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

Short Answer Questions

1. What is the rhyme scheme of the first five stanzas of "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. Lines 4 and 6, ending in the words "fluster" and "master," exhibit what type of rhyme?

4. In line 7, "Then practice losing farther, losing faster," rhythm is created through which devices?

5. What does the second stanza suggest the "art" of losing consists of?

Short Essay Questions

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

2. Describe the form of "One Art."

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

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

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

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 arrange the examples of things that can be lost?

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

10. 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?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Write an essay that explicates the poem's final stanza. Take a clear position about the stanza's relationship to the rest of the poem and show how the techniques you discuss in your explication support that relationship.

Essay Topic 2

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 3

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

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