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

Multiple Choice Questions

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

2. 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.

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

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

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

6. 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.

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

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

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

10. 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.

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

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

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

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

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

Short Answer Questions

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

2. What technique is used in the phrase "unstoried, artless, unenhanced" (line 15)?

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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