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

Multiple Choice Questions

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

2. In the second stanza, to whom is the nightingale depicted singing?
(a) The reaper.
(b) The speaker.
(c) Shepherds.
(d) Travelers.

3. What is the meaning of the word "Yon" in line 2, "Yon solitary Highland Lass"?
(a) Nearby, this one.
(b) My.
(c) Over there, that one.
(d) You.

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

5. In the lines "Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow / For old, unhappy, far-off things," what does "plaintive numbers" refer to (lines 18-19)?
(a) Time and history.
(b) The reaper's tears.
(c) The song.
(d) The reaper's personal experience.

6. What is the "sickle" in line 28?
(a) A sharp cutting tool.
(b) A handle used to pull a cart.
(c) A tied sheaf of grain.
(d) A mark dyed into wool to track sheep.

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

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

9. Where are "the farthest Hebrides" (line 16)?
(a) Chile.
(b) Scotland.
(c) Australia.
(d) Russia.

10. 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) Modern political events.
(b) The beauty of the Highlands.
(c) Love and romance.
(d) Ordinary, everyday troubles.

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

12. 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 a song that she has made up herself.
(c) She is singing an old folk song that the speaker does not know the title of.
(d) She is singing in a language the speaker does not understand.

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

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

15. 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."

Short Answer Questions

1. In the fourth stanza, when the speaker finally places himself in the scene, what is it clear he is there to do?

2. What technique is evident in the poem's opening line, "Behold her, single in the field" (line 1)?

3. What is the meaning of the word "lay" in the line "Or is it some more humble lay" (line 21)?

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

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

(see the answer keys)

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