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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) Pushing a cart down a path.
(b) Watching the speaker from the hillside.
(c) Harvesting a grain crop.
(d) Watching over grazing sheep.

2. In line 4, "Stop here, or gently pass!" what is the grammatical mood of the words "stop" and "pass"?
(a) Indicative.
(b) Interrogative.
(c) Imperative.
(d) Subjunctive.

3. Which stanza could be reasonably called the most positive in tone?
(a) The first.
(b) The fourth.
(c) The third.
(d) The second.

4. How does line 3, "Reaping and singing by herself," interrupt the poem's dominant metrical pattern?
(a) It ends with a spondee.
(b) It ends with a trochee.
(c) It begins with a spondee.
(d) It begins with a trochee.

5. What is the meaning of the word "lay" in the line "Or is it some more humble lay" (line 21)?
(a) Tune or song.
(b) A narrative poem written in couplets.
(c) A reclining position.
(d) A plan or pattern.

Short Answer Questions

1. What do all three sentences in the third stanza have in common?

2. What technique is employed in lines 7 and 8, "O listen! for the Vale profound / Is overflowing with the sound"?

3. Where are "the farthest Hebrides" (line 16)?

4. Where in the Highlands is the field where the woman is standing?

5. Besides that the reaper may be singing about some terrible moment in history, what else does the speaker guess she might be singing about?

(see the answer key)

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