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

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

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

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

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

Short Answer Questions

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

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. What does line 12 make clear is the "Gift" in the title "The Gift Outright"?

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

5. What is the antecedent of "it" in the phrase "it was ourselves" (line 9)?

Short Essay Questions

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

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

3. Explain the poem's title.

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

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."

(see the answer keys)

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