View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 7 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What kind of "certainty" does the speaker claim to have in line 10?

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

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

4. What technique is used in line 21, "You may shoot me with your words"?

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

Short Essay Questions

1. What do all of the questions the speaker asks have in common?

2. Describe how the final two stanzas of the poem differ from the first seven stazas.

3. In the final stanza, what metaphor does the speaker use, and what does it signify?

4. What oppressive actions does the speaker suggest "you" might take, and how does she say she will respond?

5. What specific historical phenomenon does the speaker talk about rising above in the final two stanzas, and what allusion does she use to introduce the topic?

6. Describe the pattern that stanzas 2, 4, 5, and 7 have in common.

7. Why is the poem titled "Still I Rise" and not just "I Rise"--what additional idea does the word "Still" convey?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

In "Still I Rise," how does the speaker's voice impact the reader? How does Angelou manage to create a friendly, humorous tone for her speaker despite the serious and challenging message the speaker is issuing? How is the speaker's voice confident and authoritative without becoming condescending or elitist? How do the poem's diction, details, figurative language, musical devices, and rhythm work together to create this engaging voice? Write an essay in which you analyze the speaker's voice and its impact on the reader, commenting on Angelou's likely purpose in creating such an engaging voice. Support your analysis with both quoted and paraphrased evidence from throughout the poem, and be sure to cite quoted evidence in MLA format.

Essay Topic 2

Read Lucille Clifton's poem "won't you celebrate with me" (available online). What does Clifton mean by "babylon," in line 4? What claim is she making about oppression and triumph? How does she also use natural resources in her poem? Is her speaker's voice similar to or different from the speaker in "Still I Rise"? Why? Write an essay in which you discuss similarities and differences in the way Clifton and Angelou approach the theme of survival against oppression. Support your analysis with both quoted and paraphrased evidence from throughout both poems, and be sure to cite quoted evidence in MLA format.

Essay Topic 3

Is it possible to make an argument that even though the final two stanzas seem more focused on the speaker, they are also paradoxically less focused on the speaker? In what way do the first seven stanzas focus on individual characteristics of the speaker, and how do the final two stanzas shift this focus to the speaker as a representative of something larger than any one individual? Write an essay that makes an argument about how shifts in technical and content choices in the final two stanzas work together to alter the poem's focus from a personal disagreement to a historical one. Support your analysis with both quoted and paraphrased evidence from throughout the poem, and be sure to cite quoted evidence in MLA format.

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 896 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample