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

Multiple Choice Questions

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

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

3. Which is the most logical description of who "You" is in line 1?
(a) A romantic partner.
(b) Scholars and critics.
(c) An unnamed oppressor.
(d) People of the past.

4. Which is the first stanza of the poem that is longer than four lines?
(a) 9.
(b) 6.
(c) 8.
(d) 7.

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

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

7. What words create a refrain in the final two stanzas of the poem?
(a) "I rise."
(b) "Again I rise."
(c) "I rise and rise."
(d) "Still I rise."

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

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

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

11. 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) Persistence.
(d) Power.

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

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

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

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

Short Answer Questions

1. Which is the best definition of "beset" in line 6?

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

3. Which is the best definition for "trod" in the context of line 3?

4. Which two things does the final stanza use to represent the past and present?

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

(see the answer keys)

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