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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Section 1: "The Gift Outright," Lines 1-16.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What is alluded to in the phrase "the land vaguely realizing westward" (line 14)?
(a) The Louisiana Purchase.
(b) The Westward expansion of the United States.
(c) The forced resettlement of Native peoples.
(d) The American Civil War.

2. In line 15, what is the speaker calling "unstoried, artless, unenhanced"?
(a) The American land.
(b) The American people.
(c) The wars fought to secure land.
(d) The history of the United States.

3. What techniques are used in the lines "She was ours/ In Massachusetts, in Virginia" (lines 3-4)?
(a) Asyndeton and apostrophe.
(b) Synecdoche and asyndeton.
(c) Apostrophe and antithesis.
(d) Antithesis and synecdoche.

4. To what event does the phrase "more than a hundred years/ Before we were her people" obliquely refer?
(a) The Pilgrims' first landing.
(b) Columbus's voyage.
(c) The American Civil War.
(d) The American Revolution.

5. What is the antecedent of "it" in the phrase "it was ourselves" (line 9)?
(a) "Still colonials" (line 5).
(b) "What we now no more possessed" (line 7).
(c) "Something we were withholding" (line 8).
(d) "What we still were unpossessed by" (line 6).

Short Answer Questions

1. What does line 12 make clear is the "Gift" in the title "The Gift Outright"?

2. Which is the primary definition of "still" being used in the expression "still colonials" in line 5?

3. According to the poem's second sentence, how did "we" find "salvation"?

4. What techniques are used in the lines "Possessing what we still were unpossessed by,/ Possessed by what we now no more possessed" (lines 6-7)?

5. What technique is used in the phrase "unstoried, artless, unenhanced" (line 15)?

(see the answer key)

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