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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Section 1: "Still I Rise," Lines 1 - 43 .

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What body of water does the speaker claim to be in the eighth stanza?
(a) An ocean.
(b) A lake.
(c) A stream.
(d) A river.

2. What is the rhyme scheme of the first seven stanzas?
(a) ABAB.
(b) ABCB.
(c) ABAC.
(d) ABBA.

3. What technique does the first line of the poem, "You may write me down in history," introduce?
(a) Allegory.
(b) Catalog.
(c) Verbal irony.
(d) Apostrophe.

4. What kind of "certainty" does the speaker claim to have in line 10?
(a) The "certainty of history."
(b) The "certainty of tides."
(c) The "certainty of air."
(d) The "certainty of springtime."

5. What technique is used in line 29, "Out of the huts of history’s shame"?
(a) Oxymoron.
(b) Allegory.
(c) Allusion.
(d) Juxtaposition.

Short Answer Questions

1. What is the primary quality that the speaker's stanza eight description of a body of water is intended to convey?

2. Why is the speaker's past "rooted in pain" (line 32)?

3. How does the speaker characterize herself in line 4?

4. What words create a refrain in the final two stanzas of the poem?

5. Where does the speaker say she obtained her gifts?

(see the answer key)

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