Syllabus Breakdown (৩৫ Marks)
- English Literature — 15 marks (যুগ, লেখক, শ্রেষ্ঠ রচনা)
- English Grammar & Language — 20 marks
- Parts of Speech, Tense, Voice, Narration
- Articles, Prepositions, Conditionals, Modals
- Synonyms, Antonyms, One-word substitutions
- Idioms & Phrases, Phrasal verbs
- Spelling, Word formation, Sentence correction
- Subject-Verb Agreement, Right form of verb
Ages of English Literature
Memorize the ages with key authors:
- Old English Period (450-1066) — Beowulf (anonymous)
- Middle English Period (1066-1500) — Geoffrey Chaucer (Father of English Poetry)
- Renaissance / Elizabethan (1500-1660) — Shakespeare, Marlowe, Spenser, Bacon, Milton
- Neo-Classical / Restoration (1660-1798) — Dryden, Pope, Swift, Defoe, Samuel Johnson
- Romantic Period (1798-1832) — Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, Keats
- Victorian Age (1832-1901) — Tennyson, Browning, Dickens, Hardy, Bronte sisters
- Modern Period (1901-1945) — T.S. Eliot, W.B. Yeats, G.B. Shaw, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf
- Post-Modern (1945-present) — Pinter, Beckett, Heaney
Important Literature Facts
Direct from past BCS papers:
প্রশ্ন: Father of English Poetry?
উত্তর:Geoffrey Chaucer (1340-1400)
প্রশ্ন: Father of English Novel?
উত্তর:Henry Fielding (others say Samuel Richardson)
প্রশ্ন: Father of English Essay?
উত্তর:Francis Bacon
প্রশ্ন: Father of English Drama?
উত্তর:Christopher Marlowe (or Thomas Kyd)
প্রশ্ন: Father of English Tragedy?
উত্তর:Christopher Marlowe
প্রশ্ন: Father of English Criticism?
উত্তর:John Dryden
প্রশ্ন: Father of Modern English Poetry?
উত্তর:T.S. Eliot
প্রশ্ন: Greatest English Dramatist?
উত্তর:William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
প্রশ্ন: Shakespeare wrote how many plays?
উত্তর:37 plays + 154 sonnets + 2 narrative poems
প্রশ্ন: Shakespeare's four great tragedies?
উত্তর:Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth
প্রশ্ন: Author of 'Paradise Lost'?
উত্তর:John Milton (1667)
প্রশ্ন: Author of 'Pride and Prejudice'?
উত্তর:Jane Austen (1813)
প্রশ্ন: Author of 'Oliver Twist'?
উত্তর:Charles Dickens
প্রশ্ন: Author of 'Wuthering Heights'?
উত্তর:Emily Bronte
প্রশ্ন: Author of 'Jane Eyre'?
উত্তর:Charlotte Bronte
প্রশ্ন: Author of 'The Waste Land'?
উত্তর:T.S. Eliot (1922)
প্রশ্ন: Author of 'A Passage to India'?
উত্তর:E.M. Forster
প্রশ্ন: Author of 'Ulysses'?
উত্তর:James Joyce
প্রশ্ন: Author of 'Mrs Dalloway'?
উত্তর:Virginia Woolf
প্রশ্ন: Author of '1984' & 'Animal Farm'?
উত্তর:George Orwell
প্রশ্ন: First Nobel Laureate in English Literature?
উত্তর:Rudyard Kipling (1907)
প্রশ্ন: First African Nobel Laureate?
উত্তর:Wole Soyinka (1986)
Famous Quotations & Their Sources
BCS-এ frequently এসেছে।
প্রশ্ন: 'To be or not to be'?
উত্তর:Hamlet — Shakespeare
প্রশ্ন: 'Brevity is the soul of wit'?
উত্তর:Hamlet — Shakespeare
প্রশ্ন: 'Frailty, thy name is woman'?
উত্তর:Hamlet — Shakespeare
প্রশ্ন: 'All the world's a stage'?
উত্তর:As You Like It — Shakespeare
প্রশ্ন: 'A thing of beauty is a joy forever'?
উত্তর:Endymion — John Keats
প্রশ্ন: 'If winter comes, can spring be far behind?'
উত্তর:Ode to the West Wind — Shelley
প্রশ্ন: 'Reading maketh a full man'?
উত্তর:Of Studies — Francis Bacon
প্রশ্ন: 'Where ignorance is bliss'?
উত্তর:Thomas Gray
প্রশ্ন: 'The child is father of the man'?
উত্তর:William Wordsworth
Common Grammar Rules (High-frequency)
Master these — they appear repeatedly:
- Subject-Verb Agreement: Singular subject → singular verb (Each, Every, Either, Neither = singular)
- If + simple past + would + base verb (2nd conditional unreal present)
- If + past perfect + would have + V3 (3rd conditional unreal past)
- Since + point of time; For + duration (Present Perfect / Perfect Continuous)
- Used to + base verb (past habit) vs Be used to + V-ing (accustomed)
- Hardly had ... when ... / No sooner had ... than ... (inversion)
- Had better + base verb (strong advice)
- Would rather + base verb / Would rather + subject + past
- Article 'a' before consonant sound, 'an' before vowel sound (sound, not letter)
- Neither ... nor / Either ... or → verb agrees with the nearest subject
- One of the + plural noun + singular verb
- Causative: have/get + object + V3 (have my car repaired)
High-frequency Synonyms / Antonyms
প্রশ্ন: Synonym of 'Abate'?
উত্তর:Diminish, lessen, reduce
প্রশ্ন: Synonym of 'Candid'?
উত্তর:Frank, honest, straightforward
প্রশ্ন: Synonym of 'Hapless'?
উত্তর:Unfortunate, unlucky
প্রশ্ন: Antonym of 'Benevolent'?
উত্তর:Malevolent, cruel
প্রশ্ন: Antonym of 'Frugal'?
উত্তর:Extravagant, wasteful
প্রশ্ন: Synonym of 'Belligerent'?
উত্তর:Hostile, aggressive
প্রশ্ন: Synonym of 'Ephemeral'?
উত্তর:Short-lived, transient
Common Idioms & Phrases
প্রশ্ন: 'A blue moon' means?
উত্তর:Very rare occurrence
প্রশ্ন: 'Bell the cat' means?
উত্তর:Undertake a risky task
প্রশ্ন: 'At a loss' means?
উত্তর:Puzzled, unable to decide
প্রশ্ন: 'In black and white' means?
উত্তর:In writing
প্রশ্ন: 'A bolt from the blue' means?
উত্তর:An unexpected event
প্রশ্ন: 'Achilles' heel' means?
উত্তর:A weak point
প্রশ্ন: 'Make hay while the sun shines'?
উত্তর:Take advantage of opportunity
প্রশ্ন: 'Read between the lines'?
উত্তর:Understand hidden meaning
Preparation Tips
- Daily 30 minutes English newspaper reading (Daily Star / Financial Express)
- Build vocabulary: 10 new words per day from Word Smart / Barron's GRE wordlist
- Practice past 10 years' BCS English questions (35th-46th)
- Master common idioms, phrasal verbs and prepositional phrases
- For Literature: focus on Renaissance, Romantic, Victorian, Modern — these dominate
- Take কুইজ শিখো English MCQ daily (minimum 15)
- Solve 1 full English mock test per week
- Make flashcards for synonyms, antonyms, one-word substitutions
আজই কুইজ শিখোতে ফ্রি একাউন্ট খুলুন
বাংলা সাধারণ জ্ঞান, BCS প্রস্তুতি, ইতিহাস, বিজ্ঞান — সব বিষয়ে হাজারো কুইজ একসাথে। খেলুন, শিখুন এবং লিডারবোর্ডে নিজের জায়গা করে নিন।
- ১০০% ফ্রি একাউন্ট
- দৈনিক লিডারবোর্ড
- হাজারো প্রশ্ন ব্যাংক