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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What does the expression "feet of clay" in line 15 refer to?
(a) A hidden character flaw.
(b) Cowardice and fear.
(c) Stubbornness and selfishness.
(d) A delicate, easily-fractured nature.

2. Which lines of each stanza are indented?
(a) The fifth and sixth.
(b) The first and sixth.
(c) The first and third.
(d) The second and fourth.

3. What is being referred to with the expression "silver break" (line 7)?
(a) Reflections.
(b) Dawn.
(c) Streetlights.
(d) Headlights.

4. What ideas are associated with the snow in this poem?
(a) Prejudice, indifference, and suffering.
(b) Punishment, corruption, and justice.
(c) Circumstance, poverty, and innocence.
(d) Heaven, purity, and nature.

5. What does the word "shod" in line 12 refer to?
(a) Sound.
(b) Footwear.
(c) Clothing.
(d) Movement.

6. Which line most clearly echoes the tension between "little girls" (line 5) and "prowling" (line 6)?
(a) Line 11, "The dusky, half-clad girls of tired feet."
(b) Line 9, "Through the lone night until the last snow-flake."
(c) Line 12, "Are trudging, thinly shod, from street to street."
(d) Line 7, "Through the long night until the silver break."

7. In lines 2 and 3, the expression "when the night lets fall/ Its veil" is an example of which technique?
(a) Paradox.
(b) Simile.
(c) Antithesis.
(d) Personification.

8. What are the sex workers wearing on their feet?
(a) Light shoes meant to be worn indoors.
(b) Elaborate shoes with high heels.
(c) Boots meant to protect them from snow and rain.
(d) Thick-soled shoes that make them appear taller.

9. Whose presence is implied in "To bend and barter at desire's call" (line 4)?
(a) Pimps.
(b) Clients.
(c) Police officers.
(d) Bystanders.

10. In the first image of the sex workers, what is being emphasized?
(a) Their determination.
(b) The motion of their bodies.
(c) The burden of social expectations.
(d) Their reaction to the cold.

11. Which techniques are evident in line 4, "To bend and barter at desire's call"?
(a) Asyndeton and euphony.
(b) Euphony and alliteration.
(c) Alliteration and personification.
(d) Personification and asyndeton.

12. In line 16, what word does the speaker use to describe the feet of his own race?
(a) Fearful.
(b) Prideful.
(c) Aching.
(d) Sacred.

13. What color does the speaker assign to the sex workers' feet?
(a) Gray.
(b) Black.
(c) White.
(d) Silver.

14. Which two lines of each stanza create a kind of refrain in this poem?
(a) The first and sixth.
(b) The first and third.
(c) The second and fourth.
(d) The fifth and sixth.

15. In line 1, "footsteps of a lass" is an example of which technique?
(a) Sibilance.
(b) Synesthesia.
(c) Onomatopoeia.
(d) Alliteration.

(see the answer keys)

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