UGC NET English 2021 Shift 2 – Full Paper Analysis | Section-Wise Trends, Shifts & Surprises
- Nerd's Table
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Explore a deep-dive analysis of the NTA UGC NET English Paper (2021 Shift 2), highlighting the number of questions, key trends, surprises, and section-wise breakdown. This guide helps aspirants understand recurring patterns and evolving exam focus to sharpen their preparation strategy.
NTA UGC NET English Paper Table of Contents:
Overview: What Made Shift 2 Unique?
The UGC NET English 2021 Shift 2 paper offered a well-balanced yet strategically challenging mix of questions across all key sections. With a noticeable dominance of Literary Criticism and Theory (32 questions), followed by British Literature (21 questions) and a strong presence of Indian Writing in English (14 questions), the paper reflected a clear shift toward analytical depth and diversity. While American Literature saw minimal coverage, Linguistics, World Literature, and Research Aptitude maintained moderate weightage. The Reading Comprehension section featured four literary-rich passages, emphasizing the importance of interpretive skill. This shift highlighted NTA’s evolving preference for nuanced understanding over rote learning, making trend analysis an essential part of preparation.
2. British Literature – Dominance with Diverse Coverage
Total: 21 Questions
The British Literature section in UGC NET English 2021 Shift 2 featured a total of 21 questions, reflecting a rich blend of canonical texts, lesser-discussed movements, and thematic as well as structural explorations. Starting with Shakespeare, two questions focused on Hamlet and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, reinforcing the Bard’s consistent presence in the exam. Another question revisited the dramatic legacy of Ben Jonson, while a historical-social perspective was introduced through a question on Johnson and Pope’s condemnation of the transportation of 50,000 slaves to England in 1771—a striking inclusion that connects literature to moral-political discourse. The inclusion of Silver-Fork novels and Bram Stoker’s Dracula indicated a shift towards exploring 19th-century genre fiction, while questions on Kathy Acker’s adaptation of Great Expectations and David Lodge’s novels brought in postmodern and contemporary intertextuality. The presence of Künstlerroman, Ted Hughes’ poetry collections (Wodwo, Lupercal), and two questions on Waiting for Godot further emphasized the diversity of thematic and stylistic representation within the section.
Adding to the complexity, the paper tested knowledge on journalism and literary periodicals, including a journal published from Bowling Green University (from 1969), and asked about ghostwords—spurious terms that entered the language through editorial error, a rare but intriguing linguistic-literary crossover. Chronological awareness was tested rigorously with four questions focusing on ordering key texts such as The Faerie Queene, Lyrical Ballads, Canto General, and The Flowers of Evil, as well as grouping poetic schools like The Imagists, The Cavaliers, The Movement, and The Lake Poets. There was also a chronological focus on Yeats’s poetry and the publication of major periodicals like Longman’s Magazine, Cornhill Magazine, Blackwood’s Magazine, and Bentley’s Miscellany. The Match the List questions added further depth, pairing works like Anniversaries, The Temple, The Rehearsal Transpros’d, and Pindarique Odes, along with Queen Mary, The Second Mrs Tanqueray, Remorse, The Borderers, Strafford, A Handful of Dust, Brighton Rock, Howard’s End, The Plumed Serpent, and Those Barren Leaves. Overall, this section tested a wide chronological and thematic range—bridging Renaissance, Victorian, modern, and postmodern British literature with precision.
Shakespearean Drama
Hamlet
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
17th & 18th Century Drama and Essays
Dramatic legacy of Ben Jonson
Johnson and Pope’s criticism of 1771 slave transport
Genres and Literary Movements
Silver-Fork novels
Künstlerroman novels
Ghostwords – editorial/spelling errors turned into words
School of Poetry:
The Imagist poets
The Cavalier poets
The Movement poets
The Lake poets
19th & 20th Century British Fiction and Poetry
Bram Stoker’s Dracula
Ted Hughes’ Wodwo (1967) and Lupercal (1960)
David Lodge’s novels
Kathy Acker’s version of Great Expectations
Virginia Woolf and the stream-of-consciousness tradition
Modernist & Postmodernist Drama
Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett (2 questions)
Journalism, Printing, Periodicals (3 Questions)
Journal published by Bowling Green University (since 1969)
Chronology of British magazines:
Longman’s Magazine
Cornhill Magazine
Blackwood’s Magazine
Bentley’s Miscellany
Chronology-Based Questions
Chronological sequence of:
The Faerie Queene
Lyrical Ballads
Canto General
The Flowers of Evil
W. B. Yeats poems – chronological order
Match the List Type Questions
Anniversaries, The Temple, The Rehearsal Transpros’d, Pindarique Odes
Queen Mary, The Second Mrs Tanqueray, Remorse, The Borderers, Strafford
A Handful of Dust, Brighton Rock, Howard’s End, The Plumed Serpent, Those Barren Leaves
📌 Trend Insight: Emphasis on less-covered genres like Silver-Fork and periodicals is a call to broaden preparation beyond high school canon texts.
3. Indian Writing in English – Back to Balance
Total: 14 Questions
The Indian Writing in English section of the UGC NET English 2021 Shift 2 paper featured 14 carefully selected questions, highlighting a mix of foundational history, literary chronology, critical theory, and cultural references. The inclusion of Wood’s Despatch (1854) and its recommendation for university establishment signaled a return to colonial educational policy roots. Similarly, Rabindranath Tagore and Bob Dylan’s shared Nobel Prize for Literature emphasized cross-cultural literary recognition. The paper tested interpretive depth through questions like Vijay Tendulkar’s plays and their engagement with power structures, while also checking students’ familiarity with chronological sequencing of key fictional characters from Indian and global works: Praneshacharya, Sakuni, Rusty, and Gobar. Additionally, a historical timeline question examined students’ grasp on pivotal moments such as the replacement of Persian with English, Charles Grant’s arrival, university establishments, and Fort William’s construction.
Further, the paper explored literary evolution through a chronology of major works by Arundhati Roy, Kiran Desai, Shashi Deshpande, and Jhumpa Lahiri, urging students to contextualize authors within their publishing timelines. A match-the-list format tested awareness of key libraries and institutions like the Connemara Public Library, Dhvanyaloka, Bhandarkar Oriental Institute, and the Asiatic Society, emphasizing the role of archival spaces in Indian literary history. Contemporary cultural critique also appeared, with references to Meenakshi Mukherjee’s "The Lie of the Land", Alok Rai’s "The Otherness of English", and Gauri Viswanathan’s "Masks of Conquest", pushing students to think beyond the text. Finally, works like "The Other Side of Silence", "The Truth about Me", and even John Milton’s reference to Agra and Lahore in "Paradise Lost" underscored how India’s presence in English literature spans both colonial and postcolonial consciousness.
This time, we saw a well-rounded mix:
Colonial policy: Wood’s Despatch, Charles Grant
Canonical and contemporary: Arundhati Roy, Desai, Lahiri
Match the list: Libraries and Texts
Literary Criticism: Aunty Tongue Syndrome, Hijra Life Story
Intercultural references: Milton’s Mughal mention
📌 Trend Insight: Return to balanced Indian content after a dip in Shift 1. Emphasis remains on policy, foundational education, and comparative literature.
4. Literary Criticism, Theory & Culture – Once Again, The Core
Total: 32 Questions
The Literary Criticism, Theory, and Culture Studies section of UGC NET English 2021 Shift 2 was the most dominant, featuring a total of 32 questions, underscoring its central role in the exam. The paper revisited classical foundations with figures like Plato, Montaigne, Samuel Johnson, Francis Bacon, Thomas Carlyle, Ralph Waldo Emerson, William Hazlitt, Matthew Arnold, and T.S. Eliot, reinforcing the importance of canonical critics and their enduring relevance. Additionally, theoretical terms and concepts were tested, covering a wide range of schools and thinkers—from I. A. Richards' close reading and F.R. Leavis’ moralist criticism to the more complex terrains of Michel Foucault, Noam Chomsky, Tzvetan Todorov, Louis Althusser, Roland Barthes, and Mikhail Bakhtin. Their inclusion emphasized critical discourse on power, language, intertextuality, and the role of the reader (the implied reader), demanding aspirants to not only memorize but apply theory.
The exam also dived deep into contemporary and postcolonial theoretical landscapes, featuring names such as Harold Bloom (with concepts like the anxiety of influence), Homi K. Bhabha (with hybridity and ambivalence), and Frantz Fanon (with colonial identity and resistance). It spotlighted John Fiske’s work on popular culture and media, J.G. Ballard’s speculative literature, and Ariel Dorfman and Armand Mattelart’s critiques of Western cultural imperialism. African intellectual voices like Owuor Anyumba and Taban Lo Liyong made their presence felt—highlighting the shift toward inclusivity and global perspectives. Institutions such as The Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS) and figures like Raymond Williams, with his landmark work Culture and Society, were central to the paper’s exploration of cultural theory. Keywords like ‘cultural intermediary’, ‘mass media’, ‘ecofeminism’, and ‘Radiant Textuality’ reflected an expansion into interdisciplinary and digital domains, showing that the UGC NET is now demanding not just literary knowledge, but cultural literacy as well.
A power-packed section, featuring every major thinker:
From Plato, Bacon, Eliot, and Montaigne to Chomsky, Barthes, Todorov
Cultural Studies, Mass Media, Postmodernism
Concepts: The Implied Reader, Ecofeminism, Praxis, Subaltern
Institutions like CCCS, and theorists like Homi Bhabha and Fanon
📌 Trend Insight: Still the most dominant section. Students must prioritize literary theories and cultural studies terminology.
5. 🇺🇸 American Literature – Minimal Yet Symbolic
Total: 1 Question
Match the Poem with Poet: Featured Walt Whitman, Langston Hughes, Robert Frost, and Neruda
📌 Trend Insight: The bare minimum was asked. This reinforces the idea that American Lit is now symbolic and unpredictable.
6. World Literature & Diaspora – A Global Touch
Total: 7 Questions
Included:
Brecht’s Epic Theatre
Achebe’s The Voter
Dennis Scott, Walcott, Soyinka, Ngugi
Octavio Paz, Baudelaire, Stendhal
📌 Trend Insight: Stable category. Know your authors, themes, and nationalities.
7. Language and Linguistics – Technical & Terminological Depth
The Language and Linguistics section in UGC NET English 2021 Shift 2 featured a total of 10 well-distributed questions, reflecting both foundational and applied concepts. The paper tested basic linguistic knowledge such as stages of child language acquisition, homophones, and spoonerism, while also including structural concepts like lexeme, and distinctions between pidgin and creole. A significant theoretical question focused on Ferdinand de Saussure’s idea of language as an interlocking structure, emphasizing the synchronic and diachronic study of language. Additionally, the inclusion of J.L. Austin and John Searle’s theory of speech acts highlighted the pragmatics of communication. More culturally nuanced perspectives were tested through Susan Sontag’s “The World as India”, offering a literary-linguistic crossover, and a question on English as used in India, which aligns with sociolinguistic trends. Lastly, the rather unique mention of “Gothic is a dead language” added a historical-linguistic twist to the set. This section as a whole blended classic linguistics with applied, cultural, and theoretical perspectives, making it rich in scope and relevance.
Total: 10 Questions
Saussure, Chomsky, Spoonerism, Speech Acts
Child language acquisition, Homophones, Gothic as dead language
Sociolinguistics: India’s Englishes
📌 Trend Insight: Questions blend applied linguistics and terminological clarity. Prepare with definitions and examples.
8. Research Aptitude – Format Focus
Total: 4 Questions
MLA citation, MHRA and PMLA
Assertion & Reason format on purpose of research
Plagiarism and referencing norms
📌 Trend Insight: Emphasis on documentation and structure, especially in literary research.
9. Reading Comprehension – Four Passages, Balanced Distribution
Total: 10 Questions
Michel de Montaigne’s Of Solitude
Yeats’s poem A Prayer for Old Age
Dickens’s Dombey and Son
Shakespeare’s King Lear
📌 Trend Insight: More literary passages this time. Solid understanding of tone, theme, and inference is essential.
10. Final Takeaway: What This Means for Future Aspirants of UGC NET English
Literary Criticism remains the largest—don’t neglect theory.
Indian Writing bounced back with balanced representation.
British Literature is still key, but now includes journalism and chronology-heavy questions.
Linguistics, Comprehension, and Cultural Studies are vital support pillars.
Prepare smartly—focus on trend analysis, not just content depth.
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