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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. In the first stanza, what does the speaker suggest makes the loss of some things especially easy to accept?
(a) They seem to want to get lost.
(b) They are difficult to live with.
(c) They are small and insignificant.
(d) They are part of a distant past.

2. Stanzas four through six have which techniques in common?
(a) Second person and imperative mood.
(b) Second person and indicative mood.
(c) First person and imperative mood.
(d) First person and indicative mood.

3. What technique is employed in line 16, "Even losing you"?
(a) Dramatic irony.
(b) Apostrophe.
(c) Understatement.
(d) Sarcasm.

4. In line 7, "Then practice losing farther, losing faster," rhythm is created through which devices?
(a) Parallelism, diacope, and consonance.
(b) Anaphora, assonance, and asyndeton.
(c) Alliteration, epistrophe, and antithesis.
(d) Cacophony, epizeuxis, and diazeugma.

5. In line 10, what does the speaker admit to having lost?
(a) Their college diploma.
(b) Their child's artwork.
(c) Their mother's watch.
(d) Their wedding ring.

Short Answer Questions

1. What kind of metrical foot is the most frequent in "One Art"?

2. Which word in lines 10 and 11, "And look! my last,/ or next-to-last, of three loved houses went," creates a momentary shift in verb mood?

3. What is used for the first time in the poem's final stanza?

4. What is the rhyme scheme of the first five stanzas of "One Art"?

5. What is a reasonable statement to make about the effect of the enjambment in lines 8 and 9, "places, and names, and where it was you meant/ to travel"?

Short Essay Questions

1. To whom is the parenthetical comment "(Write it!)" addressed in line 19, and how does this comment impact the reader's understanding of the poem?

2. Which two verb moods are used in "One Art," and where are they employed?

3. How does the speaker arrange the examples of things that can be lost?

4. Describe the form of "One Art."

5. How does the change in stanza structure in the final stanza mimic the poem's changing meaning?

6. What is the poem's dominant meter, and how is it regularly interrupted?

7. On the surface level, what is the main message of "One Art"?

8. How does the speaker's diction increase the emotional stakes as the poem progresses?

9. What difference is there in the way the two refrain lines are repeated throughout the poem?

10. What are the refrains employed in "One Art"?

(see the answer keys)

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