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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 7 short essay 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) Anaphora.
(c) Allegory.
(d) Chiasmus.

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

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

4. 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.

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

Short Answer Questions

1. What technique is used in the lines "She was our land more than a hundred years/ Before we were her people" (lines 2-3)?

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

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)?

4. What technique is used in the line "Such as she was, such as she would become" (line 16)?

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

Short Essay Questions

1. What does the speaker claim makes the colonists "weak," and what is the solution to this weakness (line 8)?

2. Explain the poem's title.

3. What does the speaker mean by "the land vaguely realizing westward" (line 14)?

4. To whom is it implied the pronouns "our" and "we" refer in this poem?

5. What is implied by the diction the speaker uses to describe the lands yet to be conquered by American settlers: "unstoried, artless, unenhanced" (line 15)?

6. Describe the form of "The Gift Outright."

7. Explain the synecdoche in line 4, "In Massachusetts, in Virginia."

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