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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. Like the mayfly, people often have feelings of nostalgia towards what?
(a) Their youth.
(b) Their families.
(c) People do not feel nostalgic.
(d) Their friends.

2. How does the poet specifically use this literary device?
(a) He has exaggerated the abilities of the firefly.
(b) He has placed verbs beginning with the same letter adjacent to each other.
(c) He has represented fireflies as the green army of the night sky.
(d) He has compared the firefly to Degas.

3. What words does the poet specifically use when he uses this literary device?
(a) The firefly dances like the dancers in Degas' paintings.
(b) The light-hearted actions of the firefly is an allegory of spring.
(c) Glimmering, gleaming, glowing.
(d) The firefly lights up the entire night sky.

4. The mayfly's birth and death take place when?
(a) One year apart.
(b) In the same day.
(c) In different places.
(d) At the beginning and end of one week.

5. What happened after the two book lice met?
(a) They shared a book as a home.
(b) They fell in love.
(c) They got into a fight.
(d) They tried to move to separate shelves.

Short Answer Questions

1. "Fireflies" tells of the _________ of a firefly.

2. How do the book lice meet?

3. Why might these insects want to teach others to walk on water?

4. How are these two book lice opposites?

5. To emphasize the powerful and image-provoking verbs used by the poet, he has used what literary device?

Short Essay Questions

1. How are other animals like humans? What human qualities do other animals have?

2. How does a mayfly's life compare to our own?

3. To what does the poet compare fireflies? Is this a good comparison? Why or why not?

4. How are mayflies and fireflies similar?

5. Describe the grasshoppers in "Grasshoppers" and the water striders in "Water Striders." How do they compare?

6. Why are mayflies so frantic, according to this poem?

7. What does the poem "Book Lice" do for English literature?

8. What is the mood of the book lice poem? Why?

9. How is the structure of the poem "Grasshoppers" reminiscent of the movement of the grasshoppers?

10. How are these lice like people?

(see the answer keys)

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