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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What is the primary quality that the speaker's stanza eight description of a body of water is intended to convey?
(a) Endurance.
(b) Independence.
(c) Power.
(d) Persistence.

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

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

4. In the final quatrain, what does the speaker wonder about upsetting "you" with?
(a) Intelligence.
(b) Sexiness.
(c) Beauty.
(d) Kindness.

5. Which technique is used in line 9, "Just like moons and like suns"?
(a) Dialect.
(b) Allusion.
(c) Parallelism.
(d) Euphemism.

6. Which technique is frequently used at the beginnings of stanzas?
(a) Onomatopoeia.
(b) Rhetorical question.
(c) Cacophony.
(d) Internal rhyme.

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

8. What technique is used in line 21, "You may shoot me with your words"?
(a) Innuendo.
(b) Metaphor.
(c) Simile.
(d) Kenning.

9. Which is the best definition of "beset" in line 6?
(a) Cradled.
(b) Decorated.
(c) Troubled.
(d) Inspired.

10. Which is the best definition for "trod" in the context of line 3?
(a) Drag along the floor or earth.
(b) Throw or hurl downward.
(c) The sound of footsteps.
(d) Press down with the foot.

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

12. Where does the speaker say she obtained her gifts?
(a) From effort and hard work.
(b) From well-chosen friends.
(c) From her ancestors.
(d) From the passage of time.

13. Which two things does the final stanza use to represent the past and present?
(a) Night and daybreak.
(b) The directions east and west.
(c) Gathering clouds and rain.
(d) A seed and a sprout.

14. What technique is used in lines 7 and 8, "’Cause I walk like I've got oil wells/ Pumping in my living room"?
(a) Simile.
(b) Juxtaposition.
(c) Personification.
(d) Metaphor.

15. What techniques are used in line 19, "’Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines"?
(a) Alliteration and assonance.
(b) Assonance and sibilance.
(c) Onomatopoeia and alliteration.
(d) Sibilance and onomatopoeia.

Short Answer Questions

1. In the fourth stanza, what kind of person does the speaker ask if "you" want her to be?

2. Who is the author of "Still I Rise"?

3. In line 17, what kind of a person is described by the word "haughtiness"?

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

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

(see the answer keys)

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