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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 are most of Oliver's precious poems about?
(a) Abstract thoughts.
(b) Feelings.
(c) Relationships.
(d) Plants.

2. Which of these is a line from The Measure?
(a) What shall we do?
(b) Ah, it's time.
(c) Hush, be still.
(d) No, not now.

3. What does Oliver like to assign to inanimate objects in her poems?
(a) Identities.
(b) Descriptions.
(c) Human characteristics.
(d) Functions.

4. What kind of words does Oliver hope to find while writing in Mysteries, Four of the Simple Ones?
(a) Ripe words.
(b) Doubled words.
(c) Meaningful words.
(d) Common, but amazing words.

5. What were the eyes of the animal compared to in The Real Prayers are Not the Words, but the Attention that comes First?
(a) Glass.
(b) Worlds.
(c) Microscopes.
(d) Water.

Short Answer Questions

1. How is the pond in Mysteries, Four of the Simple Ones described?

2. What does Oliver say about our lives in The Measure?

3. In Everything, what are we told to look to for examination?

4. What is the main subject of Everything?

5. What does Oliver hope to show about the world in her poems?

Short Essay Questions

1. What did the hawk do at the end of The Real Prayers are Not the Words, but the Attention that Comes First?

2. In Mysteries, Four of the Simple Ones, what does Oliver ask about the blue heron?

3. What did the turtle in The Measure do when Oliver stopped to help it?

4. What did Mary Oliver compare the hawk in The Real Prayers are Not the Words, but the Attention that Comes First to when it was in the grass?

5. What is the main question Oliver asks in Work Sometimes?

6. In Work Sometimes, what does Oliver say happiness truly is?

7. What does Oliver state the reader has probably felt before in Work Sometimes?

8. How did Oliver feel at the end of Work Sometimes?

9. In The Real Prayers are Not the Words, but the Attention that Comes First, what is the bird doing at the beginning of the poem?

10. In The Measure, how does Oliver say the turtle came to choose its course of travel for the day Oliver saw it?

(see the answer keys)

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