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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 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"?
(a) It creates the sense of something being missing or lost because the thought is interrupted by enjambment.
(b) It creates a humorous effect because the words that complete the thought on line 9 are unexpected.
(c) It creates irony because the thought's completion on line 9 is actually the opposite of what the speaker means.
(d) It creates an angry, agitated tone because of the isolation of the word "meant," which ends with a harsh sound.

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?
(a) The word "loved."
(b) The word "went."
(c) The word "next."
(d) The word "look."

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

4. What does the colon at the end of line 7, "Then practice losing farther, losing faster," indicate about the "places, and names" in line 8?
(a) Places and names are examples of things a person can only lose through "practice" and experience.
(b) Places and names are more upsetting to lose than small objects and small amounts of time.
(c) Places and names are some of the last things that a person loses.
(d) Places and names are examples of things that can be lost "farther" and "faster."

5. What "Art" does the title refer to?
(a) The art of disciplining the emotions.
(b) The art of mastering loss.
(c) The art of maintaining relationships.
(d) The art of maintaining perspective.

Short Answer Questions

1. Which technique is used in the speaker's claim to have lost "some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent" (line 14)?

2. What is the format of "One Art"?

3. Who is the author of "One Art"?

4. What is the most reasonable interpretation of the speaker's line 13 claim that they have "lost two cities"?

5. In lines 2 and 3, "so many things seem filled with the intent/ to be lost that their loss is no disaster," what is the antecedent of the word "their"?

Short Essay Questions

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

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

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

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

5. 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?

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

7. Describe the form of "One Art."

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

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

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

(see the answer keys)

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