Literature
What the literature questions test
Questions on the prescribed prose and poems - the Kerala Reader includes texts such as Cronin's 'The Best Investment I Ever Made', Adichie's 'The Danger of a Single Story', Leigh Hunt's 'The Glove and the Lions' and Wordsworth's 'Lines Written in Early Spring' - ask for theme, character, poetic device and message, plus creative tasks written in a character's voice.
Core rules
- Separate summary from analysis: "what happens" earns little; "what it shows" earns the mark.
- Characterise by evidence - what the character does, what they say, and how others react to them.
- Name the device, then its effect: simile, metaphor, personification, alliteration, refrain, irony, symbolism.
- Establish speaker and situation in a poem before interpreting; the poet is not always the speaker.
- Message questions want one incident linked to a universal idea - dignity, empathy, self-respect, harmony in nature.
- In "imagine you are X" tasks, keep the character's known facts and voice; do not invent events that contradict the text.
Worked example
In 'The Glove and the Lions', after the king's lion fight, a lady drops her glove into the arena and asks her knight to fetch it. He does - then flings it in her face. Question: What does the knight's final action reveal? Reasoning: the glove is a test of bravery staged for the lady's vanity, not a proof of love. Fetching it in public satisfies the code of chivalry; throwing it back refuses to be used as a trophy. Answer: "It reveals that he values his self-respect above her flattery, and it exposes her demand as empty pride." Incident plus meaning, in two sentences.
Traps
Retelling the plot instead of answering; naming a figure of speech without explaining its effect; calling the speaker "the poet"; mixing characters or settings across different stories; writing "it is very interesting" where a value or message is asked for.