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

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

3. What is the implied antecedent of "our" and "we" in lines 1 and 2?
(a) Revolutionaries.
(b) Farmers.
(c) Americans.
(d) Colonists.

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

5. 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.

Short Answer Questions

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

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

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

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

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

Short Essay Questions

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

2. 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)?

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

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

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. Explain the poem's title.

(see the answer keys)

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