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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) Asyndeton.
(b) Euphemism.
(c) Assonance.
(d) Apostrophe.

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

3. Which term most accurately describes the meter of "The Gift Outright"?
(a) Ballad meter.
(b) Free verse.
(c) Blank verse.
(d) Heroic verse.

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

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

Short Answer Questions

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

2. What is alluded to in the phrase "the land vaguely realizing westward" (line 14)?

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. Who is the author of "The Gift Outright"?

5. According to the poem's second sentence, how did "we" find "salvation"?

Short Essay Questions

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

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

3. 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)?

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

5. Explain the poem's title.

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

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

(see the answer keys)

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