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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 phrase "unstoried, artless, unenhanced" (line 15)?
(a) Assonance.
(b) Euphemism.
(c) Asyndeton.
(d) Apostrophe.

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

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

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

5. Which technique is used in the first line, "The land was ours before we were the land’s"?
(a) Allegory.
(b) Anaphora.
(c) Euphemism.
(d) Chiasmus.

Short Answer Questions

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

2. What technique is used in line 10, "We were withholding from our land of living"?

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

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

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

Short Essay Questions

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

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

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

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

7. Explain the poem's title.

(see the answer keys)

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