ENG2DB Final Exam Review #2
Even MORE Exam essay practice questions:
Steps for Completion:
1. Read over the exam instructions carefully before you begin.
2. On the exam, you will find THREE (3) topic options for your essay. Read
each question and quickly brainstorm approaches for each in order to
determine which option will be the best one for you to select.
3. Choose ONE of the essay topics provided.
4. For the purposes of this exam, you may devote one body paragraph to
The Great Gatsby, and one body paragraph to Romeo and Juliet.
5. Plan your thesis statement, supporting arguments, and points/proofs/
analyses; in your body paragraphs, you must make reference to two
specific examples from the core texts in the form of accurate
paraphrasing or direct quotations as proof for your points.
6. Write your essay. Maintain a formal tone (no personal pronouns, no
contractions, and no slang) and use persuasive/confident language to
assert your position throughout your essay.
Use these questions to help you study…

Create a practice essay outline and accompanying literary essay for
each sample question provided. Time yourself! You should be able to
complete an essay for one question (with a quick brainstorm and outline)
in 75 minutes! Do this 3 times for maximum practice!
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The practice Questions:
1. Personal identity is often influenced and determined by family and social
convention. Individuals often struggle to find their place in the world in
which they live. What can be learned from this outcome? Choose
characters from The Great Gatsby and Romeo and Juliet, and create a
thesis to explain how characters struggle to find their true selves.
2. Choose characters from The Great Gatsby and Romeo and Juliet, and
write a thesis that discusses how secondary characters influence the main
characters’ personal growth and development.
3. In each of the works studied this semester, the protagonist must take
action despite the consequences of this action. Choose characters from
The Great Gatsby and Romeo and Juliet to create a thesis that discusses
whether each character’s action has positive or negative consequences.
ANOTHER Practice sight passage and multiple choice questions:




Read the short story provided – “The White Knight” by Eric Nicol
Highlight for literary devices, figurative language, inferences and connections
within the text.
Brainstorm the short answers in the space provided to help you answer the
multiple choice questions.
Circle the best answer for each multiple question.
“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.
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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 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.
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 middleaged, 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 these questions to help you answer the multiple
choice questions (this will not be required on the final exam)
1. What is the name of the forest where this story is set, and why is this
significant?
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2. As the White Knight rode “deeper and deeper into the forest”, what THREE things
was he “forced” to do? And why do you think the author used the word
“forced”?
3. Explain why the knights in the forest were of “varying shades of whiteness”.
4. Label a plot diagram using proper story structure terms and provide an example
of each from the text.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
___________ - ________________________________________________________________
___________ - ________________________________________________________________
___________ - ________________________________________________________________
___________ - ________________________________________________________________
___________ - ________________________________________________________________
___________ - ________________________________________________________________
The Multiple Choice Questions:

Circle the best answer for each question with reference to the short story.
1. What literary device is used in the following passage? “he rode even farther, still
without sighting the ebony armour of mischief”?
a.
b.
c.
d.
metaphor
simile
personification
irony
2.
What three bad deeds did the White Knight do in the village on his quest to kill
the Black night?
a.
b.
Robbed the baker, stole a horse and ravaged a woman
Robbed the butcher, slept in a barn without permission and broke a woman’s
heart
He did not do any bad deeds because he is the white knight
Killed another knight, took his clothes and stole his horse
c.
d.
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3.
What is the main setting of the story?
a.
b.
c.
d.
The Village
The White Knights Castle
An Inn
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?
a.
b.
c.
d.
To show that the Black Knight made the White Knight perform these deeds
To demonstrate that the White Knight had no other choice
To blur the lines between good and evil deeds
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?’”
a.
b.
c.
d.
dramatic irony
pathetic fallacy
foreshadowing
situational irony
6.
Without looking at a dictionary, what does the word “besmirch” imply?
a.
b.
c.
d.
to soil or make dirty
something that is tarnished or discoloured
to detract from one’s honour
all of the above
7.
Without looking at a dictionary, how is the word “motley” used?
a.
b.
c.
d.
a filthy piece of clothing
a colourful garment
implies happiness
none of the above
8.
What is the “climax” of the story?
a.
b.
c.
d.
When the white knight is forced to do bad deeds
When the white knight leaves the forest
When the white knights kills the younger knight
When he departs for his quest
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9.
What is the “rising action” of the story?
a.
b.
c.
d.
When the white knight is forced to do bad deeds
When the white knight leaves the Forest of Life
When the white knights kills the younger knight
When he departs for his quest
10.
What is the “introduction” of the story?
a.
b.
c.
d.
When the white knight is forced to do bad deeds
When the white knight leaves the Forest of Life
When the white knights kills the younger knight
When he departs for his quest
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