View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What types of games are long gone in the poem "Cut Grass"?

2. What does the coming season do to the narrator of the poem "Coming"?

3. What question does the narrator ask in "This Was Your Place of Birth"?

4. In the poem "Poetry of Departure," what does the narrator say he gets sick of?

5. In "The Moon Is Full Tonight," what is gone from earth?

Short Essay Questions

1. In the poem "A Study of Reading Habits," what does the narrator say reading helped him do? How does the poem end?

2. In "Livings," where is the narrator? Why does he go there?

3. In "The Building," what kind of building is the narrator describing? What kind of building does he compare it to?

4. In "Since the Majority of Me," what does "the majority of me" reject? What is the result of this?

5. In the poem "To Write One Song," what does the narrator want to do? Where does he have to go in order to do this?

6. Why does the narrator say that home is sad in the poem "Home is so Sad"? Name at least two household objects the narrator talks about in the poem.

7. In the poem "Waiting for Breakfast," what is the female character doing? What does the narrator do to her, and how does he feel about this?

8. What is the narrator talking to in the poem "I Put My Mouth"? What is the poem about?

9. In the poem "Toads Revisited," where is the narrator? What does he contemplate?

10. In "A Writer," what gift did the writer possess? How was the narrator different from other people then?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

"The Whitsun Weddings" is both the title of a poem and a collection. Write an essay on the importance of the poem in the collection of the same name, using at least two other poems from the collection in your argument.

Essay Topic 2

In the collection "The North Ship," winter and snow are common elements. Using at least three poems, write an essay detailing Larkin's use of these elements in the collection.

Essay Topic 3

Ships are a common element that Larkin uses in his poetry. Write an essay on the symbolism of the ship in Larkin's collection "The Less Deceived."

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 722 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample