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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) Antanaclasis.
(b) Anadiplosis.
(c) Epistrophe.
(d) Epizeuxis.

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

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

4. 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) Personification.
(b) Metonymy.
(c) Alliteration.
(d) Symbolism.

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

Short Answer Questions

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

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

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

4. To what event does the phrase "more than a hundred years/ Before we were her people" obliquely refer?

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

Short Essay Questions

1. 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)?

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

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

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

5. Explain the poem's title.

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

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

(see the answer keys)

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