View a FREE sample

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 "Possessing what we still were unpossessed by,/ Possessed by what we now no more possessed" (lines 6-7)?
(a) Oxymoron and epistrophe.
(b) Epistrophe and chiasmus.
(c) Antithesis and oxymoron.
(d) Chiasmus and antithesis.

2. What technique is used in the phrase "unstoried, artless, unenhanced" (line 15)?
(a) Assonance.
(b) Asyndeton.
(c) Euphemism.
(d) Apostrophe.

3. What technique is used in the lines "She was our land more than a hundred years/ Before we were her people" (lines 2-3)?
(a) Alliteration.
(b) Personification.
(c) Metonymy.
(d) Symbolism.

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

5. Which technique is used in the first line, "The land was ours before we were the land’s"?
(a) Chiasmus.
(b) Euphemism.
(c) Anaphora.
(d) Allegory.

Short Answer Questions

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

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

3. To what event does the phrase "more than a hundred years/ Before we were her people" obliquely refer?

4. What technique is used in the line "Such as she was, such as she would become" (line 16)?

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

(see the answer key)

This section contains 260 words (approx. 1 page at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample