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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 American Civil War.
(b) The Louisiana Purchase.
(c) The forced resettlement of Native peoples.
(d) The Westward expansion of the United States.

2. What is the implied antecedent of "our" and "we" in lines 1 and 2?
(a) Americans.
(b) Colonists.
(c) Farmers.
(d) Revolutionaries.

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

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

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

Short Answer Questions

1. Who is the author of "The Gift Outright"?

2. In line 15, what is the speaker calling "unstoried, artless, unenhanced"?

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

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

5. 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)?

(see the answer key)

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