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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. In "Ode to the Beloved's Hips," what twentieth century American movie is alluded to?
(a) Raging Bull.
(b) 2001: A Space Odyssey.
(c) Star Wars.
(d) Carmen.

2. In "It Was the Animals," what has the speaker's brother actually found?
(a) A piece of driftwood.
(b) The wooden handle of a hatchet.
(c) A piece of a picture frame.
(d) A plank from a rowboat.

3. In "Snake-Light," what is the rhetorical purpose of mentioning the butterflies?
(a) They symbolize transformation and the creation of life from death.
(b) They symbolize the beauty of the desert ecosystem.
(c) They symbolize the lightness and freedom of shedding the body.
(d) They symbolize the lingering and then departure of the snake's spirit.

4. In "The First Water Is the Body," what city's water crisis is specifically mentioned?
(a) Newark, New Jersey.
(b) Flint, Michigan.
(c) Dos Palos, California.
(d) Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

5. In "Grief Work," which ancient work is alluded to?
(a) Homer's Odyssey.
(b) The Code of Hammurabi.
(c) The Egyptian Book of the Dead.
(d) Hesiod's Theogony.

6. In "If I Should Come Upon Your House Lonely in the West Texas Desert," what does the speaker say her "lasso" is made of?
(a) Water.
(b) Breath.
(c) Light.
(d) Desire.

7. In "How the Milky Way Was Made," what does the speaker claim causes the milky appearance of the galaxy?
(a) Sparks from the sun.
(b) Dust from the moon.
(c) The quivering of her lover's body.
(d) The movement of fish.

8. In "It Was the Animals," where does the speaker's brother claim to have gotten a piece of the ark?
(a) "The walkway" (59).
(b) "The walls" (59).
(c) ""The wood" (59).
(d) "The girl" (59).

9. In "That Which Cannot Be Stilled," what does the speaker "diagnose" herself and the reservation as?
(a) Dirty.
(b) Dream-like.
(c) Peaceful.
(d) Rusting.

10. In "I, Minotaur," which of the following phrases expresses the mixed nature of the Minotaur?
(a) "For what erupts my badlands and my tired eyes in beauty" (56).
(b) "All that I have done and failed to do" (57).
(c) "You've heard me churn and later, yet knock and enter" (56).
(d) "What question can I ask of the thing I am"? (57)

11. In "Isn't the Air Also a Body, Moving?" the use of the word "coppered" is an example of which literary technique (73)?
(a) Zeugma.
(b) Anthimeria.
(c) Syllepsis.
(d) Oxymoron.

12. In "That Which Cannot Be Stilled," what does the speaker say can "make you clean" (42)?
(a) Grief.
(b) Sand.
(c) Rain.
(d) Ash.

13. In "Isn't the Air Also a Body, Moving?" what is personified as a woman?
(a) The hawk.
(b) The air.
(c) The train.
(d) The dust.

14. In "Waist and Sway," to what type of building is the beloved compared?
(a) A ziggurat.
(b) A skyscraper.
(c) An apartment.
(d) A church bell tower.

15. In "Top Ten Reasons Why Indians Are Good at Basketball," what nineteenth century America poet is mentioned?
(a) Louisa May Alcott.
(b) Emily Dickinson.
(c) Walt Whitman.
(d) Paul Laurence Dunbar.

Short Answer Questions

1. In "Top Ten Reasons Why Indians Are Good at Basketball," what does the speaker claim that Indian sweat smells like?

2. In "Waist and Sway," what page 78 diction choice indicates that the speaker feels punished or oppressed by her desire for the woman?

3. In "Ode to the Beloved's Hips," why are pears, apples, and figs specifically mentioned?

4. In "Cranes, Mafiosos, and a Polaroid Camera," how does the speaker's brother respond to her description of the cranes' dance?

5. In "Ode to the Beloved's Hips," what war is alluded to?

(see the answer keys)

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