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

2. According to the poem's second sentence, how did "we" find "salvation"?
(a) By realizing our own weakness.
(b) By fully surrendering ourselves to the land.
(c) By finding the courage to fight England.
(d) By dedicating ourselves to the Christian God.

3. Who is the author of "The Gift Outright"?
(a) Galway Kinnell.
(b) Robert Lowell.
(c) Robert Frost.
(d) Donald Hall.

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

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

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

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

4. Which term most accurately describes the meter of "The Gift Outright"?

5. What is alluded to in the phrase "the land vaguely realizing westward" (line 14)?

(see the answer key)

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