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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. In the fourth stanza, when the speaker finally places himself in the scene, what is it clear he is there to do?
(a) He is working on a farm.
(b) He is out walking.
(c) He is delivering supplies.
(d) He is there to confess his love for the woman.

2. What technique is employed in lines 7 and 8, "O listen! for the Vale profound / Is overflowing with the sound"?
(a) Antanaclasis.
(b) Hyperbole.
(c) Metonymy.
(d) Cacophony.

3. What technique is used in the line "A voice so thrilling ne'er was heard" (line 13)?
(a) Paradox.
(b) Verbal irony.
(c) Contraction.
(d) Litotes.

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. Besides that the reaper may be singing about some terrible moment in history, what else does the speaker guess she might be singing about?
(a) Love and romance.
(b) The beauty of the Highlands.
(c) Modern political events.
(d) Ordinary, everyday troubles.

6. What technique is evident in the poem's opening line, "Behold her, single in the field" (line 1)?
(a) Allusion.
(b) Analogy.
(c) Apology.
(d) Apostrophe.

7. 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.

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

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

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

11. What technique is evident in the line "Breaking the silence of the seas" (line 15)?
(a) Synesthesia.
(b) Onomatopoeia.
(c) Sibilance.
(d) Aphorismus.

12. What is the stanzaic form of "The Solitary Reaper"?
(a) Ballade.
(b) Ottava rima.
(c) Octave.
(d) Octet.

13. What is subtly appropriate about the meter in lines 25 and 26, "Whate'er the theme, the Maiden sang / As if her song could have no ending"?
(a) Line 25 begins with a dactyl, emphasizing the importance of the content of the reaper's song.
(b) The feminine ending of line 26 emphasizes the idea of something that does not end when it is expected to.
(c) The contraction in line 25 creates a second line of trimeter in this stanza, emphasizing the musicality of the song.
(d) Line 26 has four metrical feet instead of the expected three, creating a feeling of "lingering."

14. Who is the author of "The Solitary Reaper"?
(a) John Keats.
(b) William Blake.
(c) William Wordsworth.
(d) Percy Shelley.

15. Which of the following most clearly communicates the speaker's admiration for the reaper's singing ability?
(a) The poem's nature imagery.
(b) The repeated use of exclamation points.
(c) The metaphors in the second stanza.
(d) The poem's elevated diction.

Short Answer Questions

1. In the lines "Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow / For old, unhappy, far-off things," what does "plaintive numbers" refer to (lines 18-19)?

2. Which line uses deliberate redundancy for emphasis?

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

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

5. In which stanza does the speaker make it clear that this event happened some time in the past?

(see the answer keys)

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