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

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

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

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

5. What techniques are used in the lines "She was ours/ In Massachusetts, in Virginia" (lines 3-4)?
(a) Antithesis and synecdoche.
(b) Apostrophe and antithesis.
(c) Asyndeton and apostrophe.
(d) Synecdoche and asyndeton.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does line 12 make clear is the "Gift" in the title "The Gift Outright"?

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

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

4. The repetition of the word "deed" in line 13 is an example of which technique?

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

Short Essay Questions

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

2. Explain the poem's title.

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

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

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

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

(see the answer keys)

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