Joseph Addison – Sir Roger at the Theatre – Exam Based MCQs
1. “Sir Roger at the Theatre” is written by: (UGC NET 2019; SET 2020; PGTRB 2021)
A) Richard Steele
B) Samuel Johnson
C) Joseph Addison
D) Oliver Goldsmith
Ans: C) Joseph Addison
2. “Sir Roger at the Theatre” appeared in: (UGC NET 2018; SET 2019; PGTRB 2020)
A) The Spectator
B) The Tatler
C) Rambler
D) The Idler
Ans: A) The Spectator
3. The central character in the essay is: (SET 2019; PGTRB 2020; UGC NET 2021)
A) Sir Andrew Freeport
B) Will Honeycomb
C) Captain Sentry
D) Sir Roger de Coverley
Ans: D) Sir Roger de Coverley
4. Sir Roger is generally portrayed as a: (UGC NET 2020; SET 2021; PGTRB 2022)
A) London merchant
B) Country gentleman / baronet
C) Naval officer
D) Lawyer
Ans: B) Country gentleman / baronet
5. The essay belongs mainly to the tradition of: (UGC NET 2019; SET 2020; PGTRB 2021)
A) Periodical essay
B) Gothic fiction
C) Epic poetry
D) Tragic drama
Ans: A) Periodical essay
6. Sir Roger says he has not been at a play for: (UGC NET 2018; SET 2019; PGTRB 2020)
A) five years
B) ten years
C) fifteen years
D) twenty years
Ans: D) twenty years
7. The last play Sir Roger says he saw was: (SET 2020; PGTRB 2021; UGC NET 2022)
A) Hamlet
B) The Committee
C) Othello
D) Venice Preserved
Ans: B) The Committee
8. Sir Roger wanted to see a good: (UGC NET 2017; SET 2018; PGTRB 2019)
A) farce
B) comedy
C) tragedy
D) masque
Ans: C) tragedy
9. The play Sir Roger goes to watch is commonly identified as: (UGC NET 2019; SET 2020; PGTRB 2021)
A) Cato
B) The Rival Queens
C) Jane Shore
D) The Distress’d Mother
Ans: D) The Distress’d Mother
10. The distressed mother in the tragedy is: (UGC NET 2020; SET 2021; PGTRB 2022)
A) Ophelia
B) Andromache
C) Portia
D) Cleopatra
Ans: B) Andromache
11. Sir Roger is especially sympathetic toward: (UGC NET 2018; SET 2019; PGTRB 2020)
A) Pyrrhus
B) Orestes
C) Andromache
D) Hector’s ghost
Ans: C) Andromache
12. Sir Roger’s comments during the play show his: (SET 2019; PGTRB 2020; UGC NET 2021)
A) cynicism
B) innocence and literal-mindedness
C) cruelty
D) political ambition
Ans: B) innocence and literal-mindedness
13. One major source of humour in the essay is Sir Roger’s: (UGC NET 2020; SET 2021; PGTRB 2022)
A) drunkenness
B) misreading of theatrical illusion as reality
C) hatred of all actors
D) inability to hear
Ans: B) misreading of theatrical illusion as reality
14. Sir Roger worries about danger in returning home late because of: (UGC NET 2018; SET 2019; PGTRB 2020)
A) highwaymen
B) Mohocks
C) pirates
D) French spies
Ans: B) Mohocks
15. The essay mainly satirizes: (SET 2020; PGTRB 2021; UGC NET 2022)
A) rural honesty
B) good natured simplicity in contrast with urban theatre culture
C) only Greek tragedy
D) women in society
Ans: B) good natured simplicity in contrast with urban theatre culture
16. The essay is part of the famous: (UGC NET 2019; SET 2020; PGTRB 2021)
A) Pickwick Papers
B) Coverley Papers
C) Essays of Elia
D) Rambler Papers
Ans: B) Coverley Papers
17. Sir Roger de Coverley is a fictional member of: (UGC NET 2018; SET 2019; PGTRB 2020)
A) Parliament
B) the Spectator Club
C) the Royal Society
D) a theatre company
Ans: B) the Spectator Club
18. Addison’s prose in this essay is noted for being: (UGC NET 2020; SET 2021; PGTRB 2022)
A) harsh and violent
B) balanced, clear, and gently humorous
C) obscure and chaotic
D) purely sentimental
Ans: B) balanced, clear, and gently humorous
19. Sir Roger’s reaction to the play shows that he is: (SET 2019; PGTRB 2020; UGC NET 2021)
A) emotionally detached
B) deeply involved as if the stage events were real
C) bored and sleepy
D) hostile to tragedy
Ans: B) deeply involved as if the stage events were real
20. The essay reflects the social world of: (UGC NET 2018; SET 2019; PGTRB 2020)
A) Elizabethan England
B) the Augustan / early 18th-century period
C) Victorian England
D) the Modern age
Ans: B) the Augustan / early 18th-century period
21. Addison and Steele are most famous as founders/editors of: (UGC NET 2019; SET 2020; PGTRB 2021)
A) The Spectator
B) Blackwood’s Magazine
C) The Examiner
D) Household Words
Ans: A) The Spectator
22. The essay presents Sir Roger as basically: (UGC NET 2018; SET 2019; PGTRB 2020)
A) wicked
B) benevolent and lovable
C) cruelly sarcastic
D) politically dangerous
Ans: B) benevolent and lovable
23. Sir Roger’s theatre experience mainly reveals the contrast between: (SET 2020; PGTRB 2021; UGC NET 2022)
A) science and religion
B) country manners and city manners
C) youth and age only
D) politics and economics
Ans: B) country manners and city manners
24. The essay is best remembered as a character sketch of: (UGC NET 2019; SET 2020; PGTRB 2021)
A) Addison himself
B) Sir Roger
C) Andromache
D) Steele
Ans: B) Sir Roger
25. Addison’s humour in the essay is primarily: (UGC NET 2018; SET 2019; PGTRB 2020)
A) savage satire
B) light, urbane, and ironical
C) vulgar farce
D) tragic irony only
Ans: B) light, urbane, and ironical
26. Sir Roger asks about the distressed mother because he becomes: (UGC NET 2020; SET 2021; PGTRB 2022)
A) angry with the actors
B) emotionally concerned about her fate
C) jealous of Pyrrhus
D) confused about the theatre building
Ans: B) emotionally concerned about her fate
27. The essay shows that Sir Roger responds to theatre as: (SET 2019; PGTRB 2020; UGC NET 2021)
A) a critic of dramatic structure
B) a plain, humane spectator
C) an actor-manager
D) a classical scholar only
Ans: B) a plain, humane spectator
28. The essay is a good example of Addison’s aim to: (UGC NET 2018; SET 2019; PGTRB 2020)
A) terrify readers
B) “enliven morality with wit” and improve manners
C) reject all social commentary
D) glorify war
Ans: B) “enliven morality with wit” and improve manners
29. Sir Roger’s comments on Hector show his tendency to: (UGC NET 2019; SET 2020; PGTRB 2021)
A) mix schoolbook knowledge with immediate feeling
B) reject all classical references
C) mock ancient heroes
D) ignore the plot entirely
Ans: A) mix schoolbook knowledge with immediate feeling
30. “Sir Roger at the Theatre” is mainly written in: (UGC NET 2018; SET 2019; PGTRB 2020)
A) blank verse
B) prose
C) heroic couplets
D) free verse
Ans: B) prose
31. The essay’s setting in the theatre allows Addison to comment on: (UGC NET 2020; SET 2021; PGTRB 2022)
A) dramatic taste and polite society
B) agricultural methods only
C) colonial expansion
D) scientific progress only
Ans: A) dramatic taste and polite society
32. Sir Roger’s response makes the reader laugh mainly because it is: (UGC NET 2019; SET 2020; PGTRB 2021)
A) cruel and insulting
B) innocent, sincere, and slightly naive
C) entirely false
D) politically partisan
Ans: B) innocent, sincere, and slightly naive
33. The Spectator as a periodical was published first in: (UGC NET 2018; SET 2019; PGTRB 2020)
A) 1709
B) 1711
C) 1720
D) 1688
Ans: B) 1711
34. Sir Roger at the theatre can best be called: (UGC NET 2020; SET 2021; PGTRB 2022)
A) a portrait of English good nature
B) a harsh satire on country life
C) a tragic confession
D) a political manifesto
Ans: A) a portrait of English good nature
35. The essay’s humour depends heavily on the reader understanding the difference between: (SET 2019; PGTRB 2020; UGC NET 2021)
A) stage fiction and real life
B) law and religion
C) history and myth only
D) tragedy and epic only
Ans: A) stage fiction and real life
36. The essay is not mainly about the tragedy itself, but about: (UGC NET 2018; SET 2019; PGTRB 2020)
A) Pyrrhus only
B) Sir Roger’s reactions
C) theatre architecture
D) censorship laws
Ans: B) Sir Roger’s reactions
37. Addison’s method in the essay is chiefly: (UGC NET 2020; SET 2021; PGTRB 2022)
A) observation and gentle satire
B) violent polemic
C) supernatural horror
D) allegorical abstraction only
Ans: A) observation and gentle satire
38. Sir Roger’s role in the Coverley Papers is often to represent: (UGC NET 2019; SET 2020; PGTRB 2021)
A) corruption in city life
B) the amiable old English gentleman
C) radical political thought
D) pure cynicism
Ans: B) the amiable old English gentleman
39. The essay is useful in exams mainly because it illustrates: (SET 2019; PGTRB 2020; UGC NET 2021)
A) Addison’s character portrayal and prose style
B) epic similes only
C) Elizabethan blank verse
D) Gothic symbolism
Ans: A) Addison’s character portrayal and prose style
40. The essay is a notable example of: (UGC NET 2018; SET 2019; PGTRB 2020)
A) Augustan prose humour
B) Romantic lyricism
C) Victorian realism
D) Renaissance satire
Ans: A) Augustan prose humour
41. Sir Roger’s concern for Andromache reveals his: (UGC NET 2020; SET 2021; PGTRB 2022)
A) compassion
B) vanity
C) ambition
D) cruelty
Ans: A) compassion
42. The essay implies that Sir Roger is unfamiliar with current theatre because he: (UGC NET 2019; SET 2020; PGTRB 2021)
A) lives entirely in London
B) hasn’t attended plays for many years
C) is an actor
D) hates conversation
Ans: B) hasn’t attended plays for many years
43. The essay suggests Addison’s purpose is partly to: (SET 2019; PGTRB 2020; UGC NET 2021)
A) ridicule goodness itself
B) delight readers while refining taste
C) reject moral instruction
D) attack tragedy as a genre
Ans: B) delight readers while refining taste
44. “Sir Roger at the Theatre” should be read mainly as: (UGC NET 2018; SET 2019; PGTRB 2020)
A) a familiar essay with social observation
B) a tragic monologue
C) a political pamphlet
D) a medieval sermon
Ans: A) a familiar essay with social observation
45. The narrator in the essay is basically: (UGC NET 2020; SET 2021; PGTRB 2022)
A) the Spectator / Addisonian observer
B) Sir Roger himself
C) Richard Steele as editor only
D) Pyrrhus
Ans: A) the Spectator / Addisonian observer
46. Which quality best defines Sir Roger in this essay? (UGC NET 2019; SET 2020; PGTRB 2021)
A) hypocrisy
B) sentimental simplicity
C) villainy
D) greed
Ans: B) sentimental simplicity
47. The essay’s title itself shows that the focus is on: (SET 2019; PGTRB 2020; UGC NET 2021)
A) Sir Roger’s behaviour in a social space
B) the history of tragedy
C) the actress playing Andromache
D) theatre management only
Ans: A) Sir Roger’s behaviour in a social space
48. The essay belongs to the world of: (UGC NET 2018; SET 2019; PGTRB 2020)
A) Queen Anne prose and coffee-house culture
B) Medieval romance
C) Puritan sermons only
D) Gothic terror
Ans: A) Queen Anne prose and coffee-house culture
49. Which statement is TRUE? (UGC NET 2020; SET 2021; PGTRB 2022)
A) Sir Roger is an urban rake
B) The essay is a character sketch in The Spectator
C) The essay is a blank-verse tragedy
D) Addison attacks theatre completely
Ans: B) The essay is a character sketch in The Spectator
50. The best summary of “Sir Roger at the Theatre” is: (UGC NET 2019; SET 2020; PGTRB 2021)
A) An account of a country gentleman’s naive but humane response to the theatre
B) A harsh attack on all drama
C) A technical review of stage machinery
D) A political speech on censorship
Ans: A) An account of a country gentleman’s naive but humane response to the theatre
Let me know your doubts