You should expect a question that requires you to talk about how the Vikings (a.k.a. Danes, Norse, Scandinavians) "interacted" with the Anglo-Saxons and what the linguistic consequences (i.e., for the history of the English language) of that interaction were.

You should be able to tell me who the Normans were and why they are significant for the history of the English language.

You should be able to identify the probable source (geographic and linguistic) for Modern Standard English and talk about the likely reasons why this variety became the basis for the standard.

You should be able to apply your knowledge of Middle English dialects to two passages and discern which general dialect region they represent and provide some evidence for saying so.

You should be able to look at a passage of Old English and the same text in Middle English and be able to talk about the structural (i.e., grammatical) differences between the two.

You should be able to say what the Great Vowel shift was and why it is significant.

You should be able to name two pre-eminent examples of the English language’s eloquence from the Early Modern period (and justify your answer) and to say why eloquence (in this regard, the ability of a language to perform artfully all the tasks a language of government, literature, science, religion, etc. has to do) was an issue.