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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Section 1: "O Captain! My Captain!" lines 1-24.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Where is the ship in the beginning of the poem?
(a) Just leaving the port.
(b) On the open sea.
(c) Docked in the port.
(d) Just coming into port.

2. What does the phrase "swaying mass" refer to (line 12)?
(a) The crowd.
(b) The flag.
(c) The ship.
(d) The captain.

3. In the second quatrain of the second stanza, what becomes clear about the speaker's state of mind?
(a) He is afraid that he is in some way responsible for the captain's death.
(b) He hopes to hide the captain's death from the crowd.
(c) He is actually asleep and only dreaming of the captain's death.
(d) He has not fully accepted the captain's death.

4. By which other term, besides "Captain," does the speaker address the captain of the ship?
(a) Leader.
(b) Father.
(c) Master.
(d) Brother.

5. Who is the author of "O Captain! my Captain!"?
(a) Walt Whitman.
(b) Ralph Waldo Emerson.
(c) Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
(d) William Cullen Bryant.

Short Answer Questions

1. In context, the word "fearful" in line 1 indicates that the trip was which of the following?

2. What is the rhyme pattern of the first four lines of each stanza?

3. Which technique is evident in line 10, "Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills"?

4. Which is the best interpretation of line 9, when the speaker urges "O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells"?

5. What does it mean that the people are "exulting"?

(see the answer key)

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