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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 the lines "She was our land more than a hundred years/ Before we were her people" (lines 2-3)?
(a) Alliteration.
(b) Metonymy.
(c) Personification.
(d) Symbolism.

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

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

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

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

Short Answer Questions

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

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

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

4. Which term most accurately describes the meter of "The Gift Outright"?

5. What techniques are used in the lines "She was ours/ In Massachusetts, in Virginia" (lines 3-4)?

Short Essay Questions

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

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

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

4. Explain the poem's title.

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

6. 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)?

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

(see the answer keys)

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