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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What does the speaker state is eternally present in Part I of "Burnt Norton"?
(a) The truth.
(b) All of time.
(c) Reality.
(d) The future.

2. What is the "dignified and commodious sacrament" mentioned in Part I of "East Coker"?
(a) Penance.
(b) Communion.
(c) Baptism.
(d) Marriage.

3. What is a synonym for the word "eructation," used in the third part of "Burnt Norton"?
(a) Building-up.
(b) Destruction.
(c) Obviation.
(d) Belching.

4. Across what does the light fall, mentioned by the speaker in Part I of "East Coker" after the second time he utters the phrase "In my beginning is my end"?
(a) The open field.
(b) The village street.
(c) The deep lane.
(d) The gray stones.

5. What inhabits the garden of "Burnt Norton"'s first part?
(a) Other birds.
(b) Other times.
(c) Other echoes.
(d) Other footfalls.

Short Answer Questions

1. The final line of Part III of "East Coker" claims that "where you are is" what?

2. "Old timber" goes to what, in Part I of "East Coker"?

3. What, in the first line of "Burnt Norton," Part IV, are "time and the bell" said to have buried?

4. Into what did the characters of "Burnt Norton"'s first part look towards the end?

5. In what way did the speaker, his auditor, and the flowers move in the garden of Part I of "Burnt Norton"?

Short Essay Questions

1. How is the "here" of Part III of "Burnt Norton" described, and what is significant about this description?

2. Why does the speaker of "East Coker" want only to hear of the folly of old men, in Part II of "East Coker"?

3. What is signified by the speaker's questioning of the deceitfulness of the "quiet-voiced elders" in Part II of "East Coker"?

4. What does the speaker mean in Part IV of "East Coker" when he states that "Our only health is the disease"?

5. What is meant in the lines, "But to what purpose... I do not know," in the first part of "Burnt Norton"?

6. What is the significance of the dark, mentioned repeatedly at the beginning of Part III of "East Coker," into which "they" all go?

7. What is meant by "Only by the form, the pattern, / Can words or music reach / The stillness" in "Burnt Norton"'s fifth part?

8. What is meant by the "intolerable wrestled / With words and meanings" in the second part of "East Coker"?

9. What does the speaker mean in Part II of "Burnt Norton" when he states at the still point of the turning world, "there the dance is, / But neither arrest nor movement"?

10. Who is the "wounded surgeon" of Part IV of "East Coker," and what indicates this within the stanza?

(see the answer keys)

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