View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. In line 10, what does the speaker admit to having lost?

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

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

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

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

Short Essay Questions

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

8. 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?

9. Describe the form of "One Art."

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Write an essay that analyzes Bishop's use of linebreak in "One Art." Provide quoted examples, explain their effect, and connect these effects to the poem's overall meaning.

Essay Topic 2

Write an essay that makes and defends a claim about the meter of "One Art." Support your argument with both quoted and paraphrased evidence from the text.

Essay Topic 3

Write an essay that explicates the musicality of "One Art." Be sure to explain how the devices you name and explain create meaning within the context of the text as a whole. Support your claims with quoted evidence from the text.

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 823 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample