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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through The Solitary Reaper.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What is the young woman doing in the field?
(a) Watching over grazing sheep.
(b) Watching the speaker from the hillside.
(c) Pushing a cart down a path.
(d) Harvesting a grain crop.

2. From context, what is is likely meaning of "single" in line 1, "Behold her, single in the field"?
(a) Simple.
(b) Honest.
(c) Alone.
(d) Unmarried.

3. Which line uses deliberate redundancy for emphasis?
(a) "Behold her, single in the field" (line 1).
(b) "I listened, motionless and still" (line 29).
(c) "Stop here, or gently pass" (line 4).
(d) "For old, unhappy, far-off things" (line 19).

4. What reasonable inference can be made about the reaper from line 17, "Will no one tell me what she sings?"?
(a) She is too far away to be heard clearly.
(b) She is singing an old folk song that the speaker does not know the title of.
(c) She is singing a song that she has made up herself.
(d) She is singing in a language the speaker does not understand.

5. In which stanza does the speaker make it clear that this event happened some time in the past?
(a) The fourth.
(b) The third.
(c) The second.
(d) The first.

Short Answer Questions

1. In the second stanza, to whom is the nightingale depicted singing?

2. How does line 3, "Reaping and singing by herself," interrupt the poem's dominant metrical pattern?

3. Which stanza could be reasonably called the most positive in tone?

4. What do the metaphors in lines 9-12 and 13-16 have in common?

5. In line 4, "Stop here, or gently pass!" what is the grammatical mood of the words "stop" and "pass"?

(see the answer key)

This section contains 312 words (approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample