View a FREE sample

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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Which word best describes Ginsberg's attitude about the specific weapon?
(a) Joy.
(b) Loathing.
(c) Abhorrence.
(d) Curiosity.

2. What is the main theme of the poem?
(a) Transience.
(b) Loss.
(c) Pace of life.
(d) Loneliness.

3. What does Ginsberg compare to an asphodel?
(a) Love.
(b) Desire.
(c) Suffering.
(d) Pain.

4. Ginsberg believes that America is which of the following?
(a) Broke.
(b) Perfect.
(c) Sadly mistaken.
(d) Corrupt.

5. Where is the child's father?
(a) Flophouse.
(b) Working.
(c) Jail.
(d) Dead.

Short Answer Questions

1. What natural item is spotted by the poet?

2. What are the people waiting for?

3. What has impaired Ginsberg's mental condition?

4. Ginsberg sees the racks as being created to keep what together?

5. What is overwhelming to Ginsberg?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is at least one of Ginsberg's comments about the racks and baggage?

2. What is the poet's feeling about physical passion and the enjoyment of it?

3. What is the child thinking about? How does it relate to his family?

4. Where does Ginsberg work in this poem? What is his position? What are people waiting for?

5. What is the main theme of this poem? What is the poet's opinion of the theme?

6. What is the setting for this poem? When was it written?

7. How does the poem end? What is the inference of things to come?

8. What childhood memory of politics does Ginsberg recall? How do those memories affect the present?

9. What is the burden one must carry? How should one react to this burden?

10. What is an asphodel? How does it compare to Ginsberg's concept of desire?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 542 words (approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample