PPSC English Lecturer Solved Paper 2015

Author's Photo
Have a specific topic you'd like me to cover? Feel free to contact me with your suggestions.
Author: Nasir Iqbal | Assistant Professor of English Literature

PPSC English Lecturer Solved Paper 2015
Updated on: October 26, 2025
Estimated Reading Time: 23 min

🡆 PPSC English Lecturer Exam Guide

PPSC Lecturer English Paper 2015 Analysis

This analysis categorizes the available (74 out of 100) questions from the 2015 paper, which shows a strong focus on Linguistics, followed closely by Literature, and a smaller section on Grammar and Vocabulary.

Literature: 42 Questions

Linguistics: 18 Questions

Grammar & Vocabulary: 14 Questions

 

Part 1: Literature (42 Questions)

This was the largest section, covering a wide range of English literary history, genres, authors, and critical concepts.

Poetry & Poets (20 Questions)

Topics: A primary focus, with questions on the collaboration for Lyrical Ballads, and Byron’s death in the Greek War of Independence.

Shelley’s elegy Adonis on Keats’ death, the works and philosophies of Wordsworth and Keats, Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, Milton’s Paradise Lost, Sylvia Plath, and T. S. Eliot.

Drama & Dramatists (6 Questions)

Topics: Covered Shakespeare’s sonnets, the chorus in Sophoclean tragedy, characters from Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, G.B. Shaw’s influences, and Arthur Miller’s concept of tragedy.

Novel & Novelists (5 Questions)

Topics: Questions included George Orwell’s critique of the Bolsheviks and Charles Dickens’ continuation of literary traditions.

The rise of children as characters in 19th-century novels, themes in George Eliot’s The Mill on the Floss, and the historical shift from external to internal character depiction.

Prose, Authors & History (2 Questions)

Topics: Included questions on Francis Bacon’s knighthood and Pakistani writer Ahmed Ali.

Literary Terms & Theory (9 Questions)

Topics: This section focused on definitions of key concepts, including Pun, Allegory (in relation to The Faerie Queene),

Morality Plays, Tragi-comedy, rhetorical concepts such as Ethos, structural terms such as Epigraph, dramatic devices such as Aside, and literary movements such as the Theatre of the Absurd.

Part 2: Linguistics (18 Questions)

This section was heavily represented, covering technical and theoretical aspects of language study.

Phonetics, Morphology & Syntax

Topics: Included definitions of fundamental units like Morphemes, Clauses, and Sentences. It also covered phonetics (Plosives, Bilabials, Auditory Phonetics), phonology (phonemes, allophones), and morphology (Compounds).

Linguistics Terms

Topics: Tested knowledge of Fries’ utterance units, Saussure’s concepts of Language vs. Parole, Synchronic linguistics, Skinner’s Behaviorism, and sociolinguistics.

Terms like Pidgin, Creole, and Isogloss. Language teaching methods were also included.

Part 3: Grammar (14 Questions)

This section focused on practical vocabulary and sentence structure.

Vocabulary (8 Questions)

Topics: Tested knowledge of antonyms for words like Acumen, Grotesque, Zenith, Patrician, and synonyms for words like Pique, Spoken, Close shave, Paradoxical.

Grammar (6 Questions)

Topics: Included the identification of reflexive pronouns, a sentence correction task, and four “fill-in-the-blank” questions testing prepositions and logical consistency.

Summary

Main Category Sub-Category Number of Questions
Literature Poetry & Poets 20
Drama & Dramatists 6
Novel & Novelists 5
Prose, Authors & History 2
Literary Terms & Theory 9
Linguistics (Phonetics, Syntax, Theory, etc.) 18
Grammar & Vocabulary Vocabulary (Synonyms/Antonyms) 8
Grammar & Sentence Completion 6
Total 74

 

PPSC English Lecturer Solved Paper 2015

1. The smallest parts of an expression associated with some meaning are called:

A. Stems
B. Morphemes
C. Suffixes
D. Prefixes

B. Morphemes
A morpheme is the smallest unit of meaning in a language.

2. Name the poet, who belongs to a small group, got fame after 50 years of age?

A. Coleridge
B. Keats
C. Milton
D. Spencer

C. Milton
John Milton achieved his greatest fame late in life after the publication of Paradise Lost.

3. A group of words with its own subject and predicate, if it is included in a larger sentence is

A. Clause
B. Phrase
C. Idiom
D. Sentence

A. Clause
A clause is a group of words containing a subject and a verb that forms part of a sentence.

4. “A word or set of words followed by a pause and revealing an intelligible purpose” is

A. Word
B. Clause
C. Phrase
D. Sentence

D. Sentence
This is a functional definition of a sentence as a complete unit of thought.
5. Fries classifies utterance units into:

A. Single minimum free utterance
B. Single free utterance not minimum but expanded
C. Free utterances
D. All of these

D. All of these
Linguist Charles Fries analyzed sentence structures based on different types of utterances.

6. A lexical unit in which two or more lexical morphemes are juxtaposed is called:

A. Idiom
B. Compound
C. Phrase
D. Clause

B. Compound
A compound word is formed by joining two or more words to create a new word like “blackboard.”

7. A consonant that is produced with a stricture is called:

A. Plosives or stops
B. Articulations
C. Allophonic variations
D. None of these

A. Plosives or stops
Plosives like /p/ /t/ /k/ involve a complete closure or blockage of the vocal tract.

8. Phoneme, Phone, Allophone are the concepts of:

A. Phonetics
B. Phonology
C. Anthropology
D. Linguistics

B. Phonology
These terms relate to phonology the study of how sounds are organized and used in a language.

9. The study of hearing and the perception of speech sounds is called:

A. Auditory phonetics
B. Acoustic phonetics
C. Articulatory phonetics
D. None of these

A. Auditory phonetics
Auditory phonetics is the branch of phonetics that studies how speech sounds are perceived by the ear.
10. The set of all possible grammatical sentences in the language is:

A. Le language
B. Language
C. Parole
D. None of these

B. Language
In Saussurean linguistics “langue” or language refers to the abstract system of rules shared by a community.

11. Who studies a language at one period in time and investigates the way people speak in a given speech community at a given point in time?

A. Synchronic or descriptive linguistic
B. Diachronic or historical linguistic
C. Both of these
D. None of these

A. Synchronic or descriptive linguistic
Synchronic linguistics looks at a language at a specific moment in time without reference to its history.

12. How many sonnets were written by Shakespeare?

A. 152
B. 153
C. 154
D. 155

C. 154
William Shakespeare wrote a famous sequence of 154 sonnets.

13. Name the poets who composed Lyrical Ballads (1798):

A. Keats and Coleridge
B. Keats and Wordsworth
C. Shelley and Coleridge
D. Coleridge and Wordsworth

D. Coleridge and Wordsworth
This joint collection by William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge is considered a landmark of the Romantic Movement.

14. Name the war in which Byron proved his rebellion by death by opposing Europeans by taking part in the war against Turks and supported:

A. Mustafa Kamal
B. Greek war
C. Persian war
D. None of these

B. Greek war
Lord Byron died of a fever while fighting for Greek independence from the Ottoman Empire.
15. Consonant produced or formed by closure or near closure of the lips is called:

A. Nasal
B. Glottal
C. Bilabial
D. Labio-dental

C. Bilabial
Bilabial sounds such as /p/ /b/ and /m/ are produced using both lips.

16. The technique used by Skinner is:

A. Structuralism
B. Functionalism
C. Behaviorism
D. Cognitive

C. Behaviorism
B.F. Skinner was a leading figure in behaviorism a psychological theory that explains behavior through conditioning.

17. When a pidgin becomes a lingua Franca, it is called:

A. Dialect
B. Idiolect
C. Creole
D. Diglossia

C. Creole
A creole is a stable natural language that develops from the simplifying and mixing of different languages.

18. A contract language, a mixture of elements from different natural languages is called:

A. Dialect
B. Idiolect
C. Diglossia
D. Pidgin

D. Pidgin
A pidgin is a grammatically simplified language used by groups who do not share a common language.

19. On a linguistic map a line indicating the degree of linguistic change is called:

A. Dialect
B. Registers
C. Isogloss
D. Idiolect

C. Isogloss
An isogloss is a line on a dialect map marking the boundary between different linguistic features.
20. Mood is related to illocutionary force. Moods are:

A. Speaker oriented
B. Subject oriented
C. Epistemic
D. All of these

A. Speaker oriented
Grammatical mood relates to the speaker’s attitude toward what they are saying such as indicative or subjunctive.

21. In Sophocles, the chorus consists of:

A. 50
B. 15
C. 12
D. 11

B. 15
In the tragedies of Sophocles the size of the chorus was fixed at fifteen members.

22. A character in Doll’s House by Ibsen was?

A. Guina
B. Nora
C. Rebecca
D. Hedda

B. Nora
Nora Helmer is the famous protagonist of Henrik Ibsen’s play *A Doll’s House*.

23. G.B.Shaw was influenced by:

A. H.G Wells
B. Marlowe
C. Ibsen
D. Shakespeare

C. Ibsen
George Bernard Shaw was a great admirer of Henrik Ibsen and helped champion his realistic plays in England.

24. P B Shelley wrote an elegy on the death of Keats:

A. Adonis
B. The Cenci
C. Queen Mab
D. Zastrozzi

A. Adonis
Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote the pastoral elegy *Adonais* to mourn the death of his fellow poet John Keats.
25. George Orwell criticizes corruption under the:

A. The Bolsheviks
B. Lenin
C. Dostoevsky
D. None of these

A. The Bolsheviks
Orwell’s novel *Animal Farm* is an allegory for the corruption of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia.

26. Charles Dickens continued the tradition of ____ in his novels:

A. Classics
B. Neo classics
C. Romantics
D. Pre romantics

C. Romantics
Dickens’s focus on emotion social criticism and the individual connects him to the Romantic tradition.

27. In the 19th century novel with children as characters and stories appeared?

A. George Eliot
B. Jane Austen
C. Thomas Hardy
D. Charles Dickens

D. Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens was famous for his memorable child characters like Oliver Twist and David Copperfield.

28. The poems written by Coleridge in state of depression, fantasy are:

A. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla Khan
B. Frost at Midnight and A Friend
C. Hymn Before Sunrise and Monody on the Death of Chatterton
D. None of these

A. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla Khan
These two poems are famous examples of Coleridge’s “supernatural” or visionary poetry often linked to his opium use.

29. Good relations with neighbors are discussed in the poem:

A. Birches
B. Stopping by the woods
C. Nothing Gold Can Stay
D. Mending Wall

D. Mending Wall
Robert Frost’s poem “Mending Wall” explores the relationship between two neighbors with its famous line “Good fences make good neighbours.”
30. Language of rustic people and stories of rustic people is by:

A. Blake
B. Wordsworth
C. John Keats
D. S.T. Coleridge

B. Wordsworth
William Wordsworth famously argued for using the language of common rural people in poetry.

31. Wordsworth discusses the conditions of city life:

A. Upon Westminster Bridge
B. The Reverie of Poor Susan
C. London, 1802
D. The Prelude

C. London, 1802
In this sonnet Wordsworth criticizes the moral decay of London and calls for the spirit of Milton.

32. In “The Mill on the Floss”, Tom and Maggie represent Eliot’s:

A. Religion
B. Childhood memories
C. Social norms
D. Philosophy

B. Childhood memories
The relationship between the siblings Tom and Maggie Tulliver is based on George Eliot’s own childhood with her brother Isaac.

33. Keats wrote all of his six odes in:

A. 1816 to 1819
B. 1817
C. 1818
D. 1819

D. 1819
John Keats composed his most famous odes during an incredibly creative burst in the spring and autumn of 1819.

34. Keats was influenced by the philosophy ( or philosopher):

A. Shakespeare
B. Zuno
C. Stoicism
D. None of these

A. Shakespeare
Keats deeply admired Shakespeare and developed his theory of “Negative Capability” from studying his works.
35. In “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” Keats refers to the Urn as:

A. Thou still unravish’d bride of quietness
B. O mysterious priest
C. A pious morn
D. Silken Flank

A. Thou still unravish’d bride of quietness
This is the famous opening line of the ode, in which Keats addresses the ancient urn directly.

36. “An Ode to a Nightingale:” Where youth grows pale, and specter-thin, and dies;” refers to:

A. Coleridge
B. John Keats
C. Blake
D. Wordsworth

B. John Keats
This line likely refers to the death of Keats’s brother Tom from tuberculosis a disease that would also kill Keats himself.

37. The depiction of characters and stories in novels changed from external to internal in:

A. 17th
B. 18th
C. 19th
D. 20th

D. 20th
The 20th-century Modernist movement focused on psychology and the inner lives of characters.

38. The use of a word or phrase to emphasize or suggest its different meanings or the use of words that are alike or nearly alike in sound but different in meaning;

A. Pun
B. Imagery
C. Epigram
D. Witticism

A. Pun
A pun is a form of word play that exploits multiple meanings of a term or of similar-sounding words.

39. Surrey and Wyatt were introduced in English Poetry

A. Spenserian sonnet
B. Shakespearean sonnet
C. Petrarchan Sonnet
D. None of these

C. Petrarchan Sonnet
Sir Thomas Wyatt and the Earl of Surrey are credited with introducing the Italian sonnet form of Petrarch into English literature.
40. Name of the Wife of Bath in the Prologue:

A. Alice
B. Madam Eglantine
C. Julia
D. Sylvia

A. Alice
In the prologue to her tale she mentions that her name is Alisoun or Alice.

41. Who said,” Tragedy can happen with a common man”:

A. Arthur Miller
B. Inge Morath
C. James Dougherty
D. Marilyn Munroe

A. Arthur Miller
Arthur Miller argued for this idea in his famous essay “Tragedy and the Common Man.”

42. Sylvia Plath was the wife of:

A. Nicholas Hughes
B. Ted Hughes
C. Virginia Woolf
D. Walt Whitman

B. Ted Hughes
Sylvia Plath had a famously turbulent marriage to the English poet Ted Hughes.

43. The Faerie Queene by Spencer is:

A. Anaphora
B. Conceit
C. Allegory
D. Repetition

C. Allegory
Edmund Spenser’s epic poem is a complex allegory where knights and characters represent different Christian virtues.

44. The theme of Paradise Lost is:

A. Justification of God’s ways to man
B. The cunningness of Satan
C. The Human weakness
D. God’s Authority

A. Justification of God’s ways to man
John Milton states in the opening of the poem that his goal is to “justify the ways of God to men.”
45. Name the poem written by Milton, an epic, and critique:

A. L’Allegro
B. Lycidas
C. Paradise Lost
D. Paradise Regained

B. Lycidas
Lycidas is a pastoral elegy that also contains a critique of the corrupt clergy of the time.

46. T.S. Eliot got the Nobel Prize in:

A. 1948
B. 1947
C. 1946
D. 1956

A. 1948
T.S. Eliot was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948 for his outstanding work as a poet and critic.

47. Post-colonial literature discusses:

A. New kind of literature in former colonies
B. Travelogue
C. Biography
D. Autobiography

A. New kind of literature in former colonies
Postcolonial literature explores the experiences and consequences of colonialism in formerly colonized nations.

48. Time flies like…….?

A. a water
B. a bird
C. a missile
D. an arrow

D. an arrow
This is a common English proverb used to express how quickly time passes.

49. Which of the following is not a Feature of Comedy:

A. Plot complications
B. Excessive Suspense
C. Humorous characters
D. Hyperbole

B. Excessive Suspense
While some suspense may exist, excessive suspense is more characteristic of tragedy or melodrama than comedy.
50. In the poem, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, the dice game shows

A. Life
B. Death
C. Life-in-Death
D. Death-in-Life

C. Life-in-Death
The specter-woman Life-in-Death wins the mariner in the dice game, condemning him to a living death.

51. Bacon was granted knighthood under:

A. Henry VIII
B. James I
C. Elizabeth
D. Tudor

B. James I
Sir Francis Bacon was knighted in 1603 by King James I.

52. The plays in which vices and virtues were personified are called:

A. Morality plays
B. Tragic plays
C. Comic play
D. Absurd plays

A. Morality plays
Morality plays are a type of medieval allegory in which the protagonist meets personifications of various moral attributes.

53. Beckett is associated with

A. Theatre of the Absurd
B. Morality plays
C. Tragic plays
D. Comedy

A. Theatre of the Absurd
Samuel Beckett is a leading figure of the Theatre of the Absurd a movement that emphasizes the meaninglessness of human existence.

54. The oral method of learning is:

A. Defect
B. Part of a larger method or technique
C. Main method
D. Efficient method

B. Part of a larger method or technique
The oral or audiolingual method focuses on listening and speaking skills in language acquisition.
55. The classical method of grammar learning is:

A. Translation Method
B. Deductive
C. Inductive
D. Elective

B. Deductive
The classical approach typically uses a deductive method starting with grammatical rules and then applying them to examples.

56. Which of the following is not a Tragi-comedy?

A. The Tempest
B. The Winter’s Tale
C. Romeo and Juliet
D. Rape of the lock

C. Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet is a pure tragedy, while The Tempest and The Winter’s Tale are tragicomedies or romances.

57. The antonym of “Acumen” is?

A. Shrewd
B. Intelligence
C. Ninny
D. Wisdom

C. Ninny
Acumen refers to shrewdness and good judgment while a ninny is a foolish person.

58. The antonym of “Grotesque” is?

A. Ugly
B. Disgusting
C. Terrible
D. Graceful

D. Graceful
Grotesque means comically or repulsively ugly or distorted while graceful means elegant.

59. Pronouns, myself, yourself, yourselves, himself, herself, itself, ourselves, themselves are:

A. Reflexive
B. Reciprocal
C. Both A and B
D. None of these

A. Reflexive
These are reflexive pronouns used when the subject and the object of a verb are the same.
60. Ahmed Ali earned his livelihood in 1932 as:

A. Novelist
B. Short story-writer
C. Lecturer
D. Ambassador

C. Lecturer
The Pakistani novelist and writer Ahmed Ali began his career as a lecturer in English at various universities.

61. A revolutionary thinker who was exiled to Eton was?

A. Byron
B. Shelley
C. Keats
D. Wordsworth

B. Shelley
Percy Bysshe Shelley was famously expelled from Oxford not Eton for his radical atheist views.

62. Select the correct sentence:

A. You will be surprised to know if I tell you who called me last night.
B. You will be surprised to know if I tell you whom called me last night.
C. You will be surprised to know if I tell you what called me last night.
D. You will be surprised to know if I tell you that who called me last night

A. You will be surprised to know if I tell you who called me last night.
“Who” is used as the subject of the verb “called” making this sentence grammatically correct.

63. Before deciding, consider ……… of it.

A. Flexibility
B. Issues
C. Benefits
D. Pros and cons

D. Pros and cons
This is a common idiom meaning to consider both the advantages and disadvantages of something.

64. Fancy happiness …… Ahmad ……. finding himself free.

A. For, while
B. While, for
C. For, while
D. Of, while

A. For, while
The structure “Fancy happiness for [someone] while [doing something]” makes grammatical sense.
65. The misunderstanding ………. two parties ……… money.

A. Between, over
B. of, for
C. Between, for
D. To, Is

A. Between, over
The correct prepositions are “between” for two parties and “over” for the subject of the dispute.

66. In Rhetoric, the ethical character that a speaker projects in his efforts to persuade an audience is called?

A. Ethos
B. Round
C. Flat
D. Filial

A. Ethos
Ethos is one of Aristotle’s three modes of persuasion referring to the credibility and character of the speaker.

67. A quotation used at the beginning of a text designed to illustrate its title or designate its theme is called?

A. Indirect quotes
B. In-text quotes
C. Anaphora
D. Epigraph

D. Epigraph
An epigraph is a short quotation or saying at the beginning of a book or chapter intended to suggest its theme.

68. In drama, a comment by a character directed to the audience, not intended to be heard by the other characters on stage is called?

A. Aside
B. Soliloquy
C. Monologue
D. Apostrophe

A. Aside
An aside is a dramatic device in which a character speaks to the audience.

69. The synonym of “Pique” is?

A. Happy
B. Jubilant
C. Irritation
D. Curious

C. Irritation
Pique is a feeling of irritation or resentment resulting from a slight especially to one’s pride.
70. The synonym of “Spoken” is?

A. Verbal
B. Written
C. Aural
D. Inhaling

A. Verbal
Verbal communication refers to the use of words which includes both spoken and written forms.

71. The synonym of “Close shave” is?

A. A hair’s breadth
B. By the skin of teeth
C. Narrow escape
D. All of these

D. All of these
All three phrases are idioms that mean a narrow escape from danger or disaster.

72. The synonym of “Paradoxical” is?

A. Sequential
B. Congruous
C. Contradictory
D. Understandable

C. Contradictory
A paradox is a seemingly absurd or self-contradictory statement that may prove to be true.

73. The antonym of “Zenith” is?

A. Nadir
B. Peak
C. Flourishing
D. Golden time

A. Nadir
Zenith refers to the highest point, while nadir refers to the lowest point.

74. The antonym of “Patrician” is?

A. Aristocrat
B. Blue blood
C. Sophisticated
D. Rouge

D. Rouge
A patrician is an aristocrat, while a rogue is a dishonest or unprincipled man.
5/5 - (1 vote)

Related Posts

Leave a comment