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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. 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 dedicating ourselves to the Christian God.
(d) By finding the courage to fight England.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

11. 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.

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

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

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

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

Short Answer Questions

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

2. What is the antecedent of "it" in the phrase "it was ourselves" (line 9)?

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)?

(see the answer keys)

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