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

Multiple Choice Questions

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

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

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

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

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

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

7. 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) Metonymy.
(c) Symbolism.
(d) Alliteration.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Short Answer Questions

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

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

3. 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 keys)

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