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

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

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

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

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

Short Answer Questions

1. Which technique is used in the first line, "The land was ours before we were the land’s"?

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

3. The repetition of the word "deed" in line 13 is an example of which technique?

4. 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)?

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

Short Essay Questions

1. 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)?

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

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

4. Explain the poem's title.

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

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

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

(see the answer keys)

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