UGC NET English Practice Test Contemporary Indian Writing In English

2026-08-09 · Paper · 14 min read

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## UGC NET English Practice Test Contemporary Indian Writing In English **75 questions** (75 with answer keys) **1.** The three stories that form the 'Hema and Kaushik' sequence in Jhumpa Lahiri's U...

UGC NET English Practice Test Contemporary Indian Writing In English

75 questions (75 with answer keys)

1. The three stories that form the 'Hema and Kaushik' sequence in Jhumpa Lahiri's Unaccustomed Earth are: (A) "A Temporary Matter", "When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine", "Interpreter of Maladies" (B) "Once in a Lifetime", "Year's End", "Going Ashore" (C) "Hell-Heaven", "Nobody's Business", "A Choice of Accommodations" (D) "The Third and Final Continent", "The Treatment of Bibi Haldar", "The Blessed House"

2. Arundhati Roy's essay "The Pandemic is a Portal" appears in which collection? (A) Field Notes on Democracy (B) Capitalism: A Ghost Story (C) Azadi: Freedom. Fascism. Fiction. (D) The Algebra of Infinite Justice

4. The novella "Translator Translated" appears in Anita Desai's collection: (A) Diamond Dust (B) The Artist of Disappearance (C) The Zigzag Way (D) Fasting, Feasting

7. The Nutmeg's Curse by Amitav Ghosh is subtitled: (A) Climate Change and the Unthinkable (B) Parables for a Planet in Crisis (C) A History of the Present (D) Liberals, Race and Empire

8. Which of the following is a verse novel by Sampurna Chattarji? (A) Boats on Land (B) Space Gulliver: Chronicles of an Alien (C) The Adivasi Will Not Dance (D) A Life of Adventure and Delight

9. The epigraph of Unaccustomed Earth is taken from the introductory chapter of which American novel? (A) Moby-Dick (B) The Scarlet Letter (C) Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (D) The Great Gatsby

10. Shashi Tharoor's Bookless in Baghdad (2005) is a collection of: (A) travelogues (B) political manifestos (C) literary essays (D) short stories

11. The poetry collection Leaving Fingerprints (2009) is written by: (A) Arundhathi Subramaniam (B) Imtiaz Dharker (C) Tishani Doshi (D) Meena Kandasamy

12. The play Muktidham (2015) is set in a: (A) left-wing trade union office (B) right-wing Hindu monastery (C) Kashmir children's ward (D) Tibetan refugee camp

13. Abhishek Majumdar's Pah-La (2017) deals with the theme of: (A) the Bhopal gas tragedy (B) Tibetan resistance to Chinese rule (C) the Naxalite movement (D) Partition of India

14. Boats on Land (2012), which won the Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar, is set primarily in: (A) Mumbai (B) Shillong (C) Chennai (D) Delhi

15. The anthology The HarperCollins Book of English Poetry (2012) was edited by: (A) Jeet Thayil (B) Sudeep Sen (C) Ranjit Hoskote (D) K. Satchidanandan

17. The central argument of The Doctor and the Saint (2017) is built around the conflict between: (A) Gandhi and Nehru (B) Ambedkar and Gandhi (C) Tagore and Gandhi (D) Vivekananda and Ambedkar

18. Mahesh Dattani's The Big Fat City (2012) satirizes urban greed in: (A) Delhi (B) Mumbai (C) Kolkata (D) Bengaluru

19. The poetry collection Everything Begins Elsewhere (2012) is by: (A) Imtiaz Dharker (B) Tishani Doshi (C) Arundhathi Subramaniam (D) Meena Kandasamy

20. Between the Assassinations (2008) by Aravind Adiga is set in the fictional town of: (A) Malgudi (B) Kittur (C) Mangalore (D) Lumding

21. Agha Shahid Ali's posthumous collection of English ghazals is titled: (A) Rooms Are Never Finished (B) Call Me Ishmael Tonight (C) The Country Without a Post Office (D) The Half-Inch Himalayas

22. In Unaccustomed Earth, the character Pranab Chakraborty features in the story: (A) "A Choice of Accommodations" (B) "Hell-Heaven" (C) "Only Goodness" (D) "Nobody's Business"

23. The essay "The Pandemic is a Portal" argues that the COVID-19 crisis offers: (A) a justification for increased surveillance (B) an opportunity to build a more equitable world (C) a defense of global capitalism (D) a plea for military preparedness

24. Ranjit Hoskote's Jonahwhale (2018) reimagines the biblical story of: (A) Noah (B) Jonah (C) Job (D) Moses

25. Walking with the Comrades (2011) by Arundhati Roy originally appeared as a long essay in: (A) The Caravan (B) Outlook (C) Granta (D) The New Yorker

26. The play When the Crows Visit (2019) by Anupama Chandrasekhar is a modern reworking of Ibsen's: (A) A Doll's House (B) Ghosts (C) Hedda Gabler (D) The Master Builder

27. The protagonist of Where Did I Leave My Purdah? (2016) is: (A) a journalist covering Partition (B) a theatre actor named Nazia (C) a social worker in Kashmir (D) an academic researching gender

28. The Adivasi Will Not Dance (2015) by Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar focuses on the: (A) Gond community (B) Santhal community (C) Bhil community (D) Munda community

29. Arundhati Roy's Capitalism: A Ghost Story (2014) primarily critiques: (A) caste oppression (B) free-market capitalism in India (C) religious fundamentalism (D) patriarchy in popular culture

30. The poetry collection When God Is a Traveller (2014) alludes to the wandering deity: (A) Shiva (B) Kartikeya/Murugan (C) Hanuman (D) Vishnu as Vamana

31. The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable (2016) is divided into three sections titled: (A) Earth, Water, Fire (B) Stories, History, Politics (C) Science, Literature, Activism (D) Myth, Memory, Migration

32. Imtiaz Dharker's Over the Moon (2014) is a meditation on: (A) Sufi mysticism (B) grief after her husband's death (C) climate displacement (D) Partition memories

33. The play Free Outgoing (2007) revolves around: (A) a religious riot (B) a leaked sex video (C) a family's Partition trauma (D) an environmental protest

35. Pankaj Mishra's Age of Anger: A History of the Present (2017) traces modern global resentments back to: (A) the Industrial Revolution (B) the Enlightenment and its critics (C) the Cold War (D) World War I

36. Match the essay collections with their authors. Codes: (A) A-2, B-1, C-4, D-3 (B) A-1, B-2, C-3, D-4 (C) A-3, B-4, C-1, D-2 (D) A-4, B-3, C-2, D-1

37. Match the poet with the poetry collection. Codes: (A) A-2, B-1, C-4, D-3 (B) A-1, B-2, C-3, D-4 (C) A-3, B-4, C-1, D-2 (D) A-4, B-3, C-2, D-1

38. Match the play with its playwright. Codes: (A) A-2, B-1, C-3, D-4 (B) A-1, B-2, C-4, D-3 (C) A-3, B-4, C-1, D-2 (D) A-4, B-3, C-2, D-1

39. Match the short story collection with its author. Codes: (A) A-2, B-1, C-4, D-3 (B) A-1, B-2, C-3, D-4 (C) A-3, B-4, C-1, D-2 (D) A-4, B-3, C-2, D-1

40. Match the work with the year of publication. (A) A-1, B-2, C-3, D-4 (B) A-3, B-4, C-1, D-2 (C) A-1, B-2, C-1, D-4 (D) A-2, B-1, C-4, D-3

41. Arrange in chronological order: (A) The Algebra of Infinite Justice, (B) Capitalism: A Ghost Story, (C) Field Notes on Democracy, (D) Azadi: Freedom. Fascism. Fiction. (A) (A), (C), (B), (D) (B) (C), (A), (D), (B) (C) (A), (B), (C), (D) (D) (B), (A), (D), (C)

42. Arrange in chronological order: (A) Rooms Are Never Finished, (B) These Errors Are Correct, (C) When God Is a Traveller, (D) A God at the Door (A) (A), (B), (C), (D) (B) (B), (A), (D), (C) (C) (A), (C), (B), (D) (D) (D), (C), (B), (A)

43. Arrange in chronological order: (A) Unaccustomed Earth, (B) Between the Assassinations, (C) Real Time, (D) The Adivasi Will Not Dance (A) (C), (A), (B), (D) (B) (A), (B), (C), (D) (C) (B), (C), (A), (D) (D) (C), (B), (A), (D)

44. Arrange in chronological order: (A) The Great Derangement, (B) The Nutmeg's Curse, (C) Age of Anger, (D) From the Ruins of Empire (A) (D), (C), (A), (B) (B) (A), (B), (C), (D) (C) (C), (A), (D), (B) (D) (D), (A), (C), (B)

45. Arrange in chronological order: (A) Muktidham, (B) Pah-La, (C) The Djinns of Eidgah, (D) When the Crows Visit (A) (C), (A), (B), (D) (B) (A), (B), (C), (D) (C) (C), (B), (A), (D) (D) (B), (C), (A), (D)

46. Assertion (A): Unaccustomed Earth carries an epigraph from Nathaniel Hawthorne. Reason (R): The epigraph is taken from Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter and sets the tone for themes of displacement and concealment. (A) Both (A) and (R) are true, and (R) is the correct explanation of (A). (B) Both (A) and (R) are true, but (R) is not the correct explanation of (A). (C) (A) is true, but (R) is false. (D) (A) is false, but (R) is true.

47. Assertion (A): Arundhati Roy's Walking with the Comrades is an expanded version of an essay first published in Outlook magazine. Reason (R): The work is a journalistic account of the Maoist insurgency in central India. (A) Both (A) and (R) are true, and (R) is the correct explanation of (A). (B) Both (A) and (R) are true, but (R) is not the correct explanation of (A). (C) (A) is true, but (R) is false. (D) (A) is false, but (R) is true.

48. Assertion (A): The poetry collection The Bloodaxe Book of Contemporary Indian Poets (2008) was edited by Jeet Thayil. Reason (R): Thayil intended the anthology to be a definitive representation of post-1990s Indian poetry in English. (A) Both (A) and (R) are true, and (R) is the correct explanation of (A). (B) Both (A) and (R) are true, but (R) is not the correct explanation of (A). (C) (A) is true, but (R) is false. (D) (A) is false, but (R) is true.

49. Assertion (A): Amitav Ghosh's The Nutmeg's Curse argues that the climate crisis is deeply connected to colonial violence. Reason (R): Ghosh traces the origin of planetary exploitation to the Dutch nutmeg trade and the genocide in the Banda Islands. (A) Both (A) and (R) are true, and (R) is the correct explanation of (A). (B) Both (A) and (R) are true, but (R) is not the correct explanation of (A). (C) (A) is true, but (R) is false. (D) (A) is false, but (R) is true.

50. Assertion (A): Mahesh Dattani's Where Did I Leave My Purdah? is set against the backdrop of the Partition of India. Reason (R): The play's protagonist, Nazia, is a Kashmiri social worker dealing with communal violence. (A) Both (A) and (R) are true, and (R) is the correct explanation of (A). (B) Both (A) and (R) are true, but (R) is not the correct explanation of (A). (C) (A) is true, but (R) is false. (D) (A) is false, but (R) is true.

51. Which poetry collection by Imtiaz Dharker deals explicitly with women's voices and experiences? (A) Leaving Fingerprints (B) I Speak for the Devil (C) The Terrorist at My Table (D) Over the Moon

53. Sunil Khilnani's Incarnations: India in 50 Lives (2016) presents Indian history through: (A) fifty decisive battles (B) fifty biographies of notable figures (C) fifty historical monuments (D) fifty religious texts

54. The libretti in Vikram Seth's The Rivered Earth are set to music by: (A) Philip Glass (B) Alec Roth (C) A. R. Rahman (D) John Zorn

55. In Unaccustomed Earth, the story "A Choice of Accommodations" revolves around: (A) a couple attending a wedding in India (B) a man revisiting his school reunion at a boarding school (C) a Bengali family in London (D) a scientist in Antarctica

56. Which of the following poems appears in Meena Kandasamy's Ms Militancy? (A) "Becoming a Brahmin" (B) "Militancy" (C) "Touch" (D) "One-Eyed"

57. Aravind Adiga's Between the Assassinations (2008) is a collection of: (A) essays (B) short stories (C) novellas (D) travel sketches

58. Shashi Tharoor's The Elephant, the Tiger, and the Cell Phone (2007) primarily examines: (A) Indian wildlife conservation (B) the history of Indian technology (C) contemporary India's transformations (D) Indian philosophy

59. The short story collection A Life of Adventure and Delight (2017) largely depicts: (A) Anglo-Indian communities in Kolkata (B) Indian-American immigrant experiences (C) rural life in Punjab (D) the IT boom in Bengaluru

60. Amitav Ghosh's The Great Derangement (2016) was inspired by the author's experience of: (A) the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami (B) a cyclone in the Sundarbans (C) extreme air pollution in Delhi (D) the 2013 Uttarakhand floods

61. Agha Shahid Ali's Call Me Ishmael Tonight (2003) is a book of: (A) free-verse elegies (B) English ghazals (C) prose poems (D) sonnets

62. The play Free Outgoing (2007) was written by: (A) Manjula Padmanabhan (B) Anupama Chandrasekhar (C) Mahesh Dattani (D) Abhishek Majumdar

63. Ramachandra Guha's Democrats and Dissenters (2016) is primarily a book of: (A) political fiction (B) essays on Indian intellectuals and debates (C) travel writing (D) autobiographical memoirs

64. The Djinns of Eidgah (2014) is set in a children's ward in: (A) Delhi (B) Kashmir (C) Gujarat (D) Punjab

66. Match the essayist with the work. Codes: (A) A-2, B-1, C-4, D-3 (B) A-1, B-2, C-3, D-4 (C) A-3, B-4, C-1, D-2 (D) A-4, B-3, C-2, D-1

67. Match the poet with the collection. Codes: (A) A-2, B-1, C-3, D-4 (B) A-1, B-2, C-4, D-3 (C) A-3, B-4, C-1, D-2 (D) A-4, B-3, C-2, D-1

68. Match the play with its central concern. Codes: (A) A-2, B-1, C-4, D-3 (B) A-1, B-2, C-3, D-4 (C) A-3, B-4, C-1, D-2 (D) A-4, B-3, C-2, D-1

69. Match the short story collection with its author. Codes: (A) A-2, B-1, C-4, D-3 (B) A-1, B-2, C-3, D-4 (C) A-3, B-4, C-1, D-2 (D) A-4, B-3, C-2, D-1

70. Arrange in chronological order: (A) The Rivered Earth, (B) Capitalism: A Ghost Story, (C) The Nutmeg's Curse, (D) Azadi: Freedom. Fascism. Fiction. (A) (A), (B), (C), (D) (B) (A), (B), (D), (C) (C) (B), (A), (D), (C) (D) (B), (D), (A), (C)

71. Arrange in chronological order: (A) The Big Fat City, (B) Where Did I Leave My Purdah?, (C) Free Outgoing, (D) Muktidham (A) (C), (A), (D), (B) (B) (A), (B), (C), (D) (C) (C), (D), (A), (B) (D) (B), (C), (A), (D)

72. Arrange in chronological order: (A) Boats on Land, (B) The Artist of Disappearance, (C) Real Time, (D) Space Gulliver: Chronicles of an Alien (A) (C), (A), (B), (D) (B) (A), (B), (C), (D) (C) (C), (B), (A), (D) (D) (B), (A), (C), (D)

73. Assertion (A): Agha Shahid Ali's Rooms Are Never Finished was a finalist for the National Book Award in the United States. Reason (R): The collection is a book-length elegy for his mother. (A) Both (A) and (R) are true, and (R) is the correct explanation of (A). (B) Both (A) and (R) are true, but (R) is not the correct explanation of (A). (C) (A) is true, but (R) is false. (D) (A) is false, but (R) is true.

74. Assertion (A): Sudeep Sen edited The HarperCollins Book of English Poetry (2012). Reason (R): The anthology aimed to showcase the best Indian English poetry of the previous five decades. (A) Both (A) and (R) are true, and (R) is the correct explanation of (A). (B) Both (A) and (R) are true, but (R) is not the correct explanation of (A). (C) (A) is true, but (R) is false. (D) (A) is false, but (R) is true.

75. Assertion (A): In Jhumpa Lahiri's Unaccustomed Earth, the story "Nobody's Business" deals with a character named Pranab Chakraborty. Reason (R): "Nobody's Business" is a story from the "Hema and Kaushik" trilogy. ## Answer Key for Questions 51-75 (A) Both (A) and (R) are true, and (R) is the correct explanation of (A). (B) Both (A) and (R) are true, but (R) is not the correct explanation of (A). (C) (A) is true, but (R) is false. (D) (A) is false, but (R) is true.

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test mcq practice ugc-net indian-writing

UGC NET English Practice Test Contemporary Indian Writing In English

UGC NET English Practice Test Contemporary Indian Writing In English

ANSWER KEY

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