Old, Middle and Modern English MCQ Quiz

Old, Middle and Modern English – Exam Based MCQs

1. Old English is generally dated from about: (UGC NET 2016)

A) 600–1100

B) 450–1100

C) 1000–1500

D) 1200–1500

Ans: B) 450–1100

2. Middle English is usually dated from: (PGTRB 2019)

A) 800–1200

B) 1100–1500

C) 1400–1600

D) 1500–1800

Ans: B) 1100–1500

3. Modern English is generally said to begin around: (SET 2018)

A) 1066

B) 1200

C) 1500

D) 1700

Ans: C) 1500

4. Which historical event marks the beginning of the Middle English period? (UGC NET 2017)

A) The Viking invasions

B) The Norman Conquest

C) The Renaissance

D) The Industrial Revolution

Ans: B) The Norman Conquest

5. The language of Beowulf is: (PGTRB 2018)

A) Old English

B) Middle English

C) Early Modern English

D) Late Modern English

Ans: A) Old English

6. The language of The Canterbury Tales is: (SET 2019)

A) Old English

B) Middle English

C) Early Modern English

D) Modern Standard English

Ans: B) Middle English

7. Shakespeare wrote in: (UGC NET 2015)

A) Old English

B) Middle English

C) Early Modern English

D) Present-day English

Ans: C) Early Modern English

8. Which of the following is a characteristic feature of Old English? (PGTRB 2020)

A) Highly inflected grammar with many case endings

B) Fixed word order and few inflections

C) Heavy French vocabulary

D) Use of auxiliary “do” as in questions

Ans: A) Highly inflected grammar with many case endings

9. A major phonological change between Middle and Modern English is: (SET 2017)

A) The Great Vowel Shift

B) Grimm’s Law

C) Loss of all consonants

D) Introduction of tones

Ans: A) The Great Vowel Shift

10. The Great Vowel Shift mainly affected: (UGC NET 2018)

A) Consonant clusters

B) Long stressed vowels

C) Short vowels only

D) Only spelling

Ans: B) Long stressed vowels

11. The earliest form of English is often called: (PGTRB 2017)

A) Proto-English

B) Old English or Anglo-Saxon

C) Middle English

D) Celtic English

Ans: B) Old English or Anglo-Saxon

12. Old English vocabulary was primarily of: (SET 2016)

A) Celtic origin

B) Germanic origin

C) French origin

D) Latin origin only

Ans: B) Germanic origin

13. The earliest English prose writer associated with Old English is: (UGC NET 2014)

A) Chaucer

B) Caedmon

C) Bede

D) Langland

Ans: C) Bede

14. Which conquerors brought Norman French into England in 1066? (PGTRB 2019)

A) Romans

B) Celts

C) Normans under William

D) Vikings

Ans: C) Normans under William

15. Middle English saw a large influx of vocabulary from: (SET 2018)

A) Norse and Celtic

B) French and Latin

C) Hindi and Arabic

D) Russian and Polish

Ans: B) French and Latin

16. A famous Middle English alliterative poem other than Chaucer’s work is: (UGC NET 2016)

A) Piers Plowman

B) Paradise Lost

C) The Faerie Queene

D) The Prelude

Ans: A) Piers Plowman

17. Which statement is true of Old English word order? (PGTRB 2021)

A) Fully fixed SVO order

B) Fairly free because of strong inflections

C) Only SOV

D) Exactly like Present-day English

Ans: B) Fairly free because of strong inflections

18. Which period saw the loss of most inflectional endings in English? (SET 2020)

A) Old English

B) Middle English

C) Early Modern English

D) Late Modern English

Ans: B) Middle English

19. The first major English printer, active in the late 15th century, was: (UGC NET 2017)

A) Wynkyn de Worde

B) William Caxton

C) Richard Pynson

D) John Wycliffe

Ans: B) William Caxton

20. Printing helped to: (PGTRB 2018)

A) Increase dialect variation

B) Standardise spelling and forms of English

C) Destroy written English

D) Replace English with Latin

Ans: B) Standardise spelling and forms of English

21. Which dialect became the basis of Standard English? (SET 2015)

A) Northern

B) Southern

C) East Midland / London

D) West Midland

Ans: C) East Midland / London

22. Early Modern English is roughly associated with which centuries? (UGC NET 2018)

A) 11th–13th

B) 14th–15th

C) 16th–17th

D) 18th–19th

Ans: C) 16th–17th

23. Which Bible translation had a great influence on Early Modern English prose? (PGTRB 2020)

A) Wycliffe Bible

B) King James Version

C) Douay–Rheims Bible

D) Geneva Bible only

Ans: B) King James Version

24. Which is NOT a feature of Modern English? (SET 2019)

A) Use of auxiliary “do” in questions

B) Rigid SVO word order

C) Rich case endings on nouns

D) Use of modal auxiliaries

Ans: C) Rich case endings on nouns

25. The word “thou” begins to disappear from common usage in: (UGC NET 2016)

A) Old English

B) Middle English

C) Early Modern English

D) Late Modern English

Ans: C) Early Modern English

26. Which pair correctly matches author and language period? (PGTRB 2017)

A) Langland – Old English

B) Chaucer – Middle English

C) Milton – Middle English

D) Bede – Modern English

Ans: B) Chaucer – Middle English

27. The language used in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is: (SET 2016)

A) Old English

B) Middle English (North-West Midlands)

C) Early Modern English

D) Late Modern English

Ans: B) Middle English (North-West Midlands)

28. The English of Paradise Lost belongs to: (UGC NET 2015)

A) Middle English

B) Early Modern English

C) Old English

D) Late Modern English

Ans: B) Early Modern English

29. A major difference between Old English and Modern English is: (PGTRB 2019)

A) Old English had no grammar

B) Modern English has lost most inflections

C) Modern English uses runic script

D) Old English had only French words

Ans: B) Modern English has lost most inflections

30. The language of Wycliffe’s Bible translation (14th century) is: (SET 2017)

A) Old English

B) Middle English

C) Early Modern English

D) Modern English

Ans: B) Middle English

31. Which factor strongly contributed to the spread of Standard English in the Modern period? (UGC NET 2019)

A) Feudal system

B) Printing, education and urbanisation

C) Viking raids

D) Black Death only

Ans: B) Printing, education and urbanisation

32. Present-day English belongs to the: (PGTRB 2020)

A) West Germanic branch

B) North Germanic branch

C) Celtic branch

D) Balto-Slavic branch

Ans: A) West Germanic branch

33. In Old English, the definite article was: (SET 2018)

A) A single invariable “the”

B) A set of forms like “se”, “seo”, “þæt”

C) Borrowed from French

D) Absent

Ans: B) A set of forms like “se”, “seo”, “þæt”

34. The Norman Conquest occurred in: (UGC NET 2017)

A) 410

B) 878

C) 1066

D) 1215

Ans: C) 1066

35. Which is true of Middle English spelling? (PGTRB 2016)

A) Completely standardised

B) Highly variable and influenced by French scribes

C) Purely phonetic

D) Identical to present-day spelling

Ans: B) Highly variable and influenced by French scribes

36. The language of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is: (SET 2016)

A) Middle English

B) Old English

C) Early Modern English

D) Latin

Ans: B) Old English

37. The Industrial Revolution and expansion of the British Empire belong mainly to: (UGC NET 2015)

A) Old English period

B) Middle English period

C) Late Modern English period

D) Proto-English period

Ans: C) Late Modern English period

38. Late Modern English is roughly dated from: (PGTRB 2022)

A) 1500–1700

B) 1700 to the present

C) 1200–1500

D) 1000–1200

Ans: B) 1700 to the present

39. The loss of grammatical gender (masculine/feminine/neuter) in nouns happened largely during: (SET 2020)

A) Old English

B) Middle English

C) Early Modern English

D) Late Modern English

Ans: B) Middle English

40. The word “ask” in Old English coexisted with which alternative form borrowed from Norse? (UGC NET 2018)

A) Check

B) Take

C) Aks

D) Give

Ans: C) Aks

41. Which of the following pairs is correctly matched to its period? (PGTRB 2019)

A) Beowulf – Middle English

B) The Canterbury Tales – Middle English

C) King James Bible – Middle English

D) Piers Plowman – Old English

Ans: B) The Canterbury Tales – Middle English

42. Which development belongs to Early Modern English? (SET 2019)

A) Arrival of Anglo-Saxons

B) Norman French dominance

C) Shakespeare’s drama and the Authorized Version

D) Runic inscriptions

Ans: C) Shakespeare’s drama and the Authorized Version

43. The spelling of English words today often reflects: (UGC NET 2016)

A) Old English pronunciation

B) Pre–Great Vowel Shift forms

C) Only French rules

D) Sanskrit models

Ans: B) Pre–Great Vowel Shift forms

44. The main written language of learning in England well into the Middle Ages was: (PGTRB 2018)

A) English

B) Latin

C) Celtic

D) Norse

Ans: B) Latin

45. Which of the following is an Old English text? (SET 2017)

A) Dream of the Rood

B) Confessio Amantis

C) Le Morte d’Arthur

D) Utopia

Ans: A) Dream of the Rood

46. The survival of many regional dialects is especially prominent in: (UGC NET 2019)

A) Old English period only

B) Middle English and Modern English

C) Only in Old English texts

D) Only in colonial Englishes

Ans: B) Middle English and Modern English

47. Which statement best describes the evolution from Old to Modern English? (PGTRB 2021)

A) From analytic to synthetic language

B) From synthetic (inflectional) to more analytic (word-order based) language

C) From French to Latin language

D) From English to Celtic language

Ans: B) From synthetic (inflectional) to more analytic (word-order based) language

48. The term “Early Modern English” is often associated with which monarch’s reign? (SET 2020)

A) William I

B) Henry II

C) Elizabeth I

D) George III

Ans: C) Elizabeth I

49. The expansion of English vocabulary in the Late Modern period is mainly due to: (UGC NET 2018)

A) Isolation from other languages

B) Scientific advances and colonial contacts

C) Loss of all borrowings

D) Return to Old English roots only

Ans: B) Scientific advances and colonial contacts

50. Overall, the history of English from Old to Modern can be described as a movement towards: (PGTRB 2022)

A) More inflections, fewer borrowings

B) Fewer inflections, more fixed word order and heavy borrowing

C) Total rejection of foreign influence

D) Replacement by Latin

Ans: B) Fewer inflections, more fixed word order and heavy borrowing