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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What part of the statue is still standing when the traveler sees it?
(a) Just the legs.
(b) The legs and torso.
(c) Just the head.
(d) The torso and head.

2. What is the likely purpose of capitalizing "Works" (line 11) and "Wreck" (line 13)?
(a) To draw the reader's attention to the alliteration in these lines.
(b) To convey a sense of Ozymandias's hubris.
(c) To stress that these are one and the same thing.
(d) To draw the reader's attention to the consonant rhyme.

3. Who is the author of "Ozymandias"?
(a) Lord Byron.
(b) William Blake.
(c) Percy Bysshe Shelley.
(d) William Wordsworth.

4. What does Ozymandias hope to inspire in his audience?
(a) Anxiety and suspicion.
(b) Reverence and respect.
(c) Confidence and ambition.
(d) Awe and fear.

5. What is the antecedent of the word "them" in line 8, "The hand that mocked them"?
(a) Lifeless things.
(b) Visage.
(c) Sculptor.
(d) Passions.

6. To whom does Ozymandias address his remarks?
(a) His subjects.
(b) His army.
(c) Other kings.
(d) Future civilizations.

7. Which lines contain caesuras?
(a) Lines 8 and 9.
(b) Lines 2 and 3.
(c) Lines 11 and 12.
(d) Lines 5 and 6.

8. What is the rhyme scheme of "Ozymandias"?
(a) ABAB BCBC CDCD EF.
(b) ABAB ACAC ADAD EE.
(c) ABAB CDCD EFEF GG.
(d) ABAB ACDC EDEF EF.

9. Whose "passions" are referred to in line 6, "Tell that its sculptor well those passions read"?
(a) Ozymandias's.
(b) The traveler's.
(c) The sculptor's.
(d) The speaker's.

10. In line 1, what word does the speaker use to describe the land where the traveler has been?
(a) "Foreign."
(b) "Far-off."
(c) "Mystic."
(d) "Antique."

11. In lines 6 and 7, "Tell that its sculptor well those passions read/ Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things," what it is that is "stamped," on the "lifeless things"?
(a) The sculptor's talent.
(b) The history of a king.
(c) Personality and emotion.
(d) Physical characteristics.

12. Which is the best description of the statue's expression?
(a) Startled and bewildered.
(b) Passionate and angry.
(c) Impassive and distant.
(d) Cold and contemptuous.

13. What is the meter of the poem's first two lines?
(a) Iambic pentameter.
(b) Two iambs and two trochees.
(c) Four iambs and a trochee.
(d) Iambic tetrameter.

14. What part of the statue's face does the traveler describe?
(a) The eyes.
(b) The mouth.
(c) The brow.
(d) The jaw.

15. What technique is used in line 8, "The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed"?
(a) Parallelism.
(b) Chiasmus.
(c) Imagery.
(d) Paradox.

Short Answer Questions

1. In line 4, "Half sunk a shattered visage lies," what does the word "visage" refer to?

2. What kind of landscape has the traveler been traveling through?

3. What technique is employed in the poem's final two lines, "Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare/ The lone and level sands stretch far away”?

4. Whose hand is being referred to in line 8, "The hand that mocked them"?

5. What title does Ozymandias give himself in the statue's inscription?

(see the answer keys)

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