GATE Literary Forms, Genres, and Modes of Expression: Aesthetic and Rhetorical Strategies: Narrative and poetic techniques, and figures of speech – Previous Year Questions

18 GATE previous year questions on Aesthetic and Rhetorical Strategies: Narrative and poetic techniques, and figures of speech (Literary Forms, Genres, and Modes of Expression, English (XH2)) with answers and explanations, from every paper.

GATE 2026 XH2 (English) Q28 (1 mark, Multiple choice) – Which one of the following is an example of a metaphor?
GATE 2026 XH2 (English) Q29 (1 mark, Multiple choice) – What is the term for the repetition of initial consonant sounds in closely connected words?
GATE 2026 XH2 (English) Q53 (2 marks, Multiple choice) – What is the literary device in which a part of something is used to represent the whole?
GATE 2025 XH2 (English) Q34 (1 mark, Multiple select) – Which of the following narrative(s) has/have an intrusive narrator?
GATE 2025 XH2 (English) Q49 (2 marks, Multiple choice) – “I came to bury Caesar, not to praise him.” The literary device employed in this line from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar is .
GATE 2025 XH2 (English) Q50 (2 marks, Multiple choice) – “I see now that as the fish Scholopidus in the flood Araris at the waxing of the Moon is as white as the driven snow, and at the waning as black as…
GATE 2024 XH2 (English) Q39 (1 mark, Multiple choice) – The literary term ‘apostrophe’ denotes:
GATE 2024 XH2 (English) Q50 (2 marks, Multiple choice) – A widely used narrative technique, it allows narrators to temporarily inhabit the consciousness of any of their characters. It is called .
GATE 2024 XH2 (English) Q57 (2 marks, Multiple select) – “Lear cries out ‘you are men of stones’ as Cordelia hangs from a broken wall. I step out into Chandni Chowk, a street once strewn with jasmine flowers…
GATE 2024 XH2 (English) Q63 (2 marks, Multiple select) – “I like a look of Agony, Because I know it’s true – Men do not sham Convulsion, Nor simulate, a Throe – The eyes glaze once – and that is Death –…
GATE 2023 XH2 (English) Q31 (1 mark, Multiple choice) – Identify the point of view used in the following passage: “You are not the kind of guy who would be at a place like this at this time of the morning.…
GATE 2023 XH2 (English) Q54 (2 marks, Multiple choice) – Which literary device does the following line employ? “A timorous foe, and a suspicious friend.”
GATE 2023 XH2 (English) Q57 (2 marks, Multiple select) – Read the following poem and identify the appropriate options: And search for certain thin – stemmed, bubble-eyed water bugs. See them perch on dry…
GATE 2023 XH2 (English) Q58 (2 marks, Multiple select) – Which of the following employ ‘Interior Monologue’?
GATE 2022 XH2 (English) Q36 (1 mark, Multiple choice) – Which of the following terms does not form a part of seven types of ambiguities propounded by William Empson?
GATE 2022 XH2 (English) Q57 (2 marks, Multiple select) – Why does the thin grey strand Floating up from the forgotten Cigarette between my fingers, Why does it trouble me? Ah, you will understand; When I…
GATE 2022 XH2 (English) Q58 (2 marks, Multiple select) – Which of the given examples of rhetorical/figurative devices is/are correctly paired?
GATE 2022 XH2 (English) Q65 (2 marks, Multiple select) – Read the following lines and mark your correct observation(s): Take my shirt off and go in there to do the puja No thanks. Not me. But you go right…