World Masterpieces section 2, 2009

Study guide for the first exam: multiple-choice section.

The exam will consist of a multiple choice section and an essay section. In the multiple choice section, you will answer questions based on major characters, plot elements, etc. in the works we have read, as well as basic information about the authors, genres, and chronology of the works we have covered, and about some of the issues we have discussed, such as metaphor, epic, tragedy, etc. In the essay section, you will write one essay (more on that below).


It will be important to pace yourself. If you come to a multiple choice question that you can’t answer right away, don’t spend ten minutes thinking about it. Move on, and come back later if you have time. Remember, the class is 80 minutes. So, for example, if you take no more than 40 minutes for the multiple choice section, you will have 40 minutes for the essay. I’m not saying everyone should pace themselves in the same way, just that you do need to remember to think about the clock. You might even consider doing the essays first.

The multiple choice section will probably have 32 questions worth 1.5 points each, for a total of 48 points, and the essay will probably be worth 52 points. These numbers might change slightly as I finish preparing the exam.



Multiple choice section

The following list of important things to remember about the classical works we have studied is intended as a study guide only. Certainly not everything listed here will be on the exam, and there is a slight chance that something will be on the exam that is not here. But this should be a good guide to studying.

 

  1. Aeschylus
  2. Sophocles
  3. Homer
  4. oral traditions
  5. Did Homer “write”? Did he really exist?
  6. metaphor
  7. epic simile
  8. epic
  9. drama
  10. intertextuality
  11. in medias res
  12. first lines of epics
  13. tragedy
  14. Agamemnon
  15. Clytemnestra
  16. Aegisthus
  17. walking on tapestries
  18. Orestes
  19. House of Atreus
  20. Eumenides
  21. idea of justice in the Oresteia
  22. Oedipus
  23. Jocosta
  24. Laius
  25. Merope
  26. Polybus
  27. rage
  28. Achilles
  29. Patroclus
  30. Hector
  31. Paris
  32. Who repeatedly drags whose body around, and very briefly, why?
  33. Odysseus
  34. Telemachus
  35. Penelope
  36. Where was the land of the dead for Homer? What was it like?
  37. What was the basic cause of the Trojan war?
  38. hospitality 
  39. Allegory of the cave
  40. Virgil
  41. Ovid
  42. Augustine
  43. Aeneas
  44. Anchises
  45. Dido
  46. “pius” / “pious”/"Pietas"
  47. Turnus
  48. Venus, in the Aeneid
  49. Where was the land of the dead for Aeneas? What was it like?
  50. Carthage (briefly indicate its importance in two works)
  51. "to spare the conquered, battle down the proud"
  52. "through all the coming years / of future ages, I shall live in fame"
  53. Daphne
  54. Europa
  55. Pygmalion
  56. Persephone
  57. muses
  58. reading under a fig tree
  59. How did Augustine feel about the Aeneid?
  60. Monica

Study Questions for the essays will be posted separately.


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