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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. 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 finding the courage to fight England.
(d) By dedicating ourselves to the Christian God.

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)?
(a) Alliteration.
(b) Symbolism.
(c) Personification.
(d) Metonymy.

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

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

5. Who is the author of "The Gift Outright"?
(a) Robert Lowell.
(b) Robert Frost.
(c) Donald Hall.
(d) Galway Kinnell.

Short Answer Questions

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

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

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

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

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

Short Essay Questions

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

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

3. Explain the poem's title.

4. 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)?

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

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

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

(see the answer keys)

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