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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What technique is used in the line "Such as she was, such as she would become" (line 16)?
(a) Anaphora.
(b) Chiasmus.
(c) Anadiplosis.
(d) Symbolism.

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

3. 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) Apostrophe and antithesis.
(d) Synecdoche and asyndeton.

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

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

6. The repetition of the word "deed" in line 13 is an example of which technique?
(a) Anadiplosis.
(b) Antanaclasis.
(c) Epizeuxis.
(d) Epistrophe.

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

8. 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) Antithesis and oxymoron.
(b) Epistrophe and chiasmus.
(c) Oxymoron and epistrophe.
(d) Chiasmus and antithesis.

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

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

11. 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) Personification.
(b) Alliteration.
(c) Symbolism.
(d) Metonymy.

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

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

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

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

Short Answer Questions

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

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

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

(see the answer keys)

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