View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 7 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

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

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)?

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

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

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

Short Essay Questions

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

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

3. Explain the poem's title.

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

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

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

7. 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)?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

How do chiasmus and parallelism support the tone of "The Gift Outright"? Do they serve other purposes, such as creating emphasis or clarifying the relationships among ideas? Write an essay in which you describe how these two techniques are used in the poem and analyze how they contribute to both tone and meaning. Support your assertions with both quoted and paraphrased evidence from the poem; cite all borrowed language in MLA format.

Essay Topic 2

What were Frost's views on America and its history? Does biographical information about his beliefs tend to support or undermine the conclusion that he understood the cost of nation-building and found it an acceptable price to pay to create the United States? Do some research into Frost's background, intellectual history, and political beliefs. Then, write an essay in which you use this research to shed light on the meaning of "The Gift Outright." Support your assertions with evidence drawn from your research and from Frost's poem; cite all sources in MLA format.

Essay Topic 3

How do repetition and alliteration support the tone of "The Gift Outright"? Do they serve other purposes, such as creating emphasis or clarifying the relationships among ideas? Write an essay in which you describe how these two techniques are used in the poem and analyze how they contribute to both tone and meaning. Support your assertions with both quoted and paraphrased evidence from the poem; cite all borrowed language in MLA format.

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 722 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample