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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. 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).

2. 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 Louisiana Purchase.
(d) The American Civil War.

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

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

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

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

7. 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.

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

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

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. 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) Chiasmus and antithesis.
(c) Oxymoron and epistrophe.
(d) Epistrophe and chiasmus.

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

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

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

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

Short Answer Questions

1. According to the poem's second sentence, how did "we" find "salvation"?

2. In line 15, what is the speaker calling "unstoried, artless, unenhanced"?

3. What technique is used in line 10, "We were withholding from our land of living"?

(see the answer keys)

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