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Meditations in Westminster Abbey — GK Questions with Answers

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12 questions
  1. "Meditations in Westminster Abbey" was written by —
    1. Richard Steele
    2. Joseph Addison
    3. Samuel Johnson
    4. Charles Lamb
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    Answer: (B) Joseph Addison

    It is Addison’s essay, The Spectator No. 26 (1711).

  2. The essay first appeared in —
    1. The Tatler
    2. The Spectator
    3. The Rambler
    4. The Guardian
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    Answer: (B) The Spectator

    The Spectator, which Addison ran with Steele.

  3. The Tatler was founded by —
    1. Addison
    2. Steele
    3. Defoe
    4. Swift
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    Answer: (B) Steele

    Richard Steele founded The Tatler in 1709; The Spectator followed in 1711.

  4. What does Addison find when he looks at the churchyard?
    1. Perfectly ordered graves
    2. Bodies mixed together without distinction
    3. Only the graves of the rich
    4. An empty field
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    Answer: (B) Bodies mixed together without distinction

    The earth is a great heap of matter in which every distinction of rank has dissolved.

  5. What fault does Addison find with many epitaphs?
    1. They are too short
    2. They praise virtues the dead never had
    3. They are written in Latin
    4. They are badly carved
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    Answer: (B) They praise virtues the dead never had

    Monuments flatter the dead and deceive nobody.

  6. Whose monument does Addison criticise for showing a brave man as a fashionable beau?
    1. Sir Isaac Newton
    2. Sir Cloudesley Shovell
    3. Geoffrey Chaucer
    4. Oliver Cromwell
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    Answer: (B) Sir Cloudesley Shovell

    The admiral is carved reclining under a canopy like a man of leisure, not a sailor.

  7. Addison prefers which kind of monument?
    1. The largest and most costly
    2. The plainer and older ones
    3. Those with the longest epitaphs
    4. Those made of marble
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    Answer: (B) The plainer and older ones

    Simplicity, he says, does far more honour to the dead.

  8. Seeing kings lying beside those who deposed them, Addison reflects on —
    1. the glory of England
    2. the littleness of human quarrels
    3. the power of kings
    4. the skill of sculptors
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    Answer: (B) the littleness of human quarrels

    He feels sorrow and astonishment at our little competitions and debates.

  9. The essay closes with the thought of —
    1. his own death
    2. the great Day when all shall be contemporaries
    3. the beauty of the Abbey
    4. the duty of writing well
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    Answer: (B) the great Day when all shall be contemporaries

    Death separates us by centuries; the Last Day will make us all the same age.

  10. Addison said he wished to bring philosophy out of libraries and colleges into —
    1. churches and monasteries
    2. clubs, tea-tables and coffee-houses
    3. courts and parliaments
    4. schools and nurseries
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    Answer: (B) clubs, tea-tables and coffee-houses

    His aim was to make serious thought polite, accessible and entertaining.

  11. Dr Johnson advised that whoever wishes to write good English should study —
    1. Bacon
    2. Addison
    3. Milton
    4. Swift
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    Answer: (B) Addison

    He told writers to give their days and nights to the volumes of Addison.

  12. Addison’s prose is usually described as the —
    1. grand style
    2. middle style
    3. plain style
    4. baroque style
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    Answer: (B) middle style

    Neither ornate nor coarse — the easy, balanced middle style.

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