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

2. Which term most accurately describes the meter of "The Gift Outright"?
(a) Ballad meter.
(b) Blank verse.
(c) Free verse.
(d) Heroic verse.

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

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

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

Short Answer Questions

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

2. Which technique is used in the first line, "The land was ours before we were the land’s"?

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

4. What is the implied antecedent of "our" and "we" in lines 1 and 2?

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

(see the answer key)

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