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

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

3. In line 15, what is the speaker calling "unstoried, artless, unenhanced"?
(a) The history of the United States.
(b) The American people.
(c) The wars fought to secure land.
(d) The American land.

4. What technique is used in the phrase "unstoried, artless, unenhanced" (line 15)?
(a) Assonance.
(b) Euphemism.
(c) Apostrophe.
(d) Asyndeton.

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

Short Answer Questions

1. What is the antecedent of "it" in the phrase "it was ourselves" (line 9)?

2. Which term most accurately describes the meter of "The Gift Outright"?

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

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

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)?

Short Essay Questions

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

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

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

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

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

7. Explain the poem's title.

(see the answer keys)

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