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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 the name of the metrical foot that appears at the end of lines 1 and 3 in most of the stanzas?
(a) Anapest.
(b) Tribrach.
(c) Dactyl.
(d) Amphibrach.

2. 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 that can be lost "farther" and "faster."
(b) Places and names are more upsetting to lose than small objects and small amounts of time.
(c) Places and names are examples of things a person can only lose through "practice" and experience.
(d) Places and names are some of the last things that a person loses.

3. Who is the author of "One Art"?
(a) Sylvia Plath.
(b) Lucille Clifton.
(c) Elizabeth Bishop.
(d) Audre Lourde.

4. Which technique is used in the speaker's claim to have lost "some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent" (line 14)?
(a) Simile.
(b) Imagery.
(c) Hyperbole.
(d) Personification.

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

Short Answer Questions

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

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

3. Which is the best description of the tone of stanza one?

4. What does the speaker use in line 5 as an example of a common lost object?

5. How many stanzas does "One Art" have?

Short Essay Questions

1. Describe the form of "One Art."

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

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

4. 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?

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

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

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

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

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

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

(see the answer keys)

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