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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. "Garlic and sapphires in the mud," described at the outset of Part II, clot what?
(a) The bedded axle-tree.
(b) The memory of inveterate scars.
(c) The artery of truth.
(d) The still point of the turning world.

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

3. In the opening eight lines of the third part of "East Coker", the speaker mentions the "Directory of" what?
(a) Stars.
(b) Directors.
(c) Papers.
(d) Lights.

4. Of what world's inoperancy does the poem's narrator speak of in "Burnt Norton," Part III?
(a) The world of fancy.
(b) The world of sense.
(c) The world of spirit.
(d) The world of solitude.

5. From what are the "strained time-ridden faces" of Part III of "Burnt Norton" distracted?
(a) Stillness.
(b) Distraction.
(c) Opulence.
(d) Sincerity.

Short Answer Questions

1. By what is the "sultry light" absorbed in Part I of "East Coker"?

2. Which of the following is found at the still point of the world, as described in Part II?

3. What goes in and out of "unwholesome lungs" in Part III of "Burnt Norton"?

4. The speaker states in Part V of "Burnt Norton" that "Desire itself is movement," that is what?

5. How many years "largely wasted, the years of l'entre deux guerres," does the speaker mention having passed in Part V of "East Coker"?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why is it said by the speaker in "Burnt Norton"'s second part that "the enchainment of past and future / Woven in the weakness of the changing body, / Protects mankind from heaven and damnation / Which flesh cannot endure"?

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

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

4. What is the significance of the statement in the fifth part of "Burnt Norton," "Words strain, / Crack and sometimes break... Will not stay still"?

5. What does the speaker mean by saying in Part V of "Burnt Norton" that love is caught "in the form of limitation"?

6. What is an interpretative possibility for the scene the speaker describes in the open field in the first part of "East Coker"?

7. What is a possible interpretation of the fourth part of "Burnt Norton"?

8. What is an interpretative possibility for the final four lines of the first part of "East Coker"?

9. Why is the final sentence of "East Coker" an inversion of the first sentence?

10. What does it mean to say, as the speaker does in the final line of Part II of "Burnt Norton," that "Only through time time is conquered"?

(see the answer keys)

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