View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Which of the following does the narrator “come to know / on the keel of a ship” (ll. 5-6)?
(a) Car selling.
(b) Care's swellings.
(c) Coarse dwellings.
(d) Care's dwellings.

2. The narrator notes that which of the following darkened (l. 31)?
(a) The new moon.
(b) The night-shadow.
(c) The day-walker.
(d) The swift winds.

3. In the phrase “were my feet, bound by frost” (l. 9), which of the following words receives relative stress / emphasis?
(a) My.
(b) Were.
(c) Bound.
(d) Feet.

4. In line 32, “frost bound the ground, hail fell on the earth,” how many relatively stressed / emphasized syllables are present?
(a) 2.
(b) 4.
(c) 3.
(d) 5.

5. The phrase “frost bound the ground, hail fell on the earth” (l. 32) offers an example of which of the following?
(a) Hyperbole.
(b) Pun.
(c) Euphemism.
(d) Rhyme.

Short Answer Questions

1. The narrator describes hail as which of the following (ll. 32-33)?

2. By which of the following were the narrator's "feet, bound by frost” (ll. 9-10)?

3. Which of the following does the narrator link to the noise of the sea (ll. 18-19)?

4. In line 29, the description “proud and puffed up with wine” is a descriptor meaning which of the following?

5. In line 29, “proud and puffed up with wine, what I, weary,” offers an example of which of the following?

Short Essay Questions

1. Consider the kenning for hail, “coldest of grains” (l. 33). How does the kenning construct meaning?

2. The narrator remarks that “he who has tasted life’s joy in towns, / suffered few sad journeys, scarcely believes, / proud and puffed up with wine, what I, weary, / have often had to endure in my suffering” (ll. 27-30). What tone is conveyed in the passage?

3. Consider the symbolism of the swan-song the narrator mentions (ll. 19-20). What rhetorical appeal/s does the narrator make in evoking it?

4. The narrator states that “The night-shadow darkened; snow came from the north, / frost bound the ground, hail fell on earth, / coldest of grains” (ll. 31-33). What rhetorical appeal/s does the narrator make in the statement?

5. The second sentence of the poem reads "Pinched with cold / were my feet, bound by frost / in cold fetters, while cares seethed / hot around my heart, hunger tore from within / my sea-weary mind" (ll. 8-12). Three things are put into juxtaposition. What are they, and what effect does the juxtaposition have?

6. The narrator remarks that “he who has tasted life’s joy in towns, / suffered few sad journeys, scarcely believes, / proud and puffed up with wine, what I, weary, / have often had to endure in my suffering” (ll. 27-30). What rhetorical appeal/s does the narrator make in doing so?

7. The narrator comments that “they compel me now, / my heart-thoughts, to try for myself / the high seas, the tossing salt streams; / my heart’s desire urges my spirit / time and again to travel, so that I might seek / far from here a foreign land” (ll. 33-38). What tone is conveyed in the passage?

8. The narrator remarks that “no sheltering family / could bring consolation to my desolate soul” (ll. 25-26). What rhetorical appeal/s does the narrator make in doing so?

9. What tone is set by the first 26 lines of the poem? How do they do so?

10. The narrator remarks that "That man does not know, / he whose lot is fairest on land, / how I, wretched with care, dwelt all winter / on the ice-cold sea in the paths of exile, / deprived of dear kinsmen, / hung with icicles of frost while hail flew in showers" (ll. 12-17). What rhetorical appeal/s does the narrator make in doing so?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 1,043 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample