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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 3 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

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

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

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

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

5. 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) Metonymy.
(c) Personification.
(d) Symbolism.

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

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

8. What technique is used in line 10, "We were withholding from our land of living"?
(a) Alliteration.
(b) Paradox.
(c) Personification.
(d) Metonymy.

9. 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.

10. 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 American Civil War.
(d) The Pilgrims' first landing.

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

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

13. What does line 12 make clear is the "Gift" in the title "The Gift Outright"?
(a) The land Americans live on.
(b) Americans themselves.
(c) Surrender and salvation.
(d) Freedom from England.

14. Which is the primary definition of "still" being used in the expression "still colonials" in line 5?
(a) Nevertheless.
(b) Unmoving.
(c) Quiet.
(d) Continuing to be.

15. 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) Antithesis and oxymoron.
(c) Chiasmus and antithesis.
(d) Epistrophe and chiasmus.

Short Answer Questions

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

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

3. The repetition of the word "deed" in line 13 is an example of which technique?

(see the answer keys)

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