GATE Humanities and Social Sciences - English Practice Quiz

Question 1

In Halliday and Hasan’s framework of cohesion, which relation is exemplified when a speaker says, “I bought a book yesterday. The book is about migration”?

Accepted Answer

Lexical cohesion through repetition

Question 2

In Conversation Analysis, what is the most accurate description of an adjacency pair?

Accepted Answer

A pair of turns produced by different speakers in which the first creates an expectation for the second

Question 3

A speaker says, “John can open Bill’s safe. He knows the combination.” In centering theory terms, the pronoun “He” is most likely interpreted as referring to John because of what principle?

Accepted Answer

Discourse tends to prefer continuation of the current center, promoting local coherence

Question 4

In van Dijk’s socio-cognitive approach to discourse, the notion of a “context model” refers to:

Accepted Answer

Participants’ mental representation of the communicative situation that guides discourse production and interpretation

Question 5

In Sinclair and Coulthard’s model of classroom discourse, the sequence Teacher: “What is photosynthesis?” Student: “It is the process by which plants make food.” Teacher: “Good.” is best analyzed as which pattern?

Accepted Answer

Initiation–Response–Feedback

GATE Humanities and Social Sciences - English Previous Year Question Papers

Students preparing for GATE Humanities and Social Sciences - English