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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) Euphemism.
(b) Allegory.
(c) Chiasmus.
(d) Anaphora.

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

4. 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.

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

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

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

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

9. 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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Short Answer Questions

1. What is the implied antecedent of "our" and "we" in lines 1 and 2?

2. Which is the primary definition of "still" being used in the expression "still colonials" in line 5?

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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