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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What is the sniper drinking?
(a) Milk.
(b) Coffee.
(c) Whiskey.
(d) Tea.

2. The conflicting descriptions of the sniper that make him sound both young and mature are an example of what technique?
(a) Paradox.
(b) Oxymoron.
(c) Personification.
(d) Allusion.

3. What word (or a variation of it) is repeated several times after the sniper is shot?
(a) Bridge.
(b) Dead.
(c) Ireland.
(d) Broken.

4. The description of the car "panting" (96) suggests what about the situation?
(a) The technology they have available is primitive.
(b) The soldiers are exhausted.
(c) The air is thick with smoke from the British artillery.
(d) The fighting is animalistic.

5. What does the sniper drop to the ground?
(a) His revolver.
(b) His jacket.
(c) His field glasses.
(d) His rifle.

Short Answer Questions

1. What do the Free Staters want?

2. In the context in which it is used in "The Sniper," how is "draught" (96) pronounced?

3. What river is near the sniper's position?

4. "His enemy had been hit" (98) is an example of what technique?

5. In order to fool his enemy, what does the sniper lift over the parapet?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is the setting of "The Sniper"?

2. What risk does the sniper take at the beginning of the story, and what are the consequences?

3. What is the sniper drinking, and what evidence does the reader have that it is affecting his judgement?

4. How does the sniper react to being shot?

5. Who are the Republicans at war with, and what does this opposition believe?

6. What happens as a result of the Republican sniper's ruse?

7. What problem is created by the sniper's wound?

8. What motivates the sniper to get himself back under control?

9. Who is the protagonist of "The Sniper" and what is he fighting for?

10. What striking contrast is there in the description that opens the story with the description that closes the first paragraph?

(see the answer keys)

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