict what kinds of questions I probably will ask in the future.
Quiz #0---Bede,
Ecclesiastical History of the English People [Caedmon sings]
Quiz #0-alt--Robert Herrick, "Upon His Verses" [first class sample]
Quiz #1--Geoffrey Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, General Prologue
Quiz #2--Everyman (Anon.)
Quiz #3--Sir Thomas More, Utopia
Quiz #4--Geoffrey Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, "Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale"
Quiz #5--Shakespeare, Henry IV Part 1, Acts I & II
Quiz #6--Shakespeare, Henry IV Part 1, Acts III-V
Quiz#7--Shakespeare, King Lear
Quiz #8--Ben Jonson, Volpone, Acts I & II
Quiz #9--Mary, countess of Pembroke, and Elizabeth I
Quiz #10--Andrew Marvell
Quiz #11--John Milton, Paradise Lost, Books I and II
Quiz #12--Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Background
Quiz #13--Jonathan Swift, "Description of a City Shower" and "A Modest Proposal"